After Barack Obama takes the oath of office on Tuesday, he will confront problems more daunting than faced by any president since FDR in 1932.
Whether Obama is privately apprehensive about the challenges ahead is impossible to know. What may be more important is that he exudes an easy confidence that has comforted nervous Americans — and raised expectations about his presidency, perhaps to unsustainable heights. A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, for instance, found that 82 percent of the public said they approve of the way Obama is approaching his new job.
In his inaugural address, Obama can be expected to use language aimed at turning approval into something more: He will attempt to persuade Americans to put their faith in him. The ability to do this was the genius of FDR, who didn’t end the Great Depression — it took World War II to do that — but nonetheless made ordinary people feel they were in sure hands.
“I think that the main task for me in an inauguration speech, and I think this is true for my presidency generally, is to try to capture as best I can the moment that we are in,” Obama told ABC News. “I think that when you have a successful presidential speech of any sort, it’s because that president is able to say — is able to put their finger on — here’s the moment we’re in. This is the crossroad that we’re at. And then to project confidence that if we take the right measures that we can once again be that country, that beacon for the world.”
Obama’s calmness and cool are part of what makes him a popular leader. His peripatetic childhood and multicultural background seemed to make him psychologically nimble, giving him an air of relaxed self-assurance.
But there is fine line between self-confidence and less desirable traits. President Bush’s self-possession, expressed in a Texas swagger that reassured many Americans after 9/11, over time came to be seen as bad-boy cockiness, lack of reflection, and finally hubris of a reckless sort.
“I don’t think Obama faces George Bush’s fate,” said George Strong, a Democratic political consultant. “Obama’s confidence is cool and collected, it’s based on his background and education. He doesn’t get too excited about anything, and he probably doesn’t have great highs or lows.”
The transition to office, from the rhetoric and promises of the campaign trail to the colder, more mundane realities of governance, has already dented Obama’s fabled aura. Lawmakers in his own party are balking at the tax credit elements of his economic recovery plan, and Republicans are criticizing the scope of his proposed federal spending program.
His choice for commerce secretary, Bill Richardson, withdrew because of a grand jury investigation of one of his financial backers. The Treasury secretary-designate, Timothy Geithner, is under fire for failing to pay all of his taxes; The Examiner last week called on Obama to withdraw Geithner’s nomination. Mary Schapiro, Obama’s pick to lead the Securities Exchange Commission, was derided as a weak regulator in a page-one story in the Wall Street Journal, which is no cheerleader for regulation.
“You’re always more popular before you’re actually in charge,” Obama said during a visit with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “Once you’re responsible, then you’re going to make some people unhappy.”
Polling data strong supports Obama’s observation. Sixty percent in 2001 said they approved of Bush, according to a CNN poll. Last month, 75 percent told CNN they were happy to see Bush go.
Similarly, President Clinton came to office in 1993 with a 67 percent approval rating, according to CNN. When he left office eight years later, only 45 percent said they would miss him.
As for Obama, he seems, well, confident about his confidence. As he told the New York Times: “What I do have confidence about is that I’m a good listener, I’m good at synthesizing advice from a range of different perspectives, and that we will make the best possible decisions from the perspective of what’s good for ordinary Americans.”
Coming into the White House behind Bush’s “Decider” persona and the perception — true or not — that Bush governed from inside a bubble, political scientists are quick to praise Obama for his willingness to hear and weigh all sides of an issue.
“What I find interesting about Obama is that he combines the intellectual detachment of an academic, the ability to look at things analytically, with the personal skills of a politician,” said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Middlebury College.
Obama forged his skills of detachment during his years training to be a lawyer at Harvard, and later when he taught constitutional law in Chicago. By contrast, the roots of his political skills and the basis of his personal appeal to voters date to his childhood.
Sheryl Salomon, editor of AOL’s Blackvoices.com, credits Obama’s early years spent with his mother in Indonesia.
“I think in some ways having grown up abroad and partially outside of American society and culture, where black men are constantly given negative messages about who they are and their self-worth, spending part of his childhood outside of that contributed to Obama’s sense that he can conquer the world,” Saloman said.
Readers on the Blackvoices Web site often remark on Obama’s “swagger” in a positive light, Salomon said.
In a letter to daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, in this week’s Parade magazine, Obama writes of his young adult years, “When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me — about how I’d make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want.”
Obama goes on to say that fatherhood changed him and made him a less selfish person. Armchair psychologists could reasonably conclude that building a stable family life with his wife, Michelle, and two daughters provided a strong foundation for Obama’s political resilience.
Obama’s parents divorced when he was a toddler. He was later raised by his mother in a blended family and later by his maternal grandparents. Obama has said that his unusual upbringing shaped his values and sense of self.
“By way of comparison, President Clinton yearned for public approval because he never had unconditional love from his parents,” said Sean Theriault, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. “You don’t get the impression that Obama is yearning for all that, the way Clinton did.”
In his 1996 book, “Dreams from My Father,” Obama mused on strength and weakness, quoting his stepfather Lolo Soetoro as saying, “Which would you rather be? Better to be strong. If you can’t be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who’s strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always.”
When he announced his bid for president on the steps of the Illinois capital in February 2007, Obama, just two years into his first term in the U.S. Senate, winked at his own superconfidence.
“I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness — a certain audacity — to this announcement,” he said. “I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”
Obama learned the hard way that audacity has its limits. In 1999, while still an Illinois state senator, Obama ran against U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush, a popular Chicago Democrat, four-term incumbent, and former Black Panther. Obama was thumped, 61 percent to 30 percent, and called the experience a difficult lesson.
“He was blinded by his ambition,” Rush told the New York Times in 2007. “Obama has never suffered from a lack of believing that he can accomplish whatever it is he decides to try. Obama believes in Obama. And, frankly, that has its good side but it also has its negative side.”
