Obama and the Barber Theory

While I feel that overall Barber's Theory is flawed and fails at it's main purpose(helping voters analyze who they are voting for) it is still an interesting way to look at the overall feeling of a presidents years in office. For Obama's years in office I would say he would most closely be identified as an Active Positive President. I think for the most part everyone agrees that Obama is a Positive President. He seems happy and like he likes his job. He is also spreading a positive message of bipartisanship, coming together, hope, and change. Those all make him positive. The debate comes in on the part of him being either Passive or Active. I believe that the root of this stems from the current political climate. The climate currently is very partisan, as was mentioned several times in the documentary Obama is a polarizing figure. Obama seems to always want to get things done, like an active president would do. Examples of this are both with helathcare and initiating the Grand Bargain deals with Boehner His passiveness seems to only come in to effect when facing the uncompromising force that seems to be the Republican Party, the Tea Party in particular. He tried to bring them along for the ride when it came to the big healthcare legislation but they would have none of it.

Here are some cartoons that I feel help describe the climate:

This illustrates how Obama is a polarizing figure

The Tea Party Unwillingness to Compromise

 In all honesty, I think that Obama is not a strong enough President when it comes to today's political climate. While he may still be and Active President he is not active enough. He needs to crackdown on his political opponents if he really wants to get something done.
That being said I also believe that we will still need a strongly Active Positive President in 2016. While being able to adapt and compromise is nice, it is impossible to compromise with a brick wall. Especially if that brick wall is willing to act like a child and shut the government down because it didn't get it's way.
To fix the current political climate that our country is in we need a strong, goal-oriented President. This doesn't mean iron-willed. It means being sensible. It means wanting to get things done. It means that when a group has proven they are completely unreasonable to work with to abandon them and move onto things that can get accomplished. Obama made the right move when he pretty much gave up trying to be bipartisan because it simply hasn't been working.

How the Tea Party has taken over the GOP

Now to say a few things about Barber's theory. It is an interesting way to generally classify a President's years in office, but it is only that. It is impossible to predict what someone will do while in office until he has the job. The Presidency is too unique of a position to have any kind of accurate prediction. A general direction can be predicted but anything more specific can only be determined for incumbents.        

And finally how both parties don't really seem to like the Tea Party all that much