Is Barack Obama More Powerful than Previous US Presidents?

Just how much powerful has Barack Obama become? Well he is of course Commander in Chief of the nation considered to be the leader of the free world, which in itself conveys a tremendous amount of power. But the question is, does he have more power than other Presidents have had in the past? In constitutional terms the answer is no, there are restraints in place that limit the power of any man (our perhaps in the future woman) elected to the highest office in the land. Barack Obama still has to woo the members of the Senate and Congress to implement his changes.

But if one examines the power of personality it may be a different story. The respected Nobel panel awarded the President the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 not really based upon what he has achieved whilst in office, after all Obama has yet to complete his first year in the White House, but rather on the potential of what he could achieve in the future. No previous President can claim that.

This month Forbes Magazine not too surprisingly put Obama at number one in their annual list of the world’s most powerful people (with the President of the People’s Republic of China, Hu Jintao coming in second.) Not too surprising but did George W Bush ever gain such accolades? Not really.

Much also has to be said for Barack Obama’s power over the media. He was the first politician to truly embrace the Internet as a tool to sway voters hearts and minds and during his 2008 campaign he did so brilliantly. The White house now has a blog which Alexa.com rates as the 3,200th most visited website in the entire world. Who said politics was boring? (Although Barack Obama and his blogging team do have a ways to go to catch up ways to go before they catch up to Perez Hilton, who celebrity blog ranks an amazing 498th in the world)

Not everything of course has gone Obama’s way this year. He had to fight perhaps far harder than he had ever imagined over health care reform and the fight is still not quite over yet. He has faced growing opposition from grass roots right wing groups like “The Tea Party” whose frustration against the Obama regime seems to have galvanized them enough to prepare to stand candidates against traditional Republicans in a number of elections next year.

Even the growing strength of political organization like the Tea Party are seen by some as a testament to the power that Barack Obama does hold over the American people and indeed the world. The question for future years though is perhaps is Obama a powerful politician, or a powerful celebrity?