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WASHINGTON
— It's not the glamour French cuisine of the
"Camelot" White House under
John and Jacqueline Kennedy
. It's not the cowboy boots and
Texas
barbecue of
Lyndon B. Johnson
, or
Ronald and Nancy Reagan's
mix of designer clothes and brush-cutting getaways at
the ranch.
But
Barack and Michelle Obama
have put a distinctive stamp on the White House during
their first year there, and it's not what many in
Washington
expected.
Instead
of reflecting their barrier-breaking distinctiveness —
the first black president, the first first lady with a
high-powered executive career — the Obamas have
projected a carefully crafted image of ordinariness.
What has
emerged is a kind of neo-1950s vision of the first
family as the embodiment of traditional "American
mom, dad and the kids" values.
"If
you were to create the perfect American family in the
laboratory, the Obamas would be it," said
Robert Thompson
, a professor of popular culture at
Syracuse University
. "That whole family is the model of perfect,
young, forward-thinking, good-looking Americans."
The
president, who is known to have a passion for
basketball, now also plays golf in his free time, and
more recently, tennis. The first lady, who initially
attracted attention for her outspoken comments and
bare-shouldered outfits, grows vegetables in a backyard
garden.
And she
now follows the lead of most other first ladies in
championing noncontroversial causes — support for
military families and healthful eating.
Nor have
the Obamas made a splash on the
Washington
social circuit, choosing instead to stick close to old
friends.
The image
seems to be working.
In a
recent survey, the Obamas topped the list of celebrities
Americans most wanted as neighbors, beating out former
Alaska
Gov.
Sarah Palin
and talk-show host
Ellen DeGeneres
.
And a
sparkling inauguration, an organic garden and scores of
magazine covers have contributed to
Michelle Obama's
likability. In Gallup polls, her favorability rating has
shot up since moving into the White House, climbing 20
percentage points in
March 2009
from its 43 percent low in
June 2008
.
President Obama
's favorability is at 72 percent, according to a Gallup
survey this month.
"I
think the American people appreciate the normalcy, and
that's part of why his likability remains high,"
said
Leonard Steinhorn
, a communications professor at
American University
in
Washington
. "He's a guy who likes to go and get burgers. ...
He wants to be with his kids, wants to go on dates with
his wife."
That the
first African American family in the White House would
so quickly become the nation's "every family"
was neither an accident nor inevitable.
There
were moments during Obama's presidential campaign when
aides worried that a biracial man, "with a
funny-sounding name," was too strange for the
American electorate and that his executive,
straight-talking wife from the
South Side
of
Chicago
might not be an asset either.
Michelle Obama
sparked a furor early in the campaign for comments
interpreted as saying her husband's candidacy had for
the first time made her proud that she was an American.
And Obama
had to distance himself from the pastor of his
Chicago
church, the Rev.
Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
, whose inflammatory pronouncements on race threatened
to derail the campaign.
Since
entering the White House, the first lady has largely
focused on mainstream causes.
"Who
could possibly dispute or do anything but admire her
involvement with military families or planting vegetable
gardens?" said
Richard Norton Smith
, a presidential historian. "Both are safe."
The
Obamas have also finessed the issue of picking a church.
Although
expressing a desire to find a regular church, Obama has
not associated himself with one congregation, minister
or church doctrine. Instead, he has been attending
nondenominational services at a chapel at
Camp David
.
That a
family in which one member is the leader of the free
world can be called "normal" may be a feat of
modern image-making. More than any other political
family in the television era, the Obamas have opened up
the White House and their family life to interviews,
house tours, even a recent appearance on the Food
Network.
What the
Obamas sometimes project, though, is what some scholars
call aspirational normality: It looks average, but is
far from it.
Recently,
People magazine reported that the Obama girls,
Sasha
and Malia, are allowed to watch TV — the Disney
Channel and
Nickelodeon
only — just on the weekends.
American
children watch, on average, three to four hours of
television a day, according to a 2005 survey by the
Kaiser Family Foundation, but many parents wish they
hewed closer to the Obama standard.
"Their
appeal," said
Ted Widmer
, a professor of history at
Brown University
and a former advisor to
President Clinton
, "is that they reach out to so many people."
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