“Cool” Obama

In 2008, he was the candidate of “change” and of “hope” for Americans. In 2012, he plays the card of the “cool” president, relaxed and modern…

While the Republicans tear each other apart in the midst of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama refines his star image on the Internet and in person. In addition to his charisma, sense of humor and political abilities, above all the president of the world’s biggest superpower puts on his quality of “ordinary” man; a man who, like 52 percent of Americans, has a Facebook account. A trendy guy who blogs, wishes his wife a “Happy Valentine’s Day” on Twitter, shares his music playlist on Spotify, publishes his photos on Instagram and broadcasts a video of himself playing with a marshmallow cannon.

A strategy so well anchored in social networks that every gesture of the 44th president of the United States, whether it be spontaneous or very calculated, becomes an instant buzz on the Internet.

The latest example to date is a video of President Obama during a visit to Prince George Community College of Largo, Maryland on March 15. Stephon, a young 26-year-old deaf-mute, was two steps away from Barack Obama, who was busy waving to the crowd that had come to see him. When the president finally looked at him, Stephon confided in him in sign language: “I am proud of you.” Without hesitation, instinctively almost, Obama thanked him… in the same language. “This is one of those moments that humanizes the office of the presidency,” writes the site Distriction.com, which reported the story.

The same day, Stephon posted a video in which he emotionally describes the scene that he’ll “never forget.” “I regret that I could have done better holding my camera while talking to Obama… I was like wow! He understood me after I said I was proud of him. It was so amazing… I was just speechless. Right after he thanked me, he smiled at another deaf lady who signed ‘I love you.’ When I shook his hand it did not feel like he was superior to me. He was just a humble man. I am just impressed by him… and he will win a second term without a doubt. Yeah, I feel safe to have him for another term.”

By far “cooler” than George W. Bush, who wiped his hands on the shirt of Bill Clinton after greeting survivors of the earthquake in Haiti during a tour that the two ex-presidents made in that country in March 2010.

In February, another scene of Barack Obama became viral on the Internet, the one of the president singing “Sweet Home Chicago” at the side of Mick Jagger and the guitarists B.B. King and Buddy Guy. It was during a concert organized for “Black History Month,” the month commemorating the contributions of the black community to American history and culture.

This had been the second musical incursion in one month for Mr. Obama who, on January 20 in New York, had started singing the languorous soul hit of Al Green, “Let’s Stay Together,” in the Apollo theater of Harlem where he had participated in an electoral reunion with an eye on the presidential elections on Nov. 6.

Obviously, it isn’t only videos of Obama that tour the Web. The most serious and the most offset photos of Obama, spread by his team on Flickr, are shared profusely on social networks. Whether he is surrounded by the most senior security officials in the “Situation Room” in order to make the high risk decision of killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, or in the middle of playing rugby alone in his office, or nibbling on a tortilla with his wife Michelle in an elevator, or even greeting a cleaner fist to fist like a rapper at the White House… all the photos are for the taking.

But to be really “cool” it is also necessary to surround oneself with “cool” people — something that Barack Obama seems to have understood well. That’s at least what we can deduce from his choice of surprise candidate at the head of the World Bank: a futuristic rapper answering to the name of Jim Yong-Kim.

Born in Seoul in 1959, Jim Yong-Kim was the first Asian-American to become a leader of an Ivy League school, the elite of American universities, by becoming president of Dartmouth College in 2009. He’s also a specialist in global health. In 2011, he was filmed during a student event wearing a white leather jacket and rapping most convincingly.