Barack Obama is one of the smoothest politicians I have ever seen. And, I don't mean that as an insult. He is well-dressed, well spoken, intelligent, well-educated, in shape. articulate...the list goes on and on. I've met him several times and have never been disappointed in his ability to impress me. He has a cool wife to boot. You literally couldn't ask for anything more in a candidate. At least on paper.
There's something missing in Obama's cool, cerebral style. I think it's soul. I don't mean a religious bearing, I don't mean the ability to dance. It's his compassion meter, it's his smile, it's his responses. Sometimes they're just not soulful.
Most voters, black or white, can detect soul, but cannot articulate when it is missing. They just know that they can't support someone who doesn't have it.
We've been through this before, and recently. Some people thought that Al Gore did not have soul. In his case, he was assigned other characteristics. Boring, stiff, too serious. All of which were not true. In public appearances he did come across that way, unfortunately. So people (not me, mind you) voted for George W. Bush instead. By all accounts, he has a great, fun-loving personality. He jokes, he pokes fun at people, he is anything but serious. He dances, he conducts, he smiles, he waves. What a guy!
The most important attribute a president can have is leadership ability. Unfortunately, the campaign trail is not the place to showcase or demonstrate those skills. You get dinged if you brag about your past leadership triumphs, you get bashed for your past leadership failures, you get run up the flagpole for having less than thirty years of leadership on any one issue. But if you've been a leader too long, you get labeled as a career politician. It's a no-win situation.
Black Americans are not supporting Obama in the numbers they might have. Hillary is getting all the love, in a left-over outpouring of support and devotion to her husband, the first "black president." And no one can argue that Bill Clinton has a soul. He has enough soul for both he and Hillary, with some left over. Hillary has soul too, but it's hard to have soul on the campaign trail as a woman. Poor Hillary can't even show some cleavage without being demonized.
I don't know why Obama is not letting his soul show, but it may be too late for him. Even with all of his grassroots campaign cash, his campaign is going backwards.
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