Clayton C. Mamele
4889-8901
“Presidential Character: Barack Hussein Obama”
In this paper I will attempt to define the characteristics of President Barack Obama using
James David Barber’s approach and then show how these characteristics affected the performance of his administration. By examining President Obama’s character, worldview, and style, I will argue that he would fall under the Active-Negative classification according to
Barber. Similar to the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Woodrow Wilson, Obama’s presidency has been ripe with activity but has met largely with negative results. With Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, Obama quickly passed the American Recovery and
Reinvestment act of 2009 which would ultimately …show more content…
In this book he argues that each president can be categorized into 4 psychological types. He then goes beyond this assertion and says that each president 's “pre-White House experience” could tell voters how that candidate would perform in office. Prior to his publication, political scientists long had taken for given that the American presidency, because executive power is vested in one person and only vaguely defined in its limits, is an institution shaped largely by the personalities of individual presidents. But rarely had the literature of personality theory, even in its most basic forms, been brought to question (Nelson 1980). Barber 's theory offers a model in which the presidency is shaped not by ideological purpose, but by a combination of the individual 's personality and the public 's mood towards the …show more content…
The second index of active vs. passive measures their degree of wanting to accomplish big things or retreat into a reactive governing mode. These two indices produce four categories of presidents. Active-Positive; These are presidents with big national ambitions who are self-confident, flexible, optimistic, joyful in the exercise of power, possessing a certain philosophical detachment toward what they regard as a great game. Active-Negative; These are compulsive people with low self-esteem, seekers of power as a means of self-actualization, given to rigidity and pessimism, driven, sometimes overly aggressive. But they harbor big dreams for bringing about accomplishments of large historical dimension (Merry 2014). Passive-Positive: These are compliant presidents who react to events rather than initiating them. They want to be loved and are thus ingratiating and easily manipulated. They are "superficially optimistic" and harbor generally modest ambitions for their presidential years. They are healthy in both ego and self-esteem.
4889-8901
“Presidential Character: Barack Hussein Obama”
In this paper I will attempt to define the characteristics of President Barack Obama using
James David Barber’s approach and then show how these characteristics affected the performance of his administration. By examining President Obama’s character, worldview, and style, I will argue that he would fall under the Active-Negative classification according to
Barber. Similar to the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Woodrow Wilson, Obama’s presidency has been ripe with activity but has met largely with negative results. With Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, Obama quickly passed the American Recovery and
Reinvestment act of 2009 which would ultimately …show more content…
In this book he argues that each president can be categorized into 4 psychological types. He then goes beyond this assertion and says that each president 's “pre-White House experience” could tell voters how that candidate would perform in office. Prior to his publication, political scientists long had taken for given that the American presidency, because executive power is vested in one person and only vaguely defined in its limits, is an institution shaped largely by the personalities of individual presidents. But rarely had the literature of personality theory, even in its most basic forms, been brought to question (Nelson 1980). Barber 's theory offers a model in which the presidency is shaped not by ideological purpose, but by a combination of the individual 's personality and the public 's mood towards the …show more content…
The second index of active vs. passive measures their degree of wanting to accomplish big things or retreat into a reactive governing mode. These two indices produce four categories of presidents. Active-Positive; These are presidents with big national ambitions who are self-confident, flexible, optimistic, joyful in the exercise of power, possessing a certain philosophical detachment toward what they regard as a great game. Active-Negative; These are compulsive people with low self-esteem, seekers of power as a means of self-actualization, given to rigidity and pessimism, driven, sometimes overly aggressive. But they harbor big dreams for bringing about accomplishments of large historical dimension (Merry 2014). Passive-Positive: These are compliant presidents who react to events rather than initiating them. They want to be loved and are thus ingratiating and easily manipulated. They are "superficially optimistic" and harbor generally modest ambitions for their presidential years. They are healthy in both ego and self-esteem.