How Obama learned to be a "natural" - some background & Obama Juice

[GoldieAZ49]

An interesting article about how Obama cultivated his public image. Need to stop being perceived as smug. For some it works, for others that see though it, still a no sell.

And they reference the drink as Obama Juice, not koolaid, figures he would have his own political drink.

Enjoy! Obama Juice, its not just for breakfast anymore!

How Obama learned to be a natural

Today he drips with charisma and inspires fawning admiration from all quarters. But Obama began his journey as a smug young man with little political future.

When reporters go one on one with Barack Obama, they end up writing things they'll regret in the morning papers. It's a phenomenon called "drinking the Obama juice." One besotted scribe called him "tall, fresh and elegant." And the august Atlantic Monthly mooned about Obama's "charisma, intelligence and ambition, tempered by a self-deprecating wit," titling its article "The Natural."

snip

Wherever Obama went, he talked like a poli-sci thesis. Here's how he bragged on himself back then, as I reported in the Reader: "My experience of being able to walk into a public housing development and turn around and walk into a corporate boardroom and communicate effectively in either venue means I'm more likely to build the kinds of coalitions and craft the sort of message that appeals to a broad range of people."

snip

Obama may have been testy because he did have a reputation as an ineffectual legislator -- for many of the same reasons he was tanking as a campaigner. Some of his colleagues saw him as a self-righteous goo-goo who thought he was too cool for the chamber and who disdained the hard work of digging up votes.

"Barack is a very intelligent man," Rich Miller, publisher of Capitol Fax, a statehouse news service, told me in 2000. "He hasn't had a lot of success here, and it could be because he places himself above everybody. He likes people to know he went to Harvard."

Obama had been a golden boy for so long: embraced by the Ivy League, profiled in the New York Times, published by Times Books. At 38, it gnawed at him that others his age were already moving up the political ladder. U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, whose seat Obama now holds, was only a year older. But for the first time in Obama's life, his ambitions were blocked. The world was pushing back. His impatience showed in condescension to his surroundings.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/12/obama_natural/index.html

[HUSSEIN2max]

1. he disdains hard work? what are you trying to say?

hm.

[TheWraith]

2. What a terribly incompetant article.

The author might have some credibility if he could get some basic facts right. Obama's been in the Senate for four years, not two. But glancing at the rest of the piece, it seems clear it's one of those "don't let the facts get in the way of your story" pieces.

[rug]

14. It's 3 years and 2 months.

[EFerrari]

3. What awful, ugly writing. n/t

[Hoof Hearted]

4. The world, the US - none of it and nothing in it is good enough for Barack Obama.

It's all about him.

Even when he talked about his grandma it was about what SHE DID FOR HIM, what she gave FOR HIM. He didn't say one fond word about her, or his feelings for her, unless you want to call "not disowning" her "positive."

[GoldieAZ49]

6. Good point, he talked about how much she loved him, not how much he loved her

self centered to the extreme

[Hoof Hearted]

11. He talked about what she did FOR HIM. Not not a word that was warm or loving.

[Mezzo]

16. I feel that way too, and it seems he ignores her now. nt

[andym]

5. A very interesting and on balance positive article

Thanks for this very interesting article.

The reporter is a cynical political beat reporter who is clearly very impressed with Obama's growth as a politician. He believes that Obama learned a critical lesson in learning to be himself after losing his congressional race. Sounds very plausible. This is high praise from a hard-boiled newsman.

From the article:


....That was the mission statement of 21st-century Obama. As a black candidate, he'd been too inhibited, too embarrassed, to force out phrases like "our community." Finally, he was comfortable in his own skin, now that he'd accepted that the skin was half-white. Obama wasn't born to be a voice of black empowerment, like Rush or Jesse Jackson. It's not just a racial thing. It's generational, too. Confrontational '60s-style politics are not his bag. But as a multicultural politician, trying to find the unified theory of ethnic politics, he was rolling like Tiger Woods at the Masters. The aloofness was gone as well. Very intently, he laid out his plan for a federal Children's Health Insurance Program. "I think it'd be a good opportunity to lay the groundwork toward expanding health care to all the uninsured," he said.

Obama was no longer selling himself. Now, he had a legislative goal and a strategy for making it happen. Or maybe, because he knew I was one of his skeptics, he was selling me on the idea that he wasn't selling himself. In the words of an old police reporter, Obama makes grease look gritty. Just as he was looking two moves ahead, politically, I'm sure he was two moves ahead of my expectations. It was working. I was impressed that he finally believed in something. He was a big-government liberal, no weaseling about it.

...........

A few weeks after that, I heard him speak at a North Side organic restaurant known for its liberal politics. The Heartland Café had welcomed Harold Washington during his run for mayor, and now it welcomed this new South Side phenom. Obama climbed up on the bandstand and filled that dining room with the same energy he'd project across the Fleet Center: "If there is a child on the South Side who cannot read ... If there is an Arab-American family who's being rounded up by John Ashcroft!" I was startled. The pedantic lecturer had been retired. Now, Obama was a fight announcer, a preacher and a motivational speaker, all on the same platform. Full of conviction, he drove his words into our ears like a carpenter pounding nails. The white folks loved him because he was liberal. The black folks loved him because, as one said to me, "We need someone who can reach beyond the race. He can go to Washington and talk their language."

That wasn't the Obama I'd known. But it was the Obama America came to know. I was sold. I voted for him twice that year. That July, the Democrats made him the keynote speaker at their convention. It was partly a defensive move against a rumored candidacy by ex-Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka. Obama delivered a maiden speech to rival that of Hubert Humphrey in 1948, or William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Terry Link believes that losing that congressional race liberated Obama to be the real Obama -- the bright young charmer Link had met as a fellow freshman in Springfield.....

[GoldieAZ49]

7. it is interesting on his evolving into a politician,

long before anyone was really looking at him

[andym]

9. Yes and the main lesson is an important one

Yes and the main lesson is an important one about learning to be and accept himself in his career. It doesn't just hold for politicians-- btw many politicians don't understand this lesson and hide themselves from the public (see Al Gore circa 2000)--, but for writers, artists, scientists, and any career that calls upon inner resources.

It's why I have very much enjoyed watching the debates this year. Both Hillary and Barack come across to me as highly intelligent, caring, confident and talented people who are trying to make the world better.

[JoFerret]

13. Honing political skills

.

[GoldieAZ49]

18. being the 'blank screen' not showing his true self

he is deceptive at the core

[JoFerret]

19. He has done a good job. He is now a pretty good politician

Intelligent, smooth, accomplished. He could make a GREAT candidate for 2016 if he uses his time well.

[enough]

12. True, if you read the whole article, the impression is quite positive.

The only reason to object to this article would be if you thought Obama was born a saint and had no need of experience or set-backs to learn from and make him strong. As an Obama supporter, I find this article interesting and encouraging.

[grantcart]

8. "a corespondent for the Chicago reader" lol

This is about the 5th article from community supermarket free hand out advertisers - they are not newspapers - who are trading on their IL roots to sell anti Obama slams. The guy is not a reporter or a corespondent. Click thru to the Chicago Reader and get a good recipe.


Thanks for the laugh before bed

[Fire_brand]

17. If you want quality political journalism, you have to go with Streetwise

[Maddy McCall]

10. No sale for me.

His smugness is only a minor reason why I don't support him.

[NashVegas]

15. "Obama Juice?"

Ewwwwwwwwww! That's just gross.