Obama's "image problem" is that he is a chameleon of no fixed identity (ironic in the age of "identity politics"). No one really knows where he started out from (African Muslim?; Indonesian Muslim?; Hawaii beach boy?; Kansas farm boy?) but he knows where he wants to go.
When he was selected by the self-selected "knowledge elite" (AKA supercilious snobs!) to join their ranks at Columbia and Harvard, he adopted their ways and their image. This was his entrée into the big time and his ticket to political stardom; as Joe Biden said: "clean" and not at all like the previous "African-American" contenders for national office.
To enter politics, he had to make a choice: Play the cool, almost-white, "leader"-type, ala Brooke, Powell and Rice (anathema to his academic support network), or play the upper-class home-boy from Chicago: a street cred covering over the supercilious snob. The choice was obvious. It took a few tries to get the street-cred makeover to at least a passable shade (no pun intended!) but he got there. African Americans will always have nagging doubt about whether he is "black enough", but what are their choices if they want to make the breakthrough to having an "African American" president at this time?
Now he needs to make another image change to "regular Joe" who happens to be an African American from Harvard. The next few months will determine how successful he is at it.
He needs coaching from that other chameleon, Bill Clinton (poor-white-trash to Yale and Oxford to "regular Joe", as required.). He wrote the book on this scam.
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