The Nobel Committee says that there were a record 205 nominations for the Peace Prize this year (33 of them were organizations, not individuals). The path to Barack Obama’s Peace Prize began last September, when the committee sent out invitations to a selected group of people, asking them for their nominations. The group included, according to the Nobel organization, “members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts of law; university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs; previous Nobel Peace Prize Laureates; board members of organizations that have received the Nobel Peace Prize; present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; and former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute.” Both in the United States and internationally, the Nobel cohort is precisely the type to be the most admiring Obama supporters.

The deadline for nominations was February 1. At that point, Obama had been president for 11 days.