#63, Ain’t that the truth. When a boss once asked me why I was so good at avoiding having crazy people as clients I told him I was the black sheep of my family-the only one who had finished school, avoided substance abuse issues and was earning a good living via legitimate means.

I think Clinton and Obama are alike in basic emotional makeup but quite dissimilar in manner of expression because of differences in upbringing. It’s not just the narcissistic sense of grandiosity and the craving to be the center of attention. Both men came to the Presidency with a paucity of genuine accomplishments despite an impressive education because they share a desire to keep their options open that hampers decision making.

I saw a lot of this type in the business world. They’d rise fast but stall out in mid career. Headhunters loved to present them to clients because they interviewed well. Usually they moved on to an even better position between the time the placement fee was due and the genuine results were expected. When the started to interview for the very top jobs, that lack of genuine accomplishment often caught up with them. Both Obama and Clinton decided to run for the presidency in a year when party elders told them to wait until they had more experience. I think each man knew that time is always their enemy, that it would make the lack of real accomplishment all the more noticeable to voters.

The irony is that Clinton, once called the first black president, takes much of his personal style from the culture Thomas Sowell described so well in Black Rednecks and White Liberals. It isn’t a style that plays well to a great many people outside that culture itself, which may be the reason so many voters were wary of Clinton from the start. Obama, despite his African father, is quite WASP in demeanor. His mother’s family is from the cultural line that traced from Boston Puritan through prairie Congregationalist to west coast communist. This style was reinforced in Chicago where he learned that while he needed the Rev. Wright to give him street cred among black voters, when it came to raising campaign cash, there was nothing Chicago lakefront liberals love more than a black who talks and acts white. That cool, detached style served to mask the extreme nature of Obama’s policy positions during the election cycle.