The Idea of Barack Obama

President Obama's chief attraction to his followers was never his curriculum vitae. He was the attraction. It was his charm, looks, rhetorical skills, youth, coolness, background, ethnicity, and "newness". These were the characteristics which captivated his supporters and allowed Obama to beat the formidable Clintons and a great American hero, John McCain. This was and still remains a classic case of the cult of the personality.

Although Barack Obama had been associated with a lot of impressive things in his 46 years, for example, he was educated at Ivy League schools, held the top position at the Harvard Law Review, taught at one of North America's best law schools, and was a U.S. Senator, he had little in the way of concrete achievements to show. It was not a history of accomplishment which propelled Barack Obama to the top job in the world. Barack Obama created a movement, which was centered around one idea only - the idea of Barack Obama.

Almost everything that Team Obama did in the campaign and still does, now that Obama is President, seems designed to keep the movement alive. The symbols and gimmickry are front and center. During the primary and election campaigns, for example, we saw the premature Obama "presidential" seal, the "Obama is the change we can believe in" slogan, the Democratic nomination acceptance speech in the Denver Bronco's fooball stadium replete with Roman pillars, and the speech in front of 200,000 people at the Victory Column in Berlin's central park. Having won the election, we saw the Grant Park acceptance speech, the over the top inauguration, the signing of the Stimulus Bill not in Washington but in Denver, the jacketless President in the oval office, the Super Bowl party, and the hip informality where everyone is a "guy", and Air Force One is a "nifty ride". There are the commemorative fake coins, collector's plates, and mountains of T-shirts with Obama's face plastered on them.

All of this wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have consequences. After all, times are tough, the Iraq war soured Americans, people hated George Bush and needed someone they could believe in. But when bread and circuses overtake rational thought, there is a problem.

The fact that Obama's popularity is based on personality and not on performance or policy can be illustrated in a number of ways. Obama's path to the White House and his performance so far is littered with broken promises. The most egregious broken campaign promise was the one relating to the public financing of campaigns. Although Obama stated that he believed in public financing and would sit down with John McCain to work out this matter, he did not do so. Rather he collected hundreds of millions of dollars in private campaign donations, and swamped the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and later John McCain with his storehouses full of money. Keeping up with Obama's spending on advertisements became impossible for both of his opponents.

Transparency of government, and the ability of Americans to see Congress at work and to view prospective legislation before it is passed is probably the most serious broken promise for Obama as President. The Stimulus Bill, a 1000 plus page document, incorporating $800 billion dollars in spending was drafted in secret, behind closed doors, and passed without any chance for Americans, and probably most members of Congress, to digest or even read. This was the "mother of all bills". No matter how many bills are posted on line in the future, they will never make up for the lack of transparency that accompanied this in-camera monster.

Bipartisanship is another casualty of Obama's first month in office. Obama was the President who would work across the aisle, end the divisiveness in Washington, and bring the country together. This as we have all seen has not happened. Democrats voted for the Bill, Republicans voted against it, and the recriminations have been flying back and forth ever since. Why did bipartisanship fail? My take on it is that bipartisanship did not work because for President Obama bipartisanship means growing the movement, by bringing more people on board. It does not mean allowing the converts and new comers to change any of the rules of the game. Bipartisanship meant that the Republicans could come to the table with their stimulus ideas, as long as they left their "phony ideas" and "failed policies" of the past behind. We saw this again with the withdrawal of Republican Senator Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary. Gregg could come on board as long as he did not act like a Republican. And to make sure he did not, responsibility for the census was taken from the department he was to head and put under the control of the White House.

The problem is that when a politician is judged based on personality and not on performance, broken promises and poor performance do not matter. People do not like the politician for what he says he will do and then judge him on whether he actually does it, but because of the representations of himself, the symbolism, which he has worked hard to create. Political accountability goes out the window. It was the personality that attracted the followers in the first place and the personality does not change.

A manifestation of this is found in polling which shows that while Barack Obama's personal approval rating remains high, support for the Stimulus Bill lags far behind. According to a story in the Dallas Morning News of February 16, only 38% of those polled in a Rasmussen poll think the massive spending bill will help the economy, while 29% say it will hurt, and 24% say it will have little effect. In addition, those in Congress who voted against the Bill seem to be more favourably viewed by voters than those who voted for it. Obama's own popularity rating, however, is above 60%. How can this be? The Stimulus Bill, which is owned by Barack Obama, is much less popular than Obama himself. Again, it is the cult of the personality. It is not what Obama does which his supporters care about, since the movement is about Obama.

How much longer this disconnect between Obama the personality and Obama the policy maker will go on is the big question. For the sake of political accountabilty and rational policy making, I hope it does not go on for too much longer.