* Too Presidential: Another Way Obama Can Replenish His Power
Imagine we have before us two collections of video tape: one set containing various representative snippets of Barack Obama’s public demeanor during the presidential campaign, and another set containing an equally representative assortment of his public appearances since he became president.
What do you think a comparison of the two sets would reveal?
Here’s what I think it would show: compared with the era of campaigning, since Inauguration Obama has virtually stopped showing us who he is at the feeling level, the human level.
In the campaign, Obama was often playful. He sometimes spoke in colorful language that expressed something of his own personhood. He gave us frequent glimpses of his feelings. Week after week, in his orations at post-primary rallies, he would give his audience a clear view into the basic energy at his core.
In other words, he allowed the American people to experience him as a human being, at the feeling level.
As president, by contrast, he is almost continually “presidential,” which in this case means formal and stiff. He seems to be caught in some image of a role –the dignified president– and thus presenting himself in a way that prevents us from seeing his own true self and thus from feeling a connection with him at the human level.
Why does this matter?
It matters because people’s openness to communication from another is determined –or so I suspect– less by the cogency of that communication’s content than by their feeling of emotional openness to the person who’s doing the communicating. Without that feeling connection, the message may be “heard” but it will not “register” strongly.
And sure enough, poll after poll, on issue after issue, shows that the president’s version of things is being overpowered by the version put forward by his political enemies. This despite the fact that his opponents’ version consists largely of lies and distortions while Obama’s presentation is substantially responsible and true.
Consider two of our greatest, most transformational presidents: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Both these presidents became palpable emotional presences to their publics, and in both cases, their leadership was magnified by the feelings of the people for their president.
I’ve been arguing here for more than a year that President Obama has been allowing his power to slip away because of his refusal to fight back against those who have been willing to use any fear-mongering lie to weaken him and make him fail. I still believe that to be true. But if, for whatever reason, it is not in this president’s repertoire to fight back strongly, here is another route by which Obama might strengthen himself:
I’d love to see him loosen up. Be playful. Show us more of himself at a level of feeling and spontaneity. Show us more of who he really is at the human level.
All these things would allow the American people to feel closer to him than they do now with this formal “presidential” demeanor. And feeling closer, the American people would hear his voice as if it had been amplified. With his message coming across “louder,” it would begin to register more deeply.
If by simply sharing with us more of his humanity –as he did before he became president– he’s able to shape more powerfully the public understanding of the issues, his ability to achieve his political goals will be correspondingly magnified.
Even without fighting, the president can gain strength vis-a-vis his opponents by showing us more who he is and where he’s coming from, by selling himself into our hearts.
July 27th, 2010 at 12:04 am
When FDR got polio his wife, Eleanor, had to do much of his campaigning for him when he was running for gov. of NY. Being raised as a proper young Edwardian lady she was totally unprepared for speaking publicly about political matters and was tongue-tied and terrified of giving her first speech.
It fell to Louis Howe, FDR’s principle political advisor, to give her a crash course on effective public speaking. Just before he shoved her out on the platform of her first big speech he said there are only three simple rules for public speaking that never to work. I’ve never forgotten them:
1 have something to say
2 stand up and say it
3 sit down when you’re done
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to meetings or lectures where the speaker flubbed all three.
I don’t understand why you pay so much attention to how Obama presents himself. I’ve never been convinced that he had much to say in the first place. Of the three cardinal rules of effective communication I think #1 is the most important. Without that you might as well skip 2 and go right to 3.
Obama came to Eugene during the last election. And chanting “Yes we can!” is invigorating and exciting, but he never quite said what it was we would or should do, or why we should do it, or how it could be done, or what it would accomplish. To this day I don’t know what he wanted to accomplish as president that made him run in the first place. I read “Audacity of Hope” and came away no wiser. He never quite said what he thought the government should do other than be more polite while doing whatever it was it did.
As you say, he has the ability to be a great speaker and can explain things admirably well when he want to. I had to wonder why someone who can give very clear explanations of very complex things never says what he wants to do, what the big picture is/ought to be. He’s clearly not a crook or a liar. The only conclusion I can come to comfortably is that he just doesn’t know himself.
I think, deep down, that he’s of the broken generation who never had to question government and never learned that it could be different from the broken thing it is. It seems, now that I think on it, that the only people who make sense these days are mostly old coots who were educated in the shadow of Dewey, before schools became nothing but a path to higher paying jobs.
[BTW: I listened to your last radio appearance. the theory behind the FCC is that the airwaves are public property and so are regulated by the government. Its one of our last remaining commons. We have an NCE FM license application pending, its an ... ummmm ... interesting educational experience.]
