The Obama future: Great expectations (Pt 1)

The mood here in Washington DC this week is something like that of President-elect Barack Obama’s future presidency, something I call anticipatory. We see in the news, plans for concerts, celebrations, parades, inaugural balls and with these, come the precious entry tickets to some of the more exclusive events.

People are talking about celebrating on the streets, in pubs, in restaurants and in hotels. We are talking about the biggest crowd in the history of Inauguration Day in America.

And of course, every day, in the news, the security people are discussing plans and strategies involving tens of thousands of security personnel and costing tens of millions of dollars to manage the logistics and safety of America when two million people crowd into DC today for the historic event - an African American becoming the 44th President of the United States of America.

Yet from our vantage point now, Washington is the Washington she is like any regular day of the year. Yes, there are preparations and signboards up, but the crowd is not here yet. The excitement is mostly in the newspapers, in the news and on TV.

And sometimes, that's the problem, our great expectations precede the real thing by many yards. And sometimes, the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

There is no question to Obama's popularity at the moment - this week's poll showed up to 80 percent of Americans are behind him. But the pattern is often similar for almost every president when he first takes office. Even George W Bush, whose term ended with the lowest plunge in ratings of any president of the United States, started with reasonable approvals from the people.

Obama could not have come at a better time. In fact, some say he is where he is because of the time he is in. The world is facing two major issues today, the first being the economic crunch which is expected to worsen this year and the second is the Middle East conflict.

These are the two major challenges for Obama the moment he takes the presidential oath. The people realise the immensity of the problems at hand and at a time of crisis such as this, it is easier for them to close ranks and choose to unite behind their leader.

There is something about a new leader coming on board. People are full of expectation that the leader America elects will bring the nation to greater heights, regardless whether they actually voted for him.

After all, the president of America is the ultimate symbol of American heroism, the big brother and leader of the free world. And they will walk in shadows of giants, from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, from "Teddy" Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt to Kennedy to Reagan.

With the whole image of being the president, with all the inspiring speeches during campaigning, one cannot help but be drawn into the whole heat of the moment and say, "Hey, maybe we should give him a chance".

I think Obama is not only a product of American possibilities, but also an embodiment of the American dream, of Lincoln, or Dr Martin Luther King Jr. A nation judged not by the colour of one's skin, but by the content of one's character - the last presidential election seemed to play to that principle.

McCain's - and he was good, a worthy opponent of Obama - white Anglo-saxon Protestant status did not cloud the judgements of the electorate on Obama's socio-economic and foreign policies which were more superior for a time like this.

For the first time, four decades since Dr King, America has finally seen, if in a superficial way of honouring one black person out of the whole nation, the dream of Dr King coming into fruition.

And this is indeed a moment of celebration; everyone wants it and therefore wants to make sure it works. Who in their right mind will want to rally against Dr King's dream for the nation?

President Bush could have been the proverbial heroic president of 21st century America when the nation faced the tragedy of Sept 11. But his actions, especially his very expensive and prolonged military campaigns on al-Qaeda and Iraq, have taken a huge toll on the nation and with that his popularity.

When he leaves office, his unpopularity will equal Obama's popularity. The people are just glad that Bush is leaving, anything that replaces him seems a better option, for now.

Of course, something different about the presidential campaign this time round was the Democrats' usage of web 2.0 media such as emails, blogs, youtube and social networking tools such as Facebook to reach out to the electorate, bypassing regular media.

The level of interaction between the presidential candidate and the electorate was never so immense. People probably felt they knew their candidate in many different ways than just the politician speaking over television broadcasts, news reports and presidential debates.

And for this generation of customisation and reality TV shows, being able to both follow in real time, the progress of their candidate and having a part in shaping the candidate's development makes sense, a lot of sense.

Towards the end of it all, the people felt that Obama was indeed their president, the president they personalised and chose - Obama belonged to them.

In a nation almost void of public ceremony, the inauguration is probably the one state event which is full of pomp and pageantry. The surrealism of election campaigns is now replaced with the surrealism of welcoming the messianic leader.

There is, however, always a danger in anticipation, because the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. The question is: has America invested too much hope on Obama to be the messianic saviour of our century?

In his inauguration speech, he is expected to address the Middle East crisis and speak to not just Americans but to the world. And perhaps in many corners of many American hearts, his first words as president are hoped to usher in, if not create, a better world, in America, in the Middle East and everywhere.

STEVEN SIM is currently in Washington DC as part of the International Visitors Program - "Transition of Power in the US Federal System" - a multi-regional project under the US Dept of State. He joins an estimated two million Americans in the inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama today.

Two Malaysians were selected to this programme along with 14 others from around the world. Malaysia is represented by the writer and Hannah Yeoh, state assemblyperson for Subang Jaya.