Persuading the Intractable

President Barack Obama has probably had more column inches written about him than any other American politician since Richard Nixon. Why is that? Is it down to the public's increasing thirst for political knowledge and debate, or is it because there was a perceptible upsurge in interest within the United States, and worldwide, in the presidential race and its outcome? Or, in a less conventional sense, is it perhaps due to the fact that the media were merely reflecting our notions of identarian politics? Taking the third of these options as the most feasible explanation, it can be seen that we have, in Obama, a politician seeking high office who is identifiably different from the established norm of Harvardeducated lawyer, decorated soldier or Texan businessman. However, the realisation that he is indeed a Harvard-educated lawyer surely places him within, rather than outside of, the standard model. Notwithstanding this, the true reason why Obama draws so much public attention, and press scrutiny, is that his pigmentation differs from the vast majority of those who hunger for the Washington limelight. In a country that is still gradually, and at times painfully, evolving in regard to how it comes to terms with its segregationist past, Obama appears both comforting and triumphant at the same time; an avatar of Mandela and Martin Luther King, as his staunchest supporters might put it. Obama – with a radical guise but without, to date, the genuinely radical policies – certainly manages to tick all of the correct ‘identarian’ boxes. If he continues to play on this perception, which he has done very successfully so far, then he should not only retain presidential power until 2016 but he may also maintain the apparent air of ‘change’ that he presents as his hallmark; albeit that his eventual legacy may portray him as being far more conservative than radical when it comes to substantial transformation. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.