The Calm of Obama

[alfredo]

This is good folks: short and sweet.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-calm-of-oba.html#more


I've been amazed by it for over a year now, because I have no ounce of it in myself. But then I like my political leaders temperamentally conservative, so I can be as radical as I like and no harm gets done. Obama's little secret is that he isn't that cool. He's just a nerd with natural Xanax in his blood. Joe Klein notices the same thing:

Part of Obama's steadiness is born of necessity: An angry, or flashy, black man isn't going to be elected President. But I've also gotten the sense, in the times I've interviewed and chatted with him, that calm is Obama's natural default position. He is friendly, informal, accessible...and a mystery, hard to get to know. He doesn't give away much, doesn't — unlike Bill Clinton — have that desperate need to make you like him. His brilliant, at times excessive, oratory is an outlier — the only over-the-top, Technicolor quality he has.

There has been no grand cathartic moment for him in this campaign, but rather a steady accretion of trust, a growing public sense that he knows what he's talking about and isn't going to get crazy on us. His demeanor has rendered foolish all the rumors about his alleged radicalism. This guy is the furthest thing imaginable from an extremist; McCain, by his own admission, is the bomb-thrower in this race.

[daa]

1. Just like Dukakis, does he get mad at anything? nt

[northernlights]

5. nothing like Dukakis

Obama gets passionate, but it comes from a centered place and he appears able to leave and return at will to that calm center.

I've only seen a couple interviews with him and his convention speech. His combined intellect and temperament won me over, hands down.

His aura /energy in the midst of the financial crisis -- projecting a calm place of safety, all while shrieking heads and headless chickens raced mindlessly around him, was exactly what I need and want in a leader. He clearly is a leader, not a ruler.

He stands in sharp contrast juxtoposed against W's disappearance in the hours and days following 9/11, not to mention McCain's recent hysteria and grandstanding.

[alfredo]

6. Dukakis was too cerebral and too "ethnic" at that time. Let's face it,

he had a face for radio.

[Frustratedlady]

2. I've said since he began this campaign, that if he can take all the crap

the Republicans and media have thrown at him and Michelle without walking away, he has earned the presidency. I am forever amazed at how he is able to brush it off his shoulder and move on. He is classy. Plain and simply. So is Michelle. I can't wait to see that little family in the White House. Bless their hearts.

[TlalocW]

3. Once elected, he can drop the charade

Bust out the battery-powered spinning bow tie, wear a t-shirt at a press conference that says, "I'm with Stupid," with a hand pointing outwards towards the press corp (instead of left or right), buy shoes that have those retractable roller-skate wheels inside of them, and put some of those spinning rims on the White House limo.

TlalocW

[alfredo]

4. Imagine his daughters playing on the White House lawn.

After years of war, America turned to a calming figure. Eisenhower's calm cool manner was just what America needed at that time. Obama could fill that role now.