Obama, the new JFK?

A funeral attended by presidents past and present. It is Senator Edward Kennedy’s final farewell held at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston. A milieu has come full circle in American politics. The “new king” presides over a ceremony rich in symbolism, a king spiritually descended from the noble line of Camelot. America is a land of the supposedly free, but many still yearn for the magic of ritual and royalty.

It is strange to read in biographies how Kennedy’s Roman Catholicism was a hurdle to overcome on his way to the White House. How far we have progressed, here was America’s first black president, Barack Obama, eulogising the last of the Kennedy princes. The vaulted ceilings of the Catholic Cathedral carrying his words of condolence to everyone while the fallen dragon, George W Bush listened on.

Many clichéd comparisons between Obama and his Democratic predecessor, Jack Kennedy, have been made: the soaring rhetoric, the “audacity of hope” and the good looks of the candidates. Both of whom were, establishment outsiders. As Obama had to overcome the last vestiges of racialism, Kennedy had to persuade the Democrats that he was not too young, too inexperienced, and above all, too Catholic. Both candidates understood the power of the word “change”. Kennedy’s former speechwriter, Richard Godwin, said: “He had to touch the secret fears and ambivalent longings of the American heart, divine and speak to the desire of a swiftly changing nation — his message grounded on his own intuition of some vague and spreading desire for national renewal.”

Likewise, Obama’s speechwriter, Jon Favreau, coined the catchphrase “Yes We Can”, effortlessly blending it with notions of nobility. In a sense, Kennedy’s pitch was counter-intuitive. The outgoing Ike Eisenhower, a decorated war hero, was the most popular president since FDR. Yet — and this speaks of iconic leadership — he read the mood of a restive America correctly: the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the white-collar economy, Soviet expansion and black civil unrest.

Obama’s rhetoric intuitively befitted our time. Obama’s “just words”, to quote his now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, served as “a staff to comfort” the American people in “the valley” of an economic depression and “the shadow” of al-Qaeda. Note my shameless filching of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd”. Any random reading of Kennedy and Obama’s speeches reveal the religious texture and musical tempo of the Old Testament’s prophets. In particular the Book of the Prophet Isaiah with themes of the “heart, divine and national renewal”.

In simple terms, the two candidates needed poetry and a country ready for change. The absence of either ingredient would have probably spelled failure in both contests. Both candidates only had a thin crust of public service in the Senate to offer, unlike their vastly experienced rivals. Another infrequently mentioned similarity, for we tend to treat our icons with kid gloves, is that Obama, like Kennedy, is not a fine speaker: he prospers only in the grand set pieces. First-time listeners are not prepared to hear the shrill recording of Kennedy’s Boston accent and, in his Senate days, the un-modulated voice, in his Presidential Library. Obama is already mocked for his perceived over-reliance on the teleprompter and his off-the-cuff remarks never match his formal eloquence. This in time moulds our perceptions. Watch over the next few years how even the most ardent partisans will begin to tire of it. Think of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Then there are appearances. Kennedy was the first American leader groomed for the television age. Kennedy’s television duels, the first ever, with Richard “Tricky Dicky” Nixon were said to tip the balance in his favour as he projected youth and, misleadingly, health. Both candidates showed a firm grasp of policy. But it was Kennedy’s grace in front of the camera, his Florida tan and good looks placed in sharp contrast to Nixon’s five o’clock shadow that convinced many viewers he was the more able.

Obama was the first American leader groomed for the internet age. His online campaign mobilised the young and floating voters, and raised record sums of funding with small-sized donations. His attractiveness is an iconographer’s dream. The “Hope” stencil portrait of Obama in the colours of the Union: solid red, white and blue, with the word “progress”, “hope”, or “change”, immediately evoked Jim Fitzpatrick’s Che Guevara poster, and today it adorns millions of T-shirts, mugs and chocolate bars in every American city.

The two presidents’ supposed robust health is an illusion. Kennedy’s frail body was ravaged by Addison’s disease; his ruddy glow a side-effect of injected cortisone. If fate had not intervened, his disease-ridden body may well have cut his presidency, if not his life short. Obama’s “six-pack” is chiselled by daily workouts, basketball sessions with his staff and a low cholesterol diet. Skinny in person, television magnifies him. Then, of course, there are the lovely first ladies. Jackie Kennedy was a legend in her own right. The camellia beauty sprinkled rosewater over Camelot. She was stylish in simple outfits and pillbox hats; a style emulated today by Carla Bruni. Jackie was elegant, erudite and charming. Michelle Obama is all these things too and possesses, perhaps, a seemingly less contrived touch. The winsome children complete the scene.

Obama’s advisors are deeply conscious of the dynastic parallels. This recognition might have been taken a step too far earlier this year. The White House released pictures showing Obama at his desk watched on by Caroline Kennedy. The scene depicted him peering into a section in subtle mimicry of her brother, John, who had looked out from the self-same desk 46 years earlier. What about the substance? The world watched intently as Kennedy’s administration ran into serious difficulties and the polls looked ominous. Obama’s Afghanistan of today looks like Kennedy’s Vietnam of yesteryear. Healthcare reform was presaged by the quest for a higher minimum wage and comprehensive housing legislation. Political support then, as now, did not run deep. Both men reached outside the democrat demesne for talent, raiding the opposing Republicans.

Then an assassin’s bullets brought down Kennedy in Dallas. The king had fallen and a world was gripped by an impotent frenzy. He passed on into fields of myth, leaving behind the shrapnel of broken dreams. Obama wears the mantle now and no heaven will bless the poetry of his words unless he rhymes them to action.