Yes. Agreed. But we should also note that his identity is the basis for much of his support. In distinguishing Obama from his Democratic competitors, many saw him as more left, more progressive. This was not (often) based on position, but rather, on identity and its supposed referents.

Two influential books on the joint gain approach to negotiating originate from people associated with the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury (2nd edition, 1991); and Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation by William Ury (Revised edition 1993). In 2005, Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro published Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate.

In my opinion, the reasons why so many negotiations fail are: inadequate preparation work is not invested before negotiations begin; a well-thought out process is not used; and negotiators fail to respect one another. Great negotiators are usually great listeners and observers. Successful negotiations tend to be fact and interest based. Managing relationships during negotiations is extremely important. Efforts are made to build trust among the participants; and, the discussions are characterized by fairness, mutual respect and honesty.
In my experience, I’ve found joint gain approaches to negotiations substantially more productive than adversarial approaches to negotiating.

This is not the first example in his presidency of an appalling incompetence at the negotiating table. Remember healthcare reform? Here is the basic Negotiations 101 drill: you start out with a home run swing by stating your position that you demand single-payor/universal healthcare/“medicare for all”. perhaps after defending your position (never negotiate a position you cannot defend) you COMPROMISE (perhaps) with a mid-ground of some kind, like the so-called Public Option. But NO, obama came out of the gate with public option and had to fade all the way to his truly weak plan that keeps big pharma and big insurance running what should be social programs. he is then rewarded with a sneering label OBAMACARE from the willfully ignorant that has been spoon fed propaganda that he is a socialist from Kenya!

Now, trot out barack obama’s resume, see all the top shelf universities and his success as a community organizer and I ask you … do you smell a rat? How could he set up a pattern of such lousy negotiations unless some kind of a fix was in? no, everything is not a conspiracy, but really now … think about it.

this isnt left/right, but it sure looks like plutocracy cashing in with the military-industrial-complex. trojan horse anyone?

I think unfortunately though these expectations make him a ‘transformational’ president in a fifth point: The potential of political, electoral participation of the further left and especially younger voters might be, through his presidency, irreparable damaged. This is the flipside of the mass-movement Obama mobilized. Will these young voters come to the polls again or will they be disenchanted since the magical moment of the mythical figure Obama has passed since inauguration into the rationalized process of politics?

I do not want to judge if he over- or underachieved on issues of healthcare, Irak, Afghanistan. Or if he actually kept campaign promises on these issues, or if people simply reflected their own expectations into his policies and got disappointed. But I see the danger that a lot of younger voters and voters from the further democratic left might withdraw again from the political process of democracy and will not vote next election, maybe never again. Here lies the actual danger for democracy in the US (and actually in most other democracies too): Low political participation (and I see voting as the easiest form of participation) challenges democracy at its core and de-legitimizes its outcomes. And if Obama has the potential to be transformational in the way he could draw people into participation, I fear he might be as transformation in the the opposite direction.

Here Obama’s responsibility can be best illustrated through his stance and action on two main issues: His wavering about “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and his lack of a normative stance on Guantanamo. It does not matter if it is politically viable to close Guantanamo or if it is juridically possible to trial the inmates in the US. Obama had a clear stance, that Guantanamo is ethically not sustainable. If now he can not close it and face the consequences, he appears as ethically weak and a lot of people ask rightly: What happened to change?

Change was the magic word and I just want to make one last point on this: In the end Obama might just be perceived as another politician by a lot of people he motivated with promising to bring change to the political culture of Washington. He was able to form a movement on the basis of new media and here he is truly transformational as Jeff says. But, just look at the the media-narrative of the beginning of his new campaign for re-election. The first articles I read were all about the 1 billion dollars he wants to raise through a grassroots, social media campaign. Money was as important for his first campaign, but it was not the perceived goal of his grassroots, new media attempts. I am not saying that Obama is responsible through his actions for this changed narrative, but as a Kracauerian “surface manifestation” (admitted, I stretch Kracauer’s concept here a bit)it hints at a changed perception in public: From the transformational figure mobilizing a viable, excited, issue-oriented, grassroots community to a president running for reelection on the basis of an online-fundraising community.

