An Old Soul

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Can Barack Obama fix it? Yes he can From The Sunday Times January 18, 2009 Andrew Sullivan

In two days’ time, Barack Obama will be president of the United States. His election promises a break with the failures of the Bush years but what does he really stand for? Andrew Sullivan examines his likely domestic and foreign policies and weighs their chances of success

...He doesn’t charm like Clinton did and Bush tried to. Unlike both men, but especially Clinton, he appears to have no need to be loved by everyone in the room. He often finds it hard to disguise how tired he feels. He is capable of evoking enormous inspiration, but he has yet to be able to hide it when he is bored. There is a wryness to his conversation and a dryness to his humor, both of which are sustained by an intellect of power. The revered liberal jurist Larry Tribe has said that in decades of teaching at Harvard Law School, he has never had a cleverer student than Obama. I don’t think he’s exaggerating. Intellectually, Obama is in Bill Clinton’s league. But what he has over Clinton is emotional intelligence to buttress his grasp of policy.

What he gets, what he seems to intuit, is how to make others feel as if they are being heard. This is simple enough in theory but hard to pull off consistently in practice. His model is to figure out what another person needs and, if it helps Obama to get what he wants, to provide it.

He sensed that Hillary Clinton needed independent respect in defeat. He couldn’t give her the vice-presidency, which she desperately wanted, because it would have given her a dangerous rival power base if they succeeded. So he offered her the next best thing, and she, unlike her husband, was smart enough to say yes.

He realised that Rick Warren was an egomaniac and wanted some kind of platform, so he gave him a largely symbolic role at the inauguration and allowed Warren to preen. He knew that what Washington pundits really craved was not the truth, but a sense of their own importance. So he let them throw him a dinner party.

He sensed that McCain was in deep emotional withdrawal after his horrifying and crude descent into raw partisanship last autumn. And so he celebrated the old, bipartisan McCain and asked for his support in the Senate....

[amitten]

1. Yes. He is strongly intuitive about others, and their egos and

subsequent needs.

Also known as "class". Very few posses it.

[lapfog_1]

2. Excellent analysis. Couldn't have said it better myself.

however, it is something that cuts both ways... in his eagerness to provide "something another person needs, and if it helps Obama get what he wants, to provide it" can lead to grave political miscalculation. Because politics is all about perception, and this method of "providing what another person needs" can also give the perception of "he has abandoned us" to his political base.

He has yet to finely thread the needle indeed, to do just little enough but not too much. To find a balance.

I'm sure he will find it rapidly... as he has figured out all the nuances of the campaign, he will also find balance while governing.

[JDPriestly]

3. Very optimistic and worth reading.

[acmavm]

4. Yep, the man is an absolute genius when it comes to reading

individuals. It's impressive.

The big test will be how he reads the public when he picks and choses which campaign promises to keep.

[omega minimo]

5. He is a consumate professional politician