Candidate Obama vs. POTUS

Symbols inexorably, but often inaccurately, define our perceptions of the world in which we live. During the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama’s supporters were incredibly effective in using catchy slogans, posters, imagery, and rhetoric to portray their candidate as the solution to all of America’s problems. The now famous “Hope” poster by Shepard Fairey has become so universally recognized and ubiquitous it has evolved into its own style duplicated by many in order to support the president, criticize other candidates, or simply to entertain. The Fairey design transformed the Obama campaign into a movement.

Eight months into President Obama’s first term, the country is coming off the rhetoric of the campaign, and supporters of the President have lost much media attention to detractors of the President and his movement is in the ditch. Detractors of the President have brought with them a new set of imagery, rhetoric, and a caricature of the President. The emergence of pictures of President Obama altered to resemble Health Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in last year’s “The Dark Knight” introduced a clear challenge to the messianic image preferred by the President’s supporters. The opposition has gone further, portraying the President as anything from the reincarnation of Hitler himself to a radical socialist.

Of course, neither of these characterizations is correct. In our current culture of 24/7 media and news, it is often only the extremes which are capable of gaining widespread attention. The biggest problem with using symbols for mass communication is that inevitably you end up sacrificing some level of accuracy and nuance in your message. Over the past 8 months, President Obama’s actions have revealed that he is far from a messiah or a devil. Although many feel the President has taken steps to concentrate an incredible amount of power in the executive branch, on many issues he has simply outsourced policy to Democrats in congress. In addition to letting the Democratic leadership set legislative policy, he has been more than willing to bend to international organizations and other countries when it has come to foreign policy. Although the President possesses a bold, powerful, and persuasive persona when it comes to giving a speech, when it comes to actually governing he has shown a complete lack of willingness to engage on the details and make decisions which would risk alienating people.

The healthcare reform debate in the country has shown the most light on the President’s ability to effectively govern than any other issue we have dealt with in the last 8 months. After numerous press conferences, interviews, a “full Ginsburg” on the Sunday shows and even an address to a joint session of conference, there is no “Obama Healthcare Plan.” Instead the president has given a broad outline for what he thinks healthcare reform should look like. There is, however, no bill which meets his guidelines. Without a bill to champion, President Obama can’t point to what he actually believes, but he seems more worried about having to defend the nitty-gritty details. Giving a broad outline is the easiest part of drawing up a bill. Tough decisions on the details and how to pay for it are what determine whether a bill makes it from a brainstorming session to the President’s desk. When it comes to doing the real work, the President instead flees to the nearest late night show to try to boost his poll numbers.

When President Franklin Roosevelt was drawing up his plans for the Social Security system, he brought together officials from throughout his administration to draw up the bill, under a director from an advisory committee made up of the relevant congressional leaders. In bringing together administration officials who he could influence and congressional leaders who he had to convince, FDR was able to get a bill to his liking and actually pass it swiftly after it was drafted. President Obama has displayed no such leadership on any proposal.

More than policy, personal likability, knowledge, connections, or speaking skill, it is probably leadership which determines whether a politician, and especially a president, is successful in enacting his or her ideas. Leadership demands a person take risks and put his or her reputation on the line. Having not even completed a single term in the US Senate upon being elected to the Presidency, Barack Obama hasn’t gone through the rigors of having to put himself on the line in order to accomplish his goals. Instead, he remained relatively green and inexperienced in his approach to politics. Perhaps the greatest image of his leadership came recently when chairing the United Nations Security Council. Certainly a powerful image, the first US president to chair the Security Council, with the world’s most powerful leaders surrounding him, he boldly declared a pursuit to a nuclear free world. But what was the outcome of this meeting, of this powerful image: a non-binding resolution from a body where even the binding resolutions are practically meaningless.

The “big table of debate,” however, remains President Obama’s idea of good governance. It seems he believes that if he can simply get political actors to sit at a table with him, through his own personal greatness, he will convince them to take on his policy goals. This notion is, of course, too naïve to be believable. Good leadership demands not big tables and lofty debate, but often “trench warfare:” debating the nuance of policy, standing firmly for something, and fighting those who oppose you. Despite the fact that President Obama has surrounded himself with many people who are skilled in these areas, his goal appears to remain to be liked, not accomplished. It is, however, possible that he realizes he must moderate his views, and the views of those who surround him in order to maintain a respectable approve rating.

Perhaps President Obama’s biggest problem is he has no legitimate opponents to fight, demonize, blame, and defeat when it comes to political and policy battles. With 60 seats in the US Senate, and close to 60% of the seats in the US House, there is no legitimate organized opposition in the US Government. Yet on a number of issues, such as Healthcare, Cap and Trade, Card Check, he lacks the support of a majority of Americans. Perhaps the President realizes the unpopularity of these issues and therefore refuses to strongly stand behind a single specific bill or draft one of his own. This should serve as reassurance to the many Americans deeply disturbed by what they perceive as a far left agenda: even with total control of the political branches of the US Government, the people of the United States themselves serve as an effective check on power.

President Obama is neither a devil, nor a messiah. Both these extremes have something in common: significance. So far in his presidency, at most, President Obama has merely taken the role as the naïve mouth of Democratic leadership. Recently, pictures surfaced of the President playfully wielding a lightsaber while hosting US Olympic fencers at the White House. After reviewing these pictures, it would be difficult for anyone to imagine the President as an evil, socialist revolutionary, but it is equally hard to imagine him a strong, effective leader either…Perhaps that is exactly his problem.