This does not mean Obama is bad, but he he might also not be better – which will not be good enough for a lot of people. I hope I am wrong.

First on Jeff’s list is changing the definition of what it means to be a typical American, and making progress on addressing the American dilemma. In my view, he has made progress on the first element, but I fail to see much progress on the second. To approach the second, I think that Gunnar Myrdal’s observations need to be refreshed for everything that has taken place since his study was done. On the second issue, shifting the political center to the left on the relationships between state and markets and demonstrating that the government is a solution rather than a problem, I believe the results are mixed. There has been a hardening on the left and right, and the center is in flux. The third and fourth criteria, the President’s use of “the politics of small things” to support social change; and form and content of the way the President addresses politics, are also mixed. “The politics of small things” has been an effective process for both him and his opponents; and his rhetoric and popularity have soared when addressing issues in non partisan ways; and have been negatively impacted in the center and right when falling back into traditional partisan politicking. At least that is the way that I see it.

When I heard the keynote speech that then Senate candidate Obama made at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, I thought that he had the potential to be President and possibly be a transformational leader. At the time, I expected that he would be elected to the Senate and then run for another office that would give him executive experience prior to making a run for President. This happened much faster than I anticipated and unfortunately he didn’t have the benefits from serving as an executive.

I believe that he still has the potential to be a transformational leader; however, it will take a significant amount of work. He has all the qualitative tools including charisma for this to happen. Transformational leaders need to have a clearly stated vision and values that drive subsequent actions. The vision and values need to be compelling in order to muster support from followers and convert others. Broad bases of people need to trust him, believe that he is acting in a fair manner, is an exemplar for mutual respect, and be seen as honest in his dealings. Many of these values which are necessary for transformational form are inconsistent with a partisan approach to issues. It is clear that the left feels that President Obama embraces these concepts, but the center is skeptical and the right has significant doubts. A non partisan, fact based approach to problem solving in which consensus making processes are used can help break down opposition. I’m assuming that he can communicate a compelling vision.

Here is a specific example of lack of clarity. In his State of the Union address, the President used the theme of Winning the Future, and the following five pillars: new rules for Wall Street; investment in education; investment in renewable energy and technology; health-care reform; and deficit reduction. The terms winning the future have not been operationalized. What does win mean? How do we know we won? In what time frame? The pillars are interesting policy points of emphasis; however, they don’t constitute a plan for returning the United States to a full employment, economically and financially viable economy which generates significant value for all of our stakeholders while caring for the most vulnerable and being a responsible steward for our resources and the environment. In one form or another, he has touched on many of these, but thus far he hasn’t linked them in a coherent plan. This is his challenge, assuming that he agrees with many of these goals. Recently, President Obama added the concept of the social compact to his messages; however, he hasn’t made clear which approach to the social compact he supports: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau or another approach. People don’t need to know the philosphers, but they do need to know what his approach is the social compact.

I hope that President Obama can implement his original post-partisan intent, and become the transformational leader that I believe that he can be.

The question is why they are so influential in the US right now. It is because a plurality of middle-of-the road voters voted for right-wing Republicans. Why did they do it? Because when times are bad and it doesn’t look like things are improving, people vote against. Against what? Just against.

If the right wing of the Republican party did not control the House and did not threaten to win the presidency, the wingnuts would be irrelevant. We would only read about them in the gossip pages of newspapers. As it happens, say, in France, except in those unusual circumstances when “reasonable people” fail so miserably at the art of governing that the lepenistes threaten to take over by winning votes in the middle. You can supply more examples. My take is that the emphasis needs to be in the “art of governing”. Run the country well, and keep the fools away from the crazies. Run it poorly, they join forces. Together the mean and the stupid may form a majority.

Sure, the Bush & Greenspan & banks & house owners-engineered recession was the worst since the Depression, and would have been much worse without government intervention. But Obama was the president, Democrats controlled Congress, together they did not do enough, and got blamed for it. The problem was lack of enough action, not style. The politics of big things, if you want.