Barack "I need to get better" Obama
Throughout his presidential campaign those surrounding Obama have heard him repeat the same thing time and time again "I need to get better". Those words were spoken after his candidacy was announced and also following the debates, defeats and victories.
Obama has learned to prepare himself for this competition. At times he seems as much like a skilled athlete as a politician. Long before Obama entered his political career he began sharpening not only his political skills, but his emotional and mental skills as well. The rigid self-discipline he has created is so complete that many of his friends and aides have declared he has established control over not only what he does but also how he feels. He does not easily triumph, despair or suffer resentment. For doing so would be an extravagance, a disruption from reaching his goals. Instead he separates himself from the given moment and assesses the big picture. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist once noted: "He doesn’t inhale".
Now that Obama has officially become the Democratic presidential nominee, it is very possible that some of the same qualities which have brought him steps from the White House; his intelligence, his seriousness, his ability to motivate and his seeming imperviousness from the strains that trouble others may be among his biggest hurtles to getting there.
