Conrad Black casts a dark look at the US elections and Obama

Conrad Black wrote an interesting (if not foreboding) piece in the National Post which sums up the US elections - Conrad Black: The Obama Disaster: Part II - it's worth a read.

It highlights the PR problem that Obama is going to face in his second term, which is that he is a highly polarized figure. Half the folks love him and half think he's a phony and a giant failure.

To quote Black:

 .... If American politics continues along these lines, the social strains, piled onto the funeral pyre of the national accounts, will put the fate of what has long been the world’s greatest nation in acute doubt.

Canadians who are rejoicing today should not imagine that the ripples of the American crisis will replicate a day at the beach when the ripples from it land on our shore. There is an opportunity for Canada and Germany and a few other countries that have played their cards relatively wisely (and China is not particularly one of them), but the geopolitical vacuum incarnated by Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and the Republicans who sat the race out, will create a powerful and dangerous vortex. These will be perilous times.

I tend to be in the latter camp (ie. not a big fan of Obama), despite having had high hopes for him back in 2008.

Essentially the problem with Obama remains:

• He's more than happy to engage in wars and doesn't mind increased collateral damage from flyer drone attacks (how Democrats are ok with this we'll never know)
• He doesn't care about the debt
• He will never prosecute, much less publicly acknowledge, those who created the 2008 crash
• He's happy to erode constitutional rights even more than Bush did with the Patriot Act (the NDAA is the Patriot Act on steroids)

Those that like Obama, I believe, tend to:

• Believe that he doesn't want war deep down inside (but has to finish up what Bush started) 
• Not understand the ramifications of the debt long term (hey my taxes aren't going up, so what's the big deal?)
• Don't understand the crash of 2008 
• Figure until they themselves are arrested unjustly, things like the NDAA don't really matter
• Figure since the GOP candidates are even crazier than Obama, that Obama isn't so bad (this logic I can at least understand)

Obama has often been called a rorschach test, meaning that people see in him what they want to see. 

I've always thought this explanation of Obama was ridiculous (and still do). 

Obama is much easier to explain than that. Obama's appeal is that he gives great populous speeches. He says the things people want to hear. 

Because of his public speaking capabilities he benefits from what is called in psychology the halo effect. 

Essentially, the halo effect is the transference of one positive trait onto other traits. So for instance, if you have two candidates vying for a job and they match up identically on all traits (intelligence, experience, etc.), the candidate who is better looking has a higher chance of being picked for the job. The reason is that one variable on which they are judged as better, bumps the perception of other traits up as well. 

This is also why someone who is rich will be seen as more attractive than someone of equal appearance who is not rich. 

And that's all that has really happened with Obama. His speeches create a halo effect wherein he is judged far more positively on other traits than he otherwise would be. 

The Dexter Effect

Another way of putting it would be to call it the Dexter Effect. For those who watch Dexter on Showcase, he's a serial killer who works as a blood spatter expert for the police. Everyone loves him, yet on the side he hunts down and kills people (just bad people though). 

Point is, because he 'appears' to be a nice guy (and is a very nice to people), no one ever suspects that he's got this dark side to him. Obama is similar in that he you can't help but like the guy... yet at the same time he's passing things like the NDAA or blowing up an apartment building halfway around the world with a flyer drone and killing women and children in the process. Or even worse, he staffs and surrounds himself with ex-Goldman Sachs folks to advise him on how the country should manage its financial situation (it's like asking the robber to become the Chief of Police). 

The Ron Paul Effect

The other thing no one is talking about in the election is the Ron Paul effect. Romney refused to appeal to Ron Paul supporters in the primary race (who are anti-war and anti-deficit spending) and subsequently Ron Paul did not endorse Romney. 

The Policymic is the first to breakdown the consequence of shunning Ron Paul voters, who if they failed to turn out and vote for Romney (which is a safe assumption) cost Romney the election.

Obama moving forward

From a PR perspective Black's article hits the nail on the head in that leadership and the perception of leadership are the number one issue for America right now. 

People didn't vote for Obama because they view him as a strong capable leader so much as they viewed the alternative as unacceptable and simply like the guy as a person.

So hopefully what we see from Obama's PR team over the next four years is a major focus on leadership. Establishing Obama as a strong leader is a huge part of restoring confidence and getting the country out of the economic mess it is in. 

The question though is whether the Republicans will do everything they can to prevent him from being seen as a leader? Let's hope they fight their fights based on what's in the best interest of the country and not based on what will tarnish the perception of Obama's leadership.

Although as Black suggests, I think the issues that have been left to fester over the past four years may overwhelm everyone in the coming years and prove to be insurmountable even if everyone cooperates to fix them.