The election of President Obama, his fi rst term, and his subsequent re-election have facilitated immense in-depth, emotive, and immense speculation regarding the implied and actual meaning and the importance of the Obama presidency. Three central strands of the Obama story seem to stand out as key factors in the numerous discussions. One, the notion that Obama’s elections represented a decisive break from America’s racialized past and was representative of demographic changes that could change the face of American politics; two, whether Obama’s personal identity has or has not had a defi nitive impact on the substance or character on US politics which, given the suggestion that Obama was or would be the new face of American power, is particularly interesting; and three, that the fi rst African-American president’s identity profi le would provide the soft power appeal that President Bush and his predecessors did not have. The importance of Obama has been viewed through the prism of his (initial) unique global status, the rise of non-white nations, and the relative decline of America and Western Europe.