Barack Obama is not the Messiah. Some of you may believe he isn’t because someone else already is, but for the rest of you, I just wanted to clear that up. Whether he will even be a stand-out American president is still up for grabs. But one thing is for certain: the American people are beguilingly both wishy-washy and emphatic when it comes to political leadership. President Obama is the best example in recent memory of the latter.

The overwhelming roar from his fans produced an almost maniacal devotion to him: comedians who mocked him found their audiences silent; manufacturers churned out t-shirts, mugs, jigsaw puzzles, and lava lamps (yes, lava lamps. Buy yours at http://lavaworld.com/obama/obamalavalamp.html). Even after the race was won and the new president assumed office, the enthusiasm has continued. The logo of Pepsi’s Optimism Project is a not-at-all-veiled imitation of Obama’s campaign logo, and you can even express your adulation for him by eating a scoop of Ben and Jerry’s Yes Pecan. Whether this will last throughout his term will largely depend on how he performs, but it certainly seems like many are seriously considering proclaiming him the Son of God and calling it a day.

The Messianic rise of Obama has been brought about through a combination of the public’s potential for ferocity when ferocity is due and, I believe, a conscious taking advantage on Obama’s part of this capability in the people. It didn’t hurt that he is also young, good-looking, an eloquent and charismatic speaker, and the first of his ethnicity to represent a major party’s ticket. It also didn’t hurt that he followed one of the worst presidents in United States history.

Many of our best-loved and most influential presidents have succeeded our most abysmal failures. President James Buchanan is widely regarded among scholars as one of the worst presidents in our history. It might not be an unfair title, since his dismissive treatment of Southern succession resulted in the Civil War. After him was Abraham Lincoln, who not only navigated and ended the war, but also oversaw the end of slavery during his two terms in office. Since civil war is arguably the most serious crisis to befall a nation, any president who gets reelected during one is a remarkable politician indeed. In the last century, a similar exchange took place, when the widely unpopular Herbert Hoover lost his reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Whether President Hoover could have in fact ended the Great Depression if he had more time is left only to speculation. But the people were sufficiently unconvinced that he could. Not only did they choose someone else when given the chance, they reelected that someone three times. But FDR is remembered as a great president not only because he had an easy act to follow, but because he did shovel the country out of the Great Depression. He also helped the Allies to victory in World War II, founded the Social Security system, and helped create the United Nations. Would he and Lincoln be so revered if they hadn’t followed such incompetent presidents? That too lies in only speculation, but surely the great popularity with which they were embraced by the public is at least partly due to severe dissatisfaction with their predecessors.

At this point, most agree that George W. Bush was a terrible president. Even many Republicans abhor his decisions, and many who voted for him—twice—have grown to resent the effects of that decision. Between multiple wars, a complete economic meltdown, and growing energy concerns, our country hasn’t been in such bad shape for a very long time. Barack Obama may very well have been elected president under different circumstances, but in my opinion his historic win is due not only to his own merits but also the conditions under which he ran.

Citizens are nervous about transferring power when the going is good. And why wouldn’t they be? When what you currently have is doing just fine, it’s hard to get too excited about an unknown. And despite multiple books, thousands of speeches, and endless internet campaigning, Obama was a complete unknown. A junior Senator with no executive experience, very little of what he had accomplished in the past gave direct evidence to how he would perform as president. But the people didn’t seem to care. Obama knew this, and sculpted his campaign based on electrifying speeches rather than exhaustive accounts of his prior accomplishments. He certainly didn’t hide that he went to Harvard, that he ascended through the political ranks quickly, or that he voted against the Iraq invasion. But he didn’t focus his campaign on these things.

He nailed his campaign by telling the people what they wanted to hear: change. Few recent presidents have had approval ratings as low as Bush’s. Obama’s campaign capitalized on this, not just by making “change” its mantra but also by pronouncing Senator McCain just another Bush. Most conservatives still went for McCain in the end, but the liberals got so fired up about Obama that it was almost impossible to hear anything else above the din. While many conservatives were fed up with Bush, by the end of Bush’s second term liberals had become completely unhinged. Obama fed the fire of the liberals’ desperation by delivering his message of change in eloquent, inspiring, and sometimes even quasi-religious language.

He frequently asked his supporters to believe, most prominently through the slogan “Change We Can Believe In.” And in at least one instance (a speech in Lebanon, New Hampshire in January of ’08) he likened voting to a spiritual experience: “You will have an epiphany…and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama.” Senator Clinton mocked this rhetoric, but that it was effective is without question. The American people were so utterly convinced that he could spearhead change in Washington and in their lives, and that he was personally invested in making the country a better place, that not only did they nominate him as the Democratic candidate, they elected him president.

I believe that President Obama is serious about wanting to bring change to America. I believe that he genuinely wants to make the country, and the world, a better place. But I also think that he, like every other candidate this nation has seen, has much more personal reasons for running for the most powerful office in the world. People don’t run for president just because they want to change the world. They run for president because they are ambitious.

