Obama Analysis

The character type that best fits President Barack Obama is passive positive.  As described by Barber, the passive positive character type is very hopeful and optimistic. These types of people are constantly looking for others' approval and are willing to adapt in order to make others happy. As a new president, Obama was frequently trying to adapt to impress people and win their approval. A good example of this is when he submitted a budget to Congress that would appeal to Republicans in hopes of getting the Republicans’ respect and approval. Obama’s efforts were unsuccessful and his budget was still shot down by the Republicans making President Obama very upset and feel insecure. This began the cycle of Obama attempting to adapt to the political climate to please everyone, getting shot down and pushed around, and then becoming very optimistic about future things to come. This cycle can be seen repeatedly throughout his presidency. Obama is not very assertive and he does not fully take control of certain issues due to his low self-esteem. When the issue of beginning a mission to find and kill Osama Bin Laden came up, Obama asked others for recommendations about what to do instead of making a confident decision on his own. Also, anytime something doesn’t go right, Obama stays incredibly hopeful. His entire campaign for the presidency was based on hope and change as seen in the photos.

 Being a passive positive president is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not a good character type to fit in the current political climate which is most likely the reason some people think Obama is doing a poor job. Obama strives to be an active president and he makes many attempts to be active such as his healthcare reform, proactively submitting a budget that he thought would please Republicans and setting up meetings with Speaker John Boehner to work on the Grand Bargain. If all of these actions had been successful, then Obama might have been able to be classified as active positive. The factor that prevents Obama from being as active as he strives to be is the tough political climate he is in. He is forced to work with the Tea Party which is nearly impossible considering how stubborn they can be. Republicans in Congress make it very difficult for Obama to achieve much and they often overstep their boundaries. Obama is not as intimidating as past presidents such asPresident Johnson, so Congress feels that they are able to push Obama around a little more. Also, Obama lacks the ability to persuade well as mentioned in Neustadt’s reading. If Obama is unable to persuade the Republicans to act a certain way or make certain decisions, then he is not exercising the full power of the presidency. Neustadt would not consider Obama a powerful president for this reason.

 Given the current political climate, voters should be looking for an active negative candidate for the 2016 election. Active negative character types are people who always work tremendously hard to get things done and never feel fully satisfied with what they have accomplished. They tackle projects aggressively and will never feel like they have done enough. Others tend to fear these types of people, but also respect them for all of their hard work. An active negative person would work well in the current political climate because they will not allow themselves to be pushed around by others in the government. Instead, this type of president would assert all of his power and use it to make the decisions he deems best for the country without having anyone question him. Obama’s failure to assert his presidential power has made the office of the president seem weak. It would be very beneficial to the country to have an active negative president who can get many things done and restore power to the presidency.

Barber’s theory is logical, but it would not be helpful to voters. Though one may be able to predict what type of president someone will be by their personality, you cannot fully judge whether or not that person will be successful as president solely on this theory. There is an argument for each of the four character types of why that type of person would make a good president. Some of our country’s greatest presidents have all been classified as different character types. The character type does not make any candidate less qualified for the job as president. Voters should not use this theory to make their decision on who to elect. As I mentioned earlier today in class, though the theory does not necessarily predict which character types make for good presidents, it does provide good guidelines for analyzing presidents after they have been in office.