July 27th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Two reasons explain it, I would think: how Obama presents himself has a BIG EFFECT on what he’s able to accomplish; and the person in the Oval Office is the only person in a position to provide the leadership to repair this badly damaged country.
Do you disagree with either of those propositions?
One other matter: I am puzzled what you mean by that generation “never having to question government.” Obama would have been 12-13 while Watergate was happening, he’d have been in his mid-twenties during Iran-Contra.
July 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I agree that the President could go more in this direction – and I think he will as he goes on in his Presidency. He’s open, not rigid and he grows. But your description of how people feel about him and receive what he has to say is not apt. “From the water cooler”, let me say that people LOVE THIS MAN. His effort to explain his priorities and the issues in a way that respects the intelligence of his listeners is most appreciated – not to even mention his most impressive understanding of issues impacting this nation and the world and his ability to understand and articulate the positions of friends and adversaries alike.
He’s going to be taken over the coals no matter what he says or HOW he says it. It’s in the eye of the beholder and the agenda they’re looking through. The most important thing he can do is continue to BE HIMSELF. Like all of us, he’s multi-faceted and different facets show at different times. There is a great deal of spontaneity, humor, warmth and “down-to-earthness” in his town meetings and interactions with people at similar events. At his formal addresses and press conferences, I have no problem with his being “Presidential” – it’s reassuring and helps establish his “bonafides” in an environment where the screeches of the small minority challenging the legitimacy of his presidency get echoed in the media frequently. And sometimes, let’s face it, the man has to be just plain tired! With the killing schedule, the daily crises, the multiple talks daily, the daily briefings and conferences and the tremendous amounts of information, data, and issues to bone up on, hours of flying and getting out to meet the people in their cities and towns, etc. I’m delighted at his stamina and endurance, and his effective efforts to keep communicating with the American people and educating us about his priorities in whatever way he can muster that day.
As for those popularity polls – People are hurting and in such times they tend to be discontented with the ones in control. If it were just a matter of the people listening to President Obama and trusting their own hearts and reaction to what he says, it might well be a different story. This is what we did when F.D.R. spoke and we were left to bask in what our hearts and heads had received. But today when Pres. Obama gives a speech, he has hardly put a period to the last sentence before the “punditocracy” and myriad commentators begin telling us what we heard and how we should feel about it, and how he was too professorial, or not passionate enough…blah blah blah – 24/7. (That’s why I only listen to these things on C-Span and judge for myself.)
In his 18 months in office, President Obama has faced an immense inherited crisis, great obstacles, and an intransigent minority that seeks a return to power by just saying “no” to everything (including proper staffing of government agencies and the judiciary) in order to deny him any victories. Yet he and the Democratic Congress have achieved legislative victories, some historic, that make his administration the most legislatively effective one in the last 50 years. But many of his priorities for the American people interfere with the profits of powerful special interests who spend myriad sums fighting and lobbying against everything he is trying to do (e.g. the Chamber of Commerce is currently spending $3 million per week !!!) Witness the multiple daily ads against Health Reform, Financial Reform, climate control, cap & trade, and clean energy legislation, with “ordinary folks” telling you that the government just “doesn’t understand” and urging you to call your Senators and oppose thus and so. They always make it look to be about “our interests” when it’s really about theirs. And let’s not even get into the incessant propaganda spewing from the talk shows and some television media outlets 24/7 criticizing, distorting and trying to de-legitimize everything he says and does.
I trust his instincts. I trust his intelligence. I trust his motives. I trust this President. And I hope the millions and millions of Americans who, like me ,support what he is trying to do (no matter in what style he explains it) will flood the White House on August 4th with birthday greetings containing words of support to strengthen him and bolster his spirits, “Happy Birthday. We’re with you, Mr. President”; “Happy Birthday. God bless you and Thanks!”; “Happy Birthday. Thank you for an extraordinary 17 months!”; God bless you, Mr. President. We’ve got your back.” My friends and I are making up posters and signs like this placing them in our windows, on our lawns, in our car windows. Some of us are even going out on August 4th holding them up for people to see and honk
July 27th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
One hypothesis is that Obama, who is basically a guy with a lot of integrity, has had to keep his mouth shut about so many dark goings-on —- and make so many compromises (or capitulations) — that he is simply being “flattened.”
I would not be at all surprised if, before winning the election, he had no idea about the intensity of the predicaments in which he’d find himself.
July 27th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
What sort of dark goings on are you contemplating, the silence concerning which would have that flattening effect?
July 28th, 2010 at 3:10 am
I have listed and provided sources/references for a number of these activities over the past few years. To these I would add additional activities that have come to my attention in the course of the past year.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:33 am
ABS: I disagree with one and am equivocal on the other.
