but i say the answer is pretty simple. because he cares. obama is passionate and means what he says and can express it so that, yeah, we see it too. he gives the same speech, with tweaks and yet he genuinely speaks from the heart each time. this is unusual for public speakers, let alone politicians, so we're taken aback.
Obama relies, Frank writes, on a "rhetorical strategy of consilience, where understanding results through translation, mediation, and an embrace of different languages, values, and traditions." He credits the New Republic's Noam Scheiber with translating Obama's cross-cultural signals in a 2004 campaign profile that documents the candidate's leap from the Illinois senate to the U.S. Senate. Scheiber observes:
Whereas many working-class voters are wary of African American candidates, whom they think will promote black interests at the expense of their own, they simply don't see Obama in these terms. This allows him to appeal to white voters on traditional Democratic issues like jobs, health care, and education—just like a white candidate would.
