the president's staycation

Apart from being the first African-American president, Obama is also the first urban president.

America is still nostalgic for a time before big cities - for the frontier settlement, the ranch, and the small town - which partly explains the Sarah Palin phenomenon. Every previous White House occupant has felt the need to emphasise, exaggerate or construct a rural origins story: Carter and his peanuts, Bush and his brush-clearing (the latter has, now his political career is over, skipped smartly back to a city) and to harp on their passion for country pursuits.

Obama has never even pretended to be anything but a city-dweller and city-lover. In his background, his cultural tastes, and his worldview he's a townie to his fingertips. Hell, he even holidays in the city. This weekend he took a break, not in Montana or Maine, but Chicago:

“My Kennebunkport is on the South Side,” Mr. Obama said.

(you can compare Obama's choice of retreat with those of previous presidents here)

Comments

[peter]

It is simply wrong to say that BHO is the first urban President. Both JFK and Teddy Roosevelt grew up in cities (Boston and NYC, respectively), and were at home there. Although TR lived as an adult in the wilds of the Dakotas, he was such an urbanite that he spent two happy years running (and reforming) the New York City Police Commission. I don't how more urban a person could possibly be!

[Ian Leslie]

I'm not claiming that Obama is literally the first president to have lived in or felt at home in a city. I'm suggesting that he's the first president whose 'brand' or public image is definitively urban (btw I know that word is sometimes used by marketers to mean 'black' but here it means, 'urban'). Teddy R was and will forever be associated with the great open spaces of America; FDR was more Hyde Park than Upper East Side in the public mind (a very different Hyde Park from the Obamas' Hyde Park, of course).