So while I am excited by the civic involvement he inspired in so many people, and while I am excited by what he has done thus far in office, I think the Obama-as-the-Messiah idea is growing a little tired. There is no need to put him on magazine covers basking in a celestial aura, as The Rolling Stone and many other publications did. And there is danger in assuming that because he is now president all our problems will be solved. He himself spoke sternly against complacency in his Inaugural Address, and it is imperative that citizens don’t rest on their laurels assuming he’ll do all the work. He is a human being, he will make mistakes. Ultimately, the fate of this nation is in the hands of the people, as it has always been.

As you may have heard, we made history on November 4^th, 2008, with the election of Barack Obama as the President of the United States. Headlines erupted around the world announcing America’s first black president, magazines declared a triumph for African Americans, and comedians quickly parodied a projected downfall of white power. Along with millions of other Americans, I shared in the elation about Obama’s election. I was elated first and foremost that he is a Democrat—bringing a much needed balm to a Republican-scarred Washington—and a charismatic one besides. I was elated by his message of change, the way he was able to get so many millions of Americans fired up for their country again, and by his plans for our troubled nation. And while I absolutely appreciate the historic significance of this election, I can’t say that I am particularly excited because Barack Obama is black. I am excited because he is not white.

From what I’ve seen in the months since the election, the media, as well as the general populace, places special emphasis on President Elect Obama’s blackness, as opposed to his minority-ness. But I would have been equally excited about a Hispanic candidate, an Asian candidate, or a Native American candidate (that’ll be the day). This is not to say that I am indifferent to the unique history of African-Americans. While every minority has faced adversity in this great but often unforgiving nation, most agree that African-Americans had it the worst (probably because the Native Americans were wiped out to such an extent that people forget they are there). Because of the horrific nature of slavery, and the dramatic civil rights struggle previous generations of blacks went through, it is truly thrilling to see one of their number elected to the most powerful office in the world (even though he, um, isn’t a descendent of slavery or the civil rights movement…but that’s another topic for another blog). So while this history does move me, I am more focused on the input of diversity into the American government—any elected official who is not a white man gives me at least a little excitement, regardless of party affiliation. Because the problem with our government, if I may be so bold as to reduce the woes of a preposterously complex institution to a single fault, is that it is made up of too many white men.

Not that I have anything against white men. Several of my absolute all-time favorite human beings are white men. And while the penchant of some white men in previous centuries to steal land and kill and/or oppress the previous occupants can leave a sour taste in one’s mouth, it is of course neither the whiteness nor the maleness that is itself the problem (let’s not forget: whiteness and maleness gave us penicillin, the Sistine Chapel, and the moon landing). In fact, I think a government of almost exclusively white men would be just dandy—if our country was made up of almost exclusively white men. The United States of America is an astonishingly diverse nation, yet the government represents but a sliver of that diversity with its overwhelming percentage of white male elected officials.

And of course I’m not just talking race here. Half the population of our country is made up of women, yet we hold just 16 seats in the United States Senate. Can it come as a surprise then that issues of particular interest to women are often ignored and routinely suppressed? Similarly, while blacks make up 12% of the population, they have just one representative in the Senate, and representation of Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans is also disproportionate to their actual numbers. The result is a government which requires insurance companies to cover Viagra, but bends over backwards to restrict access to contraception. The result is a justice system which puts African-Americans behind bars in staggeringly incommensurate numbers, despite equitable participation in illegal activity by all ethnicities.

This is not to say that a diverse government will magically right these wrongs. After all, theoretically politicians pledge to represent all their constituents, so all colors and flavors of citizens should have a voice. It is abundantly clear, however, that this is not the reality of the United States government. Perhaps instead of working to have broader representation of women and minorities, we could just work on getting the current government to listen to them a little closer, but in the end I don’t think this would be as effective. Say what you want about empathy, about walking a mile in someone else’s Manolos or however the adage goes, I simply cannot believe that so uniform a government can truly be of the people, by the people, and for the people; not when those people are so diverse.

This logic is admittedly a slippery slope; I readily admit that class misrepresentation among elected officials is as bad or worse as that of gender or race. But the realities of achieving a high-level political career are such that the need for an advanced education is basically built in—or so I’d like to hope anyway. Theoretically in Horatio Alger America, anyone from any class can become a politician, but the nature of the education involved assumes that they will be of a higher class once they get there. I do think though that a wider representation of races and genders in government can only help the causes of other disproportionately represented demographics.

In the late 18^th century, a group of white male landowners had a dream. It was a stunningly magnificent dream, but it did provide rights first and foremost for other white male landowners, leaving everyone else behind. From that point of view, the very foundation of this country is based on sexism, racism, and classism. And yet, in the past 233 years, people of all genders, races, and classes have worked tirelessly to create a new version of that dream. Suffragists, abolitionists, civil rights and labor leaders have all demanded a voice in their government, and it is through their efforts that the American political landscape is becoming more inclusive each day. We have a long road ahead of us, but I for one am incredibly grateful that I am alive to see the great step forward taking place this Tuesday, with the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. In the 21^st century, let us have a new dream: that someday the United States will have a government that is not only by the people and for the people, but truly of the people—all the people.