Is Barack Obama Having an Eli Manning Experience?

After 3 years of at best up and down performances, Eli Manning led his team to the 2008 Super Bowl Championship. Besides his inconsistency, the biggest complaint against Manning was that he was too calm and never got emotional. As the Giants won their last 7 road games in the regular season, then 3 road playoff games and then upset the previously undefeated New England Patriots, Eli Manning was given tremendous credit for staying calm and keeping his team focused.

Since the beginning of his campaign, Barack Obama's top supporters have been concerned that his overly steady and calm demeanor made him seem distant, robotic and overly intellectual. As the debates have played out amid our economic crisis, Obama's steady, calm demeanor has enhanced his ability to communicate his ideas and previously undecided voters seem to be saying that although they don't know if his previous experience directly prepares him for being President, his calm consistency is exactly what they want in leadership in these times of great uncertainty.

Weaknesses becoming strengths, or changing views on the value of the "strong silent type"?

There are so many things that have broken correctly to enable Barack Obama to get to this point. A desire for change, an electorate that may just be free enough of prejudice to judge him on his merits, an incredibly unpopular president from the other party, an economy that trumps all other potential issues including political leadership experience, political ideology (liberal or conservative), military and foreign affairs experience, etc. Perhaps this is one of those times in our country's history when everything lines up to overwhelmingly usher in a President who was at best a long shot just 4 years earlier. In 1976, Ronald Reagan lost the Republican nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford and at his age, it was assumed to be the end of his career. Four years later, he started what many Republicans believe is one of the greatest Presidencies in their party's history.