Sure, one’s ability to communicate is an important factor in succeeding in achieving one’s goals. But the choice of goals is an important factor in determining the overall value of one’s efforts. I would argue that the latter is muchmore important than the former. Its all well and good if your superior people-skills allow you to organise the Titanic’s deck chairs the way you want, but, well, does it matter in the end?
The POTUS is definitely not the only person in a position to provide leadership. The fact that even his modest agenda is stalled or compromised is evidence that there are many others toward different goals. And this is how it should be, has been and was intended from the start.
By the time Obama graduated from high school the war was over and the draft was dead. He never had to confront the spectacle of his friends being snatched off the street to fight a wicked war in a nasty place for stupid reasons, or lam it to Canada to avoid it. He never caught the scent of tear gas on campus or risked a thumping from a cop. And Watergate, in a manner of speaking, was a success of sorts. It got the bum out of the Whitehouse, after all, so it gave the illusion that government could and did work as designed. Neither circumstance, being unaffected by a monstrous governmental dysfunction and an appearacne of civic health, would incline him to question the fundamental nature of government. By the time he entered college he was living his formative adult years in Reagan’s Age of Crapulence where the prevailing frameworks of security and empowerment were being systematically dismantled with little or no fuss.
From my cursive research I don’t see where Obama has ever, as student or practicing lawyer, confronted, done or said anything to indicate a concern with the fundamental nature, ie the proper structure, purposes and limits, of government viz people.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
# July 27th Andy wrote:
“What sort of dark goings on are you contemplating, the silence concerning which would have that flattening effect?
As merely one of a plethora of examples:
Can you imagine what a person of high ethics, morals, and integrity might experience knowing, but needing to keep the details of 9/11 from the American people? And particularly if he needs to continue to work with and even support the promotion of some of the perps?…
July 29th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Or knowing that we may already have the technology and know-how to utilize “zero point energy” generation, which in turn may be able to make fossil fuels a thing of the past.
And at the same time realizing that he can not let this cat out of the bag…
That would certainly having a flattening effect on any moral human being.
July 30th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
How about the President being told in regards to the potentially most substantial national security issue we face…that he has “no need to know, sir.” This was reported (re- his own situation) by Bill Clinton; and it would seem – to other recent Prez’s (and not only Democratic ones) as well.
I strongly intuit that a similar moment has already come to pass for Obama.
And that he realizes that, given present realities, there is essentially nothing he can do about this situation.
Might that serve to take the wind out of the sails of any “leader of the free world?”
Does this begin to answer your question, Andy?
July 31st, 2010 at 6:53 am
Does it begin to answer my question? Well, I would hope not– not really. By that I mean this:
You’ve given some conjectural reasons that, if they were indeed factors in the situation, could help to explain why someone in that position might feel discouraged or inhibited in certain areas and in certain ways. I can imagine that for many people, finding out that things are not as one expected and hoped would lead to some kind of collapse of morale and/or withdrawal from action. So in that sense, it could begin to answer the question.
But I would hope that a president of the United States would not be the kind of person who’d be so readily deflated and thrown out of the ring. I would not expect that if it were I in that situation, I would let it have that effect. And Barack Obama has not seemed to me like the sort of person who’d be so easily demoralized and disempowered by factors such as you discuss in your interesting series of comments here.
Just because there are SOME things one cannot do, that does not mean that one cannot come from a position of energy and determination even while mindful of the boundaries that prudence and the realities of power might compel one to resepct.
July 31st, 2010 at 4:48 pm
A few reflections, Andy.
The pieces I shared – and there are many more – in answering your question are at this point (and I am satisfied that this is the case) certainly beyond the conjecture stage when all the evidence is assessed.
My sense is and has been that you have vastly underestimated the extent and depth of the problem(s).
This may be due to your attachment to some form of idealization, which you may be loathe to challenge.
Last – and this is by far the saddest thing:
My gut
(and sometimes we just have to go with that “instinctual” level of information and test it against the intellect’s reasons and knowledge as we go forward)
tells me that Obama and his family have been threatened by folks much more powerful than the run-of-the-mill kook or teabagger or survivalist. I pray that this is not the case – and in fact actually do pray for Obama and his family every night.
July 31st, 2010 at 4:49 pm
So, what I appear to be thinking is that you may well be more naive about how power is presently being abused (and I know that at first glance this would seem preposterous), then you realize. I fully understand that denial and naivete are designed as self-protective mechanisms (and at times actually are life-saving).
I fully recognize and very much empathize regarding this possibility – as I know from my own life that experiencing the shattering of cherished ideals is generally no fun at all.