Geraldine A. Ferraro missed the point by concentrating on Sen. Barack Obama’s race to explain his rapid rise in politics. If you want to understand Obama, think Harry S. Truman.

On the surface, they don’t seem to have much in common. Truman was old and crusty when he came on the national scene—Obama is new and fresh.

But in a way you could look at them both as a couple of machine politicians working to overcome their provincial roots as they move to the national stage.

In Truman’s case, he rose to prominence thanks to his ties to Mayor Thomas J. Pendergast’s infamously corrupt political machine in Kansas City, Mo.