Obama's imperial and presumptious manner will ultimately loose him the election.  The main stream pundits are fawning over the success of Obama's foreign excursion, with a common theme that he appears so presidential.  They contrast the images of Obama interacting with foreign leaders, speaking to throngs of euopeans, with John McCain who has been making a number of campaign stops at restaurants and convenience stores meeting with regular folks.  The conclusion is that Obama appears grand while McCain appears small. 

However, what the pundits fail to realize is that Obama's grandeur works against him as being out of touch with the common man.  Obama has fostered an imperial image in a number of ways.  His speeches often take on this messianic quality, even at one point claiming that he would be the one that would bring down the level of the oceans.  The settings of his speeches, with large throngs of people add to this sense of him being a larger than life figure. 

 

His actions also display his imperial and presumptious manner.  At one point he had a seal, somparable to a presidential seal, affixed to the podium when gave press conferences.  The seal had the image of the bald eagle and the phrase "yes we can" printed in latin onto the seal.  Ultimately the seal was taken away when he was ridiculed for it.  Today Obama held a joint press conference in France with the French president.  Obama probably felt that it made him look presidential, when it fact it made him look presumptious and arrogant to believe that he should already be taking on the role of the head of state of the United States.

 

In contrast, John McCain, who truly has had larger than life, heroic experiences, acts in a low key, humble, manner and down plays his accomplishments.  He rarely talks about his experiences in Vietnam and never talks about the contributions his military sons are making in Iraq.  Yet, it is this very low key manner that is connecting with the majority of citizens in this country.  A recent Rasmussen pole indicated that 58% of Americans believe that they share the same values as John McCain, while only 41% of Americans believe that Obama has similar values to them.  It will be interesting to see the pole results on this issue in the comming weeks.  My prediction is that the gap will widen with fewer Americans believing that they share similar values to Obama.  If that happens and the trend continues, then Senator McCain will be our next President.