Obama the anti-Bush

[spindrifter]

By Michael Tomasky, MICHAEL TOMASKY is editor at large of the American Prospect.
December 21, 2006

SHOULD HE or shouldn't he? Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about whether 2008 is the right time for Barack Obama to throw his Bears cap (famously donned during that "Monday Night Football" set piece) into the ring. Even in the unscientific realm of political punditry, rarely have assertions so plainly unprovable been delivered with such unyielding certitude.

He's too young; no, quite the contrary, he'll be too old if he waits. He needs more Senate experience, some legislation to his name; nonsense — years of service in the Senate are a negative, not a positive (just ask John Kerry). He doesn't stand for anything; pshaw — he stands for a great deal simply by being who he is.

All these claims have to do with Obama himself. But there is another factor, one that argues for an Obama candidacy that has nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with George W. Bush. I call it the Attraction of the Opposite.

The most reliable guide to presidential winners over the last quarter of a century is not ideology or charisma or any of the other established factors. It is instead what we might call character typology. That is, after four (or especially eight) years of one type of person, American voters tend to turn their affections toward someone who is that person's opposite — someone whose personality and affect provide a direct contrast to the fellow who's leaving office, who has something the other guy lacked.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-tomasky21dec21,0,6791695.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

[Paranoid Pessimist]

1. So Clinton was the anti-Bush and Bush is the anti-Clinton?

Carter positioned himself as the anti-Nixon ("I'll never duck an issue, I'll never tell a lie") Ford didn't count. But was Nixon the anti-Johnson?

The character typology seems to hold sway for California Governors, sort of. Californians alternate between colorful crackpots like Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown and gray boring no personality colorless types like George Deukmajian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis, then back to colorful crackpots like Arnold.

Is Obama the most unlike President Junior we have?

Interesting premise.