In 2008 Barack Obama ran for president on the rallying cries of hope and change. He captured the nation’s attention with an array of promises, the big one being that he will fix the economy. At the time Obama represented the optimism that many Americans needed. Two years later that optimism is disappearing.
While Obama has made some significant accomplishments and changes during his time in the White House. In the Image-Is-Everything Presidency, Richard Waterman writes, “One of the primary problems with image politics is that images oftentimes do not reflect reality. Because they are related to perception and perceptions can change (57).” With Obama’s approval ratings dropping, it indicates that the perception of Obama has changed. Obama’s image no longer reflects hope and change, but rather failure and frustration largely because he has been unable to fulfill his biggest campaign promise, which was to fix the economy.
The Huffington Post posted an article with a video from John Stewart's The Daily Show that perfectly shows the difference in Obama in 2008 and Obama now. We watched the video in class, but this best contrasts Obama's image.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/21/stewart-obama-kryptonite_n_734227.html
The clip shows a very enthusiastic Obama in 2008, making promises and firing up crowds. It then cuts to clips over the past two years of a very frustrated Obama making excuses that Congress is being too difficult. Obama has also recently sunk to the point where he is bashing the Republican Party for all his road blocks. The American people do not want to see the president making excuses and blaming others. I think that Obama can restore his image if he stops making excuses, brings back the passion he had in the 2008 campaign and convince the American public that if they stick with him, things will get better.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/21/stewart-obama-kryptonite_n_734227.html
Waterman, Richard W., Robert Wright, and Clair Gilbert K. St. "Historical Images." The Image-is-everything Presidency: Dilemmas in American Leadership. Boulder: Westview, 1999. 23-44. Print.
John writes about Barack Obama’s campaign focus of hope and change. The tactic Obama used to stand out from political opponents and to get the vote from Americans is described in Richard Waterman’s book, “The Image is Everything Presidency.” The tactic, known as a pseudo-event, or a staged event, has come to involve presidential speechmaking. Obama used the concepts of hope and change as a way to get people’s attention, but had little to no concrete evidence as to how that change was going to come. Waterman writes, “Speeches are not pseudo events if they are substantive, that is, if they provide the public with useful information regarding what the president actually intends to do.” Since Obama just promised hope and change, and no significant answers as to how he was going to do so, he may have used the pseudo-event to gain popularity and voters. This concept is becoming more popular in modern day speechmaking and politics. Pseudo-events have contributed to an increase in the public’s high expectations from our presidents. Since the American people have come to expect more from the person in power, then the president brings a larger promise or idea to the table. As presidents promise bigger and greater things, even knowing how difficult it will be to uphold them, Americans expect even more. This cycle continues to repeat and promises continually get broken.
ReplyDeleteJohn later states, “With Obama’s approval ratings dropping, it indicates that the perception of Obama has changed.” This idea correlates to Waterman’s belief that “even such speeches as the State of the Union address, where presidents have generally laid out their policy agenda, are becoming pseudo-events designed to promote a president’s image popularity and image.” Perhaps if Obama focused more on the issues in American, especially with the upcoming midterm elections, and not so much on his image and the democratic party’s image, then American’s may perceive him and his policies in a better light.
During Obama’s campaign he promised many things, and John is right his main focus seemed to be on him changing the economy. He also made promises about other things but in my opinion this was all just to gain support from voters and he had no intension to fulfill all these promises. The video that is shown really does show the difference between Obama when he was running ad how enthusiastic he was, to now and him almost blaming Americans for his failures. In Richard Waterman’s book The Image is Everything Presidency he talks about President Reagan stating “He continue to be a popular president until he retired from the White House in January of 1989.” With Obama I do not think he is going to retire anything soon from being the President. This quote though is true for Obama also though because people are still going to rally behind him because of his race. Once people start degrading him as a president the topic of racism may surface in which things could then very well get out of hand. Instead of coming out and being able to say I am not going to be able to fulfill all my promises without the support of my fellow Americans in a nice way, he started blaming the Republican Party and essentially Americans for not helpings him or getting involved. Now this isn’t like when you were younger and could blame things on your dog when things in the house were broken. We are talking about someone who runs our country and he is now making excuses as to why he failed and blames it on the other people. To me this is not very president like and I think many Americans are starting to realize this also.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what John and the other responders have been saying. Obama did rack up popularity points during his campaign with his vision of change--a vision that was, and still is, appealing to most Americans, because change is what the country needs. I understand that it was for his campaign for presidency, but he should give the nation back something that he promised. No doubt about it, Obama is a very intelligent public speaker, where his "suave" image and pleasant voice guided Americans to believe and trust what he says in his speeches. During his campaign, Obama had a leg up against McCain because of his popular image and his way of getting the public attention. It seems as if Obama is using these tactics now in his many speeches, trying to fake to America why all of his promises are slowly being broken. As said in a previous comment, he is now blaming the Republican Party as to why there has been little progress made since he took office. As Waterman states, "the increased attention to speech-making actually may leave presidents with less time for the important functions of governance. ... since the average modern president gives more than one speech during each working day, his time on the job has increasingly become rhetorical" (114). Instead of making these speeches where he tries to give excuse after excuse, Obama should take the time to focus on fixing the mess he has made for himself. I think that if he lays low with public appearances, especially during a time of the mid-term elections, he can focus on making the right changes for our country, changes that he promised two years ago, and still has not made progress in fulfilling. I think that if he takes the blame and owns up to his faults and tries to fix them instead of using his one technique that works--public speeches-- he will have restored the public image he once had two years ago.
