Who Will Be on the Defensive, Obama or Romney?

An election campaign often seems like a competition to determine which new leader will raise his shield, just like the character Vitalstatistix in Asterix — the custom, indeed, seems to come from the Franks. Politics barely escapes the cult. The campaign for the presidency of the United States is no exception: Who will be the chief, Obama or Romney?

In addressing outgoing President Barack Obama, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, stated with playful eloquence: “Today is a much different day and that your leadership has brought this nation through the storm, and we thank you.” Combining family piety and civil religion, First Lady Michelle Obama said, “This president has brought us out of the dark and into the light.” An Obama spokesperson casts doubt on the leadership of the likely Republican candidate Mitt Romney. The spokesperson, Lis Smith, expressed worry about “what can the American people expect of him as commander-in-chief.”

Is there any better expression than that pleonastic phrase “commander in chief” to describe the supposed omnipotence of the president of the United States? In accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, Obama has also been referred to as the “commander” of the nation. 69* years ago, another Democratic president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, threatened to ask Congress “to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” “We must,” he added, “move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline.”

Mitt Romney falls into the same trap. He has already criticized his opponent Newt Gingrich —now out of the race—as being “not the leader we need in a critical time.” He rebelled against the current “lack of presidential leadership.” He argues his experience as an entrepreneur guarantees that he can take leadership of the nation. He sees himself on the shield.

The fundamental question is whether a society really needs a president, a leader or a Führer. The American constitution explicitly states that the president is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” But between commanding the military and controlling the citizens of a free country, there is a small margin. Notwithstanding the simplicity of The Economist magazine, which asked whether Romney will be the future “CEO of America,” one can go a bit further: the difference between a free society and a people is precisely regimented in that the first does not need a prescriptive authority but, at most, a provider of public goods like national defense and justice.

Even in America, these ideas are conspicuously absent in the mouth of the tenors of the election campaign. Meanwhile, opinion polls show the electorate shouts louder in favor of choosing Obama than Romney to be hoisted on the presidential shield.

Pierre Lemieux is an associate professor at the University of Quebec in Outaouais and author of “One Crisis Can Hide Another.”

*Editor’s note: President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his inaugural address in 1933, 79 years ago, not 69.