Barack Obama: The Movement President?

Minutes after President-elect Obama’s victory speech Tuesday night, the text message arrived on my mobile.

“Why didn’t he mention 911 in his speech,” a friend in New York asked. “He was talking about the hard times America has faced.”

There were several reasons I could think of. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were, perhaps, too closely associated with George W. Bush and his unpopular presidency, and the country having spent the past seven years being reminded of them repeatedly was suffering from 9/11 fatigue. Or maybe Obama didn’t want to invoke an event whose aftermath had generated a fair amount of controversy both here and abroad.

But there is another possible explanation for the omission.

Obama has cast himself not just as a transformational leader, but as a movement leader. The national trials and upheavals he referenced in his speech when discussing the life of centenarian Ann Nixon Cooper – the Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, the struggle against communism – all led to sweeping societal changes that were brought about by the mobilization and cooperation of entire generations. September 11, 2001, the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, has not led to any mass movement for the improvement of social well-being. Rather, its primary legacy (aside from the horrible personal tragedy to the families involved) has been an ill-conceived and executed war, a broad curtailment of civil liberties and nonsensical limitations on toiletries in carry-ons. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Americans didn’t join the armed services en masse or plant victory gardens or band together to re-build their communities. They went to the mall.

Obama won the election by capturing the imagination of Americans from diverse backgrounds – poor and rich, black and white, educated and uneducated. For the moment, he enjoys the goodwill of a broader cross-section of the public than did Bill Clinton, who twice won election with a plurality of the vote, or George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote in his first bid and squeaked by with the narrowest of margins, thanks to a motivated base, to win re-election. Many minorities in particular, long-alienated from the U.S. political process, are newly invigorated and filled with optimism for their country's future. And for the first time in my adulthood, I witnessed general jubilation at the results of a presidential election. In cities, people were literally dancing in the streets. Just about every newspaper in the country was sold out Wednesday morning. School children were even leaving messages to the president-elect on the National Mall. During the campaign, John McCain had opted to talk about fighting. But Americans were apparently tired of fighting, whether it be their neighbors, colleagues, the specter of terrorism, or the world at-large. The country, reeling from 16 years of highly partisan and often divisive leadership, voted for Obama’s promise of change, conciliation and unity.

Obama, a figure skilled at attracting unprecedented crowds and delivering stirring speeches, must now turn to the nuts and bolts of governing. Despite the challenging times, he has many advantages. He appears to possess a beneficent combination of attributes: Franklin Roosevelt’s temperament and determination, Kennedy’s cool-headed intelligence and Reagan’s charisma and talent for communicating big themes. Add to these characteristics a dash of the old-time preacher that none of those presidents ever possessed, and Obama has the potential to outdo them all.

Expectations are high, but that means the disappointments, when and if they come, will be far more bitter. Right now Obama has the country and the international community on his side. But harnessing this energy to ignite the wide-scale change he says he desires will be a daunting task.

Will the “movement candidate” become the “movement president”? It remains to be seen.