NYT: The Emotional Tug of Obama

[babylonsister]

The Emotional Tug of Obama
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: May 26, 2012


FORGET your political affiliation. Never mind your assessment of his time in office so far. If you have any kind of heart, you’re struck by it: the photograph of Barack Obama bent down so that a young black boy can touch his head and see if the president’s hair is indeed like his own. It moves you. It also speaks to a way in which Obama and Mitt Romney, whose campaigns are picking up the pace just as polls show them neck and neck, are profoundly mismatched.

In a story that quickly went viral, The Times’s Jackie Calmes wrote last week about the photograph, which was taken three years ago when the boy, then 5, visited the White House. It has hung there ever since, left on the wall even as other pictures were swapped out, as is the custom, for newer, fresher ones.

David Axelrod, one of the chief architects of Obama’s political career, told Calmes: “It doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’ This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it’s worth it.”

Axelrod’s words, meanwhile, are a reminder that more than three and a half years after Obama made history as the first black man elected to the presidency, he still presents more than a résumé and an agenda. He still personifies the hope, to borrow a noun that he has used, that we really might evolve into the colorblind, fair-minded country that many of us want. His own saga taps into the larger story of this country’s fitful, unfinished progress toward its stated ideal of equal opportunity.

And that gives many voters an emotional connection to him that they simply don’t have to most other politicians, including Romney, a privileged and intensely private man whose strengths don’t include the easy ability to humanize himself. There’s a Mitt-versus-myth element to the 2012 campaign, and it influences the manner in which Romney’s supporters and Romney himself engage the president and make their pitch. They must and do emphasize job-creation numbers over personal narrative, the technocratic over the touchy-feely.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/opinion/sunday/bruni-the-emotional-tug-of-obama.html?_r=1

[lamp_shade]

1. I'll never tire of this photo.

[BeyondGeography]

2. The NYT takes time-out from redressing their "imbalanced" 2008 coverage

To shed some light on a real and fundamental difference between the candidates that works in Obama's favor.

They keep score; we'll pay for this one many times over.

[Jim Lane]

3. Unfortunately, they're noting only half the story.

"He still personifies the hope, to borrow a noun that he has used, that we really might evolve into the colorblind, fair-minded country that many of us want." True, but he also personifies the threat that we really might evolve into the colorblind, fair-minded country that many of us fear.

The sad truth is that, in 2012, Obama's race is still working against him with millions of voters. Even when you consider the anti-Mormon bigotry, the prejudice factor is a net loss for Obama.