Abstract
When President Barack Hussein Obama left office on January 20, 2017, he left a fascinating legacy. The Obama presidency will remain an intriguing part of our nation’s political history, and we can now say that there were unexpected achievements and failures. His tenure was both historical and complex, and will inevitably be compared with his predecessors and successors. The chapters in this volume are a serious assessment of President Obama’s tenure written by a diverse team that includes political scientists, sociologists, historians, and economists. They provide critical insights into the man and his policies and, more importantly, are written in a manner that makes them available to laypersons, journalists, students, and scholars.
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Notes
- 1.
Thomas E. Cronin and Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) p. 1.
- 2.
“President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address,” January 21, 2009. www.Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov
- 3.
See Barack Obama The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Three River Press, 2006) Chapter 5.
- 4.
For an interpretation of the election, see Michael Tesler and David O. Sears Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and Dreams of a Post Racial Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
- 5.
“President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address,” January 21, 2009. www.Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov
- 6.
See Robert Kuttner Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2008).
- 7.
Stephen Skowronek The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1993).
- 8.
Wilbur C. Rich “The Lincoln and Obama Legacies: The perils of channeling” unpublished paper delivered at UI Springfield).
- 9.
Ta-Nehisi Coates “My President Was Black” The Atlantic (January/February, 2017) p. 52.
- 10.
Coates, op.cit p. 60.
- 11.
Fred Greenstein, “The Qualities of Effective Presidents: An Overview from FDR to Bill Clinton,” Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 1 (March, 2000). pp. 178–185.
- 12.
Ibid., 180.
- 13.
Ibid., 181.
- 14.
Ibid., 181.
- 15.
James P. Pfiffner “Decision Making in the Obama White House” Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 41, No. 2 (June, 2011), p. 260.
- 16.
See Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
- 17.
See Richard Neustadt Presidential Power (Free Press, New York, 1991).
- 18.
Former Massachusetts Governor Romney had signed a similar health care reform bill in his state that made his criticisms of Obamacare hollow. During his time in Massachusetts Romney had a reputation of being a moderate and therefore he had to appeal to very conservative party base. He spent a lot of time and energy reassuring the base he was a serious conservative. He also made an insensitive remark about 47% of Americans. He claimed that they pay no income taxes and that he was not worrying about these people.
- 19.
Neustadt, p. 183.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 184.
- 22.
“Inaugural Address by President Obama” January 21, 2013. www.Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov
- 23.
See Wilbur C. Rich, “Presidential Leadership and the Politics of Race: Stereotypes, Symbols and Scholarship,” in Wilbur C. Rich ed. African American Perspective on Political Science, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), pp. 232–250.
- 24.
See Wilbur C. Rich, “Making Race Go Away: President Obama and the Promise of a Post-Racial Society,” in Andrew J. Dowdle, Dirk C. Van Raemdonck and Robert Maranto, ed. The Obama Presidency: Change and Continuity, (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 17–29.
- 25.
James T. Kloppenberg, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), and Joseph Perschek “The Obama Presidency and the Recession: Political Economy, Ideology, and Policy” New Political Science, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December, 2011) pp. 429–444.
- 26.
See Michael A. Genovese and Todd L. Belt The Post-Heroic Presidency: Leveraged Leadership in an Age of Limits (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2016).
- 27.
Ibid., p. 196.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 197.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
Quoted in “Explaining the Riddle” Economist (August 23, 2008) p. 20.
- 31.
Bruce Miroff, Pragmatic Illusions (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1976). p. 294.
- 32.
See Benjamin Ginsberg Presidential Government (New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press, 2016).
- 33.
Charles O. Jones The Presidency in a Separated System (Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005).
- 34.
Carlos Lazada “The Self-Referential Presidency of Barack Obama” Washington Post (December 15, 2016) Lozada, Carlos. “Essay: The self-referential presidency of Barack Obama.” Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2016. Science In Context, http://link.galegroup.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/apps/doc/A473994620/SCIC?u=char69915&sid=SCIC&xid=3cdd9030. Accessed 15 June 2018.
- 35.
“Remarks by the President in Farewell Address.” January 10, 2017. http://Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/
- 36.
See Wilbur C. Rich, The Post-Racial Society is Here (New York: Routledge, 2013).
- 37.
See Michael A. Genovese and Todd Belt, op cit, p. 219.
- 38.
See Victor Thompson, Modern Organization, (New York: Knopf, 1961).
- 39.
Ta-Nehisi Coates “My President Was Black” The Atlantic (January/February, 2017).
- 40.
Ian Reifowitz. Obama’s America: A Transformative Vision of National Identity, (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2012).
- 41.
John Kenneth White Barack Obama’s America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion ended the Reagan Era (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009) p. 152.
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Rich, W.C. (2019). Introduction: Barack Obama and the Transformational Impulse. In: Rich, W. (eds) Looking Back on President Barack Obama’s Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01545-9_1
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