The crowd was ecstatic in Grant Park late on Tuesday night, mothers hugging sons, students punching the air, television personality Oprah Winfrey and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson wiping the tears from their cheeks. Only one man in that vast arena seemed oddly subdued. And he was at the center of it all: president-elect Barack Obama.
He had carried the same somber demeanor in the final hours of campaigning. Some wondered if it was because of the death on Monday of the grandmother who had raised him. But then another possibility suggested itself. In a pre-election interview, Obama confessed that what kept him up at night was not the fear that he might lose, but that he might not be able to do the job.
According to a new biography of an earlier Democratic president, Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered the same anxiety the night he was elected in 1932. Perhaps this is how leaders react when they fully understand the burden just placed on their shoulders.
Consider Obama’s response to a private national security briefing he received from the CIA during the campaign. Told of the multiple dangers around the world, he reputedly shook his head and asked: “Why would anyone want this job?”
That episode, like his conduct on Tuesday, might shed some revealing light on the new president — and exactly how he will operate.
First, it suggests he aims to be more than a successful politician whose driving purpose is winning elections. He wants to be a leader capable of guiding his people through the storm. The tenor of his speech at Grant Park was barely celebratory; instead it was sober, girding the nation for challenges ahead.
“America, we have come so far,” he said. “But there is so much more to do.”
That is a contrast with former US president Bill Clinton and current US President George W. Bush, both of whom were all-politician, always on the lookout for electoral advantage. On the early evidence, Obama seems to have his sights set higher — on government.
What else might characterize his presidential style? He is intellectually accomplished; colleagues at the University of Chicago describe him as a first-class legal scholar. And he takes ideas seriously — not for him Bush’s reliance on instinct, on thinking with your gut.
Clinton had great intellectual firepower too, but while the early Clinton White House grew notorious for its long “bull” sessions, kicking ideas around late into the night, Obama has greater discipline. The evidence is his election campaign, which even Republicans admit was a model of focus and control.
That does not mean Obama will discourage dissent and the free exchange of ideas, as Bush did, routinely banishing advisers who dared present a counter-argument. On the contrary, Obama’s modus operandi as a senator was to urge his team to bombard him with differing views. He would sit back, sometimes with his eyes closed, listening as the argument was thrashed out. He would then conclude the process with a decision. After that, he has little tolerance for counter-briefing or internal factional warfare, at least if the past campaign is any guide. Its motto: “no leaks, no drama.” Indeed, internal rows in the Obama camp were unheard of in the last two years.
Obama will seek to maintain that same discipline in Washington, though that may prove hopeful. Managing the entire US federal government is a rather larger task than running a close-knit campaign team.
In that same vein, he will seek to keep his eye on the bigger picture, to concentrate on strategy, not tactics. This was the signature difference between him and Senator John McCain. While the Republican fought for a good headline in that day’s news cycle, Obama stayed focused on his larger, overall theme. As a result, he lost more than a few short-term battles. But he won the war. We can expect the same approach in the White House.
Lastly, while all presidents promise to unite the country, Obama may actually want to do it. For one thing, he has seen the electoral advantage of expanding beyond the usual Democratic strongholds and crafting a message for all 50 states. But it has also been his preferred method of working. As a member of the Illinois state senate and, earlier, as president of the Harvard Law Review, his distinguishing feature was an ability to address conservatives, first understanding, then meeting their objections.
He will surely aim to do the same as president, starting with a bipartisan appointments policy, picking Republicans for some of the top jobs. It will also be a necessity, since Democrats are unlikely to have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. He will have to make allies across the aisle.
Using his brain, not his gut; focused on the long, not the short-term and concerned more with government than politics — Barack Obama could be a very different kind of president.
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