ABSTRACT
Today, Barack Obama is a political rock star on a scale not seen since the popularity of JFK, if ever. Obama has disappointed some progressives who hoped he would be a more aggressive critic of the Republicans. The genius of Obama is his ability to pursue a progressive agenda in a bipartisan manner, to merge liberalism with practical politics. Obama's campaign was based upon the repudiation of the Reagan revolution and its conservative ideology that government is always evil and regulation is always bad. Much like the Reagan revolution that defined the American political landscape for a generation, even during the Bill Clinton years, the Obama presidency has the potential to be a revolution. Obama has mastered the delicate art of being a pragmatic idealist, a politician who doesn't forget the people he is supposed to serve, a man who long ago tossed away his rose-colored glasses, yet who refuses to become a cynic.