ReplyDeleteIn this blog, John references 'In the Image-Is-Everything Presidency', where Richard Waterman writes, “One of the primary problems with image politics is that images oftentimes do not reflect reality. Because they are related to perception and perceptions can change (57).” It's true that Obama had one of the most successful campaigns in American history and it seemed as if everyone in the country voted for Obama and had all of their faith devoted into turning the country around. Now, not even two years later, his image was been dwindling in the public eye, not just with democrats but with media outlets as well.
ReplyDeleteAs the blog references to The Daily Show, even media figures on the left are aware that Obama is not living up the hype that his campaign promised. It's up for debate whether Obama is fading in public opinion because of critical circumstances or because his campaign and administrators are very good deceivers; the fact is people are becoming less political literate, and therefore any negative image of Obama goes a long way. In 'The Image is Everything" Waterman shows the demise of President George H.W. Bush on Saturday Night Live 20 years ago, which can be paralleled to Obama today. Waterman explains how influential and powerful Bush was in 1984 and that, "Bush had triumphantly declared that he had 'kicked a little ass last night [at the 1984 vice presidential debate against Gerladine Ferraro]' (58). " Fast forward four years later once he is elected president, Saturday Night Live's Dana Carvey's impersonation of the president became a regular segment that has carved an image for the rest of America to follow (58). With promises Bush couldn't keep as well as a 'silly' image on a popular sketch show, Bush wasn't able to win the 1992 election. Let's see if history is about to repeat itself.
In response to Obama’s recent lack luster presidency, I can’t exactly say I’m surprised. I think that in today’s politics, it’s inevitable for the public to be less than thrilled with how the candidate actually handles the office. There’s such a big transition between campaigns and the actual presidency. Our expectation gap that we’ve been discussing is the main source of this disappointment. As American voters, we have faith in the process. We believe that if you put your heart on the line, and mark a certain candidate, then the country will move forward, however, that’s not always the result after the ballots are in.
ReplyDeleteIn Obama’s case, after the inauguration, he hit the dreams on promises of a new American, rejuvenated by the dreams of the next generation. Reasons aside, I think we can all agree that something needs to change before get for getting things done to “No, We Can’t.” In Waterman’s chapter for this week, he discusses the “Image is everything presidency, and how Candidates conform to what we expect out of them, not what they actually are or might be. Later on in chapter five, Waterman discusses how politicians often say many things, but rarely speaks. In Obama’s case, he’s been talking a lot lately, but has anything but the placement of blame really come out? Whether he shifting the focus to the Republican party, or giving flip flop answers like the lovely John Kerry circa the election of 2004, Obama has really put an end to his eloquence, and just flapped his gums on the screens of millions Americans. In order to get back on track, Obama should revisit the days of his promising campaign trail. Then, if he can resonate with how he made Americans feel then, he can make them feel that way again with doing things instead of just saying things for the sake of appeasing people.
Regardless if Obama actually succeeded in achieving some, if any, of the promises he made to the American public during his Presidential campaign—I believe the public is responsible for the inaction of his presidency. We are the ones with the power to elect officials and presidents; we are the consumers of the political process, they give us all these high hopes and false promises because that is what we tell them we want to hear. When a person is debating on whom to vote for in election—do they align themselves with that candidate because they actually believe they are going to do everything they promise or do they align themselves with them because they see parts of themselves in that representative? According to Waterman, “Presidents today often identify themselves with issues over which they ultimately will have little influence as president. For instance, presidents are quick to say they are for education or tough on crime” but in actuality education and crime are handled at local and state levels, completely out of the jurisdiction of a President (161). Again though it is not the importance of whether or not they can actually achieve these things the importance lies in the image these promises are creating and because we never ask them how they are going to achieve these things, they never tell us. I find it very astonishing that we are surprised when a President gets into office and isn’t able to do everything he said. I think of those promises as ‘wish lists,’ in a perfect world…but the realities of the situation is I find my confidence in a President through his ability to represent and fight for my needs, wants and values not in his ability to fulfill each and every one of them. I don’t want to make the excuse that Obama can only do so much, but this disappointment that is being generated within the public is nothing new for Presidents. We have the power—we need to hold our politicians accountable for the promises that they make, if they say they are going to do something then they should because as Waterman states, all they are doing right now is “speaking more [and] saying less” (101).
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