Conclusion: Who was president Barack Obama?

Abstract

I will reevaluate the issues and observations made in the prior chapters and revisited the overall issues of the Obama presidential legacy. I returned to the point made in the introduction regarding the two types of legacy, preferential and referential. I emphasized how different historians may make different assessments of whether Obama met the demands of hope and change. I will discuss why some writers were prepared to dismiss his claims of a transformational president two years into his presidency. And how he dealt with the contradictions and paradoxes implicit in the presidency itself. I also cite Professor Scacco and Coe’s notion of an “ubiquitous presidency” as a way to explain Obama’s challenges. The modern presidency communicates with an increasing number of groups and is involved with a variety of issues. Finally, I discuss how institutionalizing presidential libraries and the pressure for former presidents to write quick memoirs about their tenure changed how scholars look at their legacy.