Column: We expect too much from our presidents

Mar 8, 2010 — USA Today

We expect too much from our presidents

By William Choslovsky

Remember when 100,000 people showed up in St. Louis, and thousands more in the rain just to catch a glimpse in Philadelphia?

Who was it for? The Beatles? The pope?

No, it was for candidate Barack Obama, who back in 2008 was our newest rock star, if not savior.

So what happened?

What happened is he won, and Candidate Obama became President Obama. And as with most things in life, the anticipation was better than the real thing.

In his defense, the president has not changed much. But neither have we, and therein lies the problem.

After all the celebratory hangovers wore off, the next day spouses still fought, bills remained unpaid and, at least in my case, I was still fat.

Washington vs. our daily lives

It all raises the question: How much does it even matter who the president is? Whether it was Obama or John McCain, would it have really changed our daily lives much? Do we put too much stock in our president?

If you have a loved one fighting in the military, then the commander in chief matters because he sends troops into harm's way and picks our battles. Likewise if you remain unemployed and must wonder whether your benefits will be further extended. That's pretty real.

But really, whatever the difference in the parties' tax policies or spending passions, in the end they are small and won't much affect the decisions or choices most make daily, will they?

Make no mistake, seeing such passion in our last election was wonderful, though it makes you wonder whether it was misplaced. When you consider the things that affect most of us on a daily basis - such as whether your garbage gets picked up or the quality of your kid's school - they have little to do with who is president. Instead, local officials such as school board representatives control those real influences, yet I suspect most of the folks that screamed at the presidential rallies can't name those people.

What the times require

To be sure, leadership - in and of itself - is important, which is why we look to the president in times of crisis. Plus, someone somewhere needs to make the tough calls and be "The Decider," as President George W. Bush put it.

Perhaps we put so much faith in our president today because with problems so big, we have little choice. We need a savior. But the president is no soothsayer. He doesn't heal the sick and can't walk on water.

Perhaps the positive spin to all this is that the franchise - American democracy - is bigger than any one person, even the president. But that's also the bad news as gridlock has become a staple of our democracy lately. Heck, where else can 41 stubborn senators trump the will of the other 59 mostly sober senators?

With that math, we just might need the Beatles or the pope to solve our problems after all.

William Choslovsky is a lawyer in Chicago.

(Obama: What happened?/AFP/Getty Images.)