Obamas Updating First Family's Image
The First Family Has Changed The White House Culture, Some Experts Say
He carries a smartphone on his hip, goes out for burgers and plays pickup hoops. She goes to their daughters' soccer games, works in the garden and loves listening to her iPod. Together, they host poets, artists and musicians at their house and invite neighborhood kids to drop by.
Their kids, meanwhile, go to birthday parties, romp around with their new dog and get spoiled by Grandma.
Sounds like a lot of families -- but this is the nation's first family.
"The Obamas have changed the culture of the White House," says Dee Dee Myers, President Clinton's first press secretary.
President Obama may not have delivered on all the policy changes he promised since his election a year ago, but he and his family have brought dramatic social change to the nation's capital and to the country's collective image of its first family -- and not just because they're the first African Americans in charge at the White House.
The contrast with recent presidents is clear: George W. Bush had older kids, went to bed early, headed for his Texas ranch as often as he could and presided over a White House tightly buttoned down after the 9/11 attacks. Bill Clinton had his own reasons to stay low-key after the Monica Lewinsky scandal began in his second term.
"The Obamas' White House is the most open for cultural and intellectual activities since the Kennedy administration," says Douglas Brinkley, author and presidential historian at Rice University in Houston. "It's not simply a matter of doing events of statecraft and cultural gravitas. They have a great flair for American pop culture."
That the Obamas are a couple in step with the world around them is evident almost daily, whether the first lady -- a term that seems particularly archaic for a 45-year-old mom and Ivy League-educated lawyer -- is touting the benefits of organic food or the 48-year-old president is admitting on TV that he hasn't done a good enough job handling his share of the child-care duties.
Political observers of both parties say it generally works to the president's benefit. The polls bear this out. Although majorities now oppose the way Obama is handling issues from health care to Afghanistan, his overall approval rating has stayed at 50 percent or higher in Gallup's daily survey.
"He has a genuinely appealing personality and his staff understands that and he understands that," conservative commentator Tucker Carlson says. "Talking about his life is effective."
Myers says the Obamas probably know the image they project -- hip and multicultural but also casual and down-to-earth -- helps forge positive connections with the American people.
