The term "bromance" has crept into common usage in the last year in relation to the "crushes" that straight men hae for their male friends.  The term has also been linked to the male hero worship that men (and boys) feel for famous athletes, musicians, and others.  We can most recently add to this the crush that males feel towards politicians, too, with the attraction men have for Barack Obama. Similar strong feelings of affection were felt towards John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, I suspect, though hero worship, not bromance, was the term applied then.

Bromance cuts across race (think about the white guys who "love" Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and African-Americans who loved the Kennedys), class, and religion.  The stronger feelings males allow themselves to feel for their male heroes, the easier it will be to transfer positive feelings towards men in their own lives who are more accesible to them. 

At the same time, we often do not know the people we hero worship that well.  We project positive qualities onto them as blank slates until we learn more and are disappointed - think about how Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky hurt his standing among women and men.  Right now many of us are projecting unrealistic hopes onto Obama.  As we get to know him better, he will become more real to us as a man with strengths and weaknesses.  Just as we must accept the strengths and weaknesses in him, we must accept them in our closest friends and loved ones.