Jodi Kantor is going to pop in and kick this off. Why? Well, in part because the paperback of her book, "The Obamas," comes out today. But also in part because she's curious! I'll let her ask you herself....

Do you like Obama better or less than you did four years ago?

I've been writing about the president for five years for the NY Times, and more than any other question, the one I get is: do you like Obama? That's hard for me to answer, because thinking in journalistic terms can be a bit clinical, and because I've seen or heard about him in so many moments, some of when he's hugely likeable, some when he's a lot less so. (Many of those moments are in my book, about the Obamas in the White House.)

But I'm curious to hear from others, not least because Obama's likeability is expected to play an important role in the election. Do you like him more or less than you did in '08? When have liked him best and worst?

As a human being, I continue to feel as positively towards Obama as I ever did (very much so, and more so following his endorsement of marriage equality). As a human being who reasonably believed in the integrity of customer-segregated accounts, the deliberate failure of the Justice Department to investigate the role played by Jon Corzine in the MF Global disaster has been extraordinarily disillusioning. There is absolutely no other explanation than fear of embarrassment on the part of the administration, and it's the worst kind of cronyism.

I've loved Obama since I first saw him speak at the Democratic National Convention. I was watching TV with a bunch of friends and clearly remember saying, "How come we can't get THAT guy to run for President?" and everybody sighing and going yeah, never gonna happen.

I liked him most when he joked about Hillary Clinton in the duck blind, and when spoke during the Jeremiah Wright mess. Obama is capable of real nobility; grace under pressure. The Cairo speech! I loved him that day.

But I am super angry and disappointed about his broken campaign promises to run a transparent government, and to strengthen whistleblower protections. So I have a terrible sense of betrayal, too. My feelings both pro and con are much deeper now than in '08.

I think I like him a little less than i used to in some ways and more in others. I'd also like to point out, in case this doesn't become immediately apparent, I am not a news junkie AT ALL. I grew up in a very liberal family whose moods could be tracked by who was in power and who wasn't and I swore at an early age I would never do that -- what a waste of time. I'm impressed with Obama-related progress on healthcare and very impressed re gays in the military. His stuff with the banks makes me fucking sick. But I don't know what he has to deal with. There's so much about that job we just will never get.

See this John Corzine thing...TOTALLY NEWS TO ME. It's sad.

My feelings toward Obama haven't changed dramatically since 2008. I have been following his career since he was running for the senate. I live in Chicago and many of my friends in high school worked on capturing the youth vote for that election in 2004.

There was a brief period in which I was disillusioned, but I quickly realized that I was approaching his role as the president unrealistically. My vote for Obama was also the first time I voted for a president. I had to assess him as the president of a fiercely divided country first (with all of the duties, responsibilities, and balancing that entails) rather than as the sole voice of the under 30 population or the sole voice of "Black America."

I think for me this question splits into two: Do you like Obama personally and do you like him professionally? In many ways, I'm a real cynic about how Obama the politician has behaved, for lots of same reasons others are: drone strikes, Gitmo, etc. All that stuff I hate. But when it comes to Obama the guy, I feel like I like him more. That's because, over the past four years, we've seen outright hatred from white people angry that we have a black president. Congressmen scream at him and say plainly that their goal is to make sure he only gets one term. People on Twitter call him a "nigger." Basically, millions of Americans want him to fail because he's brown, and I can't help but want to stand with him and say, "Go to hell, racists."

I live in Nor-Cal (not really by choice) and lots of people really hate him here. Liberal people...They are grossed out by his involvement with vile banking people. But when people say they're not voting for him it makes me crazy -- even though I get it. I think, are these people who never compromised in their lives? I think he's not a bad compromise.

When I first really saw Obama up close he was getting out of a little white rental car in some town in PA. I was in the parking lot, waiting for him. And he like, unfolded himself out of the passenger seat of this car and he looked really grey and tired. And then he went into this school auditorium and totally CRUSHED IT, in that way he has. It was so impressive, because I'd seen how beat he was and how much he probably wanted a cigarette and how hard he was working. And then, you know, he became president. And then I realized with him more than ever--though this was probably really true of the Clintons too--how entrenched the presidency is in the government, how much cruft there is with being president. And how little things change.

So much of why I like(d) Obama has to do with his family (four more years of Michelle Obama, please). They haven't changed, and that positive feeling I hold toward them as a family unit hasn't changed either.

And as a journalist, at least for me, "liking" someone has very little to do with how they do their work and more to do with how and who they are. I might like a source personally, but also realize that they are full of shit when they're answering my questions (or, "doing their job" if they're a flack).

A lot of the problems I have with how he's governed are tempered by the fact that, as Sarah said, I don't know know what he has to deal with and his job seems really hard. But again, how he does his job and how he *is* seem separate.

The job is basically 1. making nice with other figureheads or rulers and 2. trying to keep up with the NSA and 3. deciding how secretive to be about how we kill people with drones. Also probably trying not to start a nuclear war and killing us all. (Oh also hiding the truth about aliens. (Kidding!)) If you look back at Clintons and Bushes--well, some of them (wait: all of them???) started extremely expensive and deadly wars, and I'm against that--but overall? I don't see a whole lot of difference. And that's the problem with the job, more than it is the problem with the men. And I wonder as others here do: is it cronyism? Is it proximity? (The only exception to this is Dick Cheney. Man that dude made a lot out of running the country.)

Honestly, we live in Utah, so our votes are completely inconsequential in every way. I'm not a citizen, so I can't vote, and my husband would never vote for an anti-choice or anti-gay candidate, regardless of being literally robbed by the opposition, but he will probably just do a spoiler ballot for the perfectly benign Gary Johnson and move on with his life, which I absolutely would not have believed four years ago, but completely respect at this point.

Choire, i am glad to see someone who knows probably more than I do essentially say what I suspected (thank god i didn't have to waste all that time reading and learning to be somewhat on target!) about the presidency. I'd like to add two things. 1. Where do these people get off blaming the state of things on Obama? It's so ridiculous I can't even think of an analogy 2. one president, one person, can't lead a country terribly far from what it is when he comes in. Meaning, we were at war, in recession, etc when he got here. His job is to try to facilitate a relative lack of total fucking mayhem -- and I think he's been not so bad at that.

youtube.com

Oh man. February 16th, 2008. I remember this.

I do miss that thrill of listening to him speak.

What's benign about being a Libertarian?

Cord's whole thing about, basically, "us v them" still really resonates for me. I still feel on some fundamental, 1980s "culture wars" level that I do have to vote for "team us" because of the racists and the whatnots. (Particularly I guess after his gay marriage turnaround.) I suppose a lot of voting is like that! So on some inherent level I "like" him still. I'd want to have dinner with him! (Okay, well, her mostly.) Whereas I'd be scared to go to Romney's house. (WHICH ONE.) This is sort of sad, and is also very "Can a Catholic be president???" circa 1959.

When I think about how close we came to a McCain-Palin presidency, or when I think about the likely composition of the Supreme Court, should Romney somehow manage to win the White House, then I basically flip out from my gigantic love for Barack Obama.

Honestly, dinner with Romney just seems like it would be painfully awks. WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

Anyway, do you vote on liking, or do you vote on policy? And which policy takes precedence? Most people don't vote solely on gay marriage, right?

Asking whether one "likes" a public figure one doesn't know is always a bit silly to me. There are many things the man does I disagree with, and many I agree with. But I have little idea the complexities that surrounded those decisions, or what he is "really like." I've never felt I "like" somebody I don't know personally.

I don't like that Obama wasn't truly frank with the country about our military involvement in Libya and the civil war there, but I like the results so far. If Obama had been caught kissing Kristen Stewart, I would probably dislike that even more, even though it has much less impact on the world. But I wouldn't know the complexities there either. What if Michelle beats him? And what if he and K are cute together?

To answer your question, Sarah, I think the people blaming the state of things on Obama aren't used to the painful, disgusting, and unyielding disappointment of politics. For instance, an integral part of the president's base in 2008 was young people, to whom he said inspiring things like, "I'm going to close Gitmo!" And then, in office, he had to roll back and be like, "Well, closing Gitmo's not