HE WAS NOT CALM...:

Obama's strength is now his weakness: The charisma he once displayed so powerfully has dried up. Voters now complain of the President's coolness (Mary Ann Sieghart, 8 November 2010, Independent)

When President Obama redecorated the Oval Office, it was in various shades of beige. "I like taupe," he explained to The New York Times. Taupe is an abomination. It's a nothing colour. It doesn't shout "drab"; it murmurs it. What a tragic mutation from the vibrant red and blue of those Obama posters emblazoned with the word "HOPE". It is as if Obama's taste in decoration is a symbol of the energy that has leeched out of his presidency, culminating in those awful midterm election results last week. The virtues he had then have become his faults now.

Remember how appealing the "no-drama Obama" was during the presidential election campaign? We marvelled at his imperturbability. Nothing fazed him. His Republican opponent, John McCain, became increasingly tetchy during the campaign, which made voters wonder whether they wanted a President who might lose his rag under pressure. With Obama, there was never any danger of that. And, given that Lehman Brothers was collapsing and looked as if it might bring the world financial system down with it, a leader who was calm under duress seemed exactly what America – and the rest of the world – needed.

Two years on, US voters are beginning to question that judgment. They want their President to understand what they are going through, to empathise with their worry, their anger and their insecurity. They are either terrified of losing their jobs and their homes, or furious that it has already happened. They no longer want to be governed by someone with the demeanour (and decorating taste) of a Harvard law professor or a management consultant.
...he just was not.