Professor-in-Chief

Emily Rutherford

In the run-up to the presidential election, comparisons between Barack Obama and former Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson were often bandied about. Chicago Magazine, for example, devoted a lengthy article to the subject in its September issue, and everyone from Nicholas Kristof to Princeton professor Julian Zelizer has made the association. An unsuccessful contender against Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, Stevenson is said to have lost the election in part because of a so-called "Egghead Effect": Given his Princeton and Northwestern degrees and what sometimes came across as a condescending attitude, he was perceived as overly intellectual in a way that didn’t, shall we say, incline the average voter to have a beer with him. And so in the course of Obama’s candidacy, Democrats and Republicans alike looked to this Democratic presidential hopeful from Chicago out of concern (or glee, depending on which side they were on) that Obama would meet the same fate.

But Obama didn’t. Come January, we will have the first former university educator in the White House since Woodrow Wilson. Obama is known for the sophisticated way in which he uses language and for his nuanced policy stances that distinguish him from the far more dogmatic attitude of the Bush administration. Like Stevenson, Obama launched his national political career with a Democratic National Convention speech (Stevenson’s address in his role as the governor of Illinois so impressed the delegates that he was drafted as the Party’s nominee). Both men started their presidential campaigns after short stints in Illinois politics, running against war heroes in the context of unpopular wars, but, as hindsight shows us, there is quite a lot which renders Obama quite distinct from Stevenson. These differences enabled him to win the election and—we might hope—they will help him change the White House through deliberate policy choices and the selection of an ideologically diverse Cabinet.

Throughout his campaign, Obama distinguished himself by his ability to talk to voters like adults—take, for example, his speech on race last March. It relied on an assumption of the maturity of his audience, their ability to grasp a sense of history and perspective, and even their ability to sit still through a lengthy and complex narrative. That’s hardly something we as voters are usually trusted to do—and yet it worked very well. Perhaps in part this is because Obama, unlike Stevenson, deliberately puts his rhetorical skills to constructive use, uniting his audiences instead of alienating them. Stevenson did not espouse the same sense of unity and compromise that Obama does. And that’s why with him, the out-of-touch label stuck.

Barack Obama teaching at the University of Chicago Law School. (AP Photo/Obama for America)

As much of an election is about the surrounding context as it is about the candidates’ personal qualities. Obama’s success, in large part, was spurred by the current financial crisis. While in Stevenson’s day, the fundamentals of the economy really were strong, thus favoring Republican economic policy, a Democratic candidate who can respond well to economic recession does have an edge. And Obama responded well: It takes intelligence to explain things clearly, and this is where the modern version of the "Egghead Effect" served to his advantage. The professorial tone, which was of such great concern before the crisis ballooned, turned into a key talent when it could be harnessed to explain to the public why they are having difficulty making ends meet, and what can be done about it. This complexity and caution served to distinguish Obama from his more impetuous rival, who opposed government aid here and supported it there, suspended his campaign one day and resumed it again the next. Earlier in the process, what those concerned about the "intellectual" label feared was not the policy, but the tone with which it was delivered—but interestingly enough, the American people seem much more willing than was previously thought to accept a personality that is thoughtful and deliberate.

Obama may be intelligent and well-educated, but he can’t be expected to know everything. He has applied that same deliberation to selecting his campaign advisors, his transition team, and now his cabinet. He surrounds himself with intelligent people who, as he said on the campaign trail last year, aren’t just "‘yes’ people…who are just telling me what I want to hear all the time." This is the best indication of how the "intellectual" bent might better the Obama administration, which, as it forms, seems to be drawing on the idea of Abraham Lincoln’s ideologically diverse Cabinet to produce a body that can inform the president from a wide variety of perspectives. Unlike his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama is interested in hearing from advisors who aren’t in dogmatic lockstep with him—teaching at the University of Chicago may only have been a small part of his career, but like any academic worth his salt, he doesn’t shun a good argument. That will certainly shape how he addresses concerns about the economy, foreign policy, civil liberties, the environment, and all the other questions that will face him over the next four years.

Soon-to-be-President Obama will begin form policy and legislation on a number of key issues: health care reform, economic turnaround, and restoring a liberal internationalist foreign policy. Ultimately, though, what may prove to be a more enduring paradigm in a long-term historical sense is the return of intellectualism to the White House. In recent decades—and particularly in the last one—it has become preferable to have a president who is "likable."

Perhaps we will learn to recognize the wisdom of listening to people who represent a full spectrum of opinion, the merits of a small-c conservative decision-making process, and, above all, the value of rhetoric. Obama launched his career on a speech and he built it on speeches, the lines from which are now ingrained into our collective memory of the last two years. But when he won with those speeches, he reminded us that education and intelligence have an intrinsic benefit that translates to responsibility in running a country. Perhaps this election is historic enough that we’ll remember that part of it the next time we cast our votes for president.

Emily Rutherford is a freshman at Princeton University and a regular blogger at Pushback and writes a monthly column for Campus Progress.

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