Rising to it

I think that Obama went through this excellent process during his campaign that artists can go through when their at a creative peak. You can see it in the work of Prince during his "Sign 'O the Times" era, where he had received a lot of positive critical and commercial attention. It was apparent that he considered himself as a genius at that time and it just made him stronger. Of course, you can't keep that momentum going forever and things went back and forth for Prince over the years following. The same thing is bound to happen with Obama - I imagine this will happen particularly when all discover that it's beyond his power to lead the western world into a utopia (which he never claimed he could but people still seem to think it, or act like he will).

A couple of other things that interest me about Obama: his talent is very unthreatening! I wonder what that quality is, when you can show off your talent without belittling others. Not sure how he does that.
Also, just as he has a talent for communicating with Republicans and people leaning to the right politically, his aesthetic sense seems to cover a broad ground as well. On his Facebook profile, he lists Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach, and The Fugees as his favourite musicians. This might be a sincere list, but there seems to be something for everyone in there - Jazz, Folk, Motown, Baroque and R&B. All of these artists are broadly liked, and none are particularly contentious aesthetic choices. He also manages to avoid skewing to any particular demographic and demonstrate how open-minded he is.

Everyone can like the guy! He's even handsome in a non-threatening way.

His favourite quote is curous, though I'm not quite clear on what it means. It's from Martin Luther King, "The Arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

I think I get it, but not entirely sure....