Barack Obama launched his campaign for re-election in 2012 almost demurely. Timothy Lynch writes in The Conversation today that this low-key approach shouldn’t surprise us. Obama was a elected on the back of massive disillusionment in the political process following the Bush presidency. America was mired in two wars and the world’s greatest economy was teetering on the brink of collapse. Despite the passage of health care reform (whose future lies in the hands of the Supreme Court) and modest reductions in unemployment, Obama’s presidency has not lived up to the hype. “Obama is arguably a much better electoral campaigner than he is a chief executive,” writes Lynch.
In this video, Jenny Niven speaks to Glenn Moore about Obama’s 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father. Touching on themes of race, identity and social class, Moore interprets Obama’s vision of the American dream and explores how the US President fits uneasily into the category of ‘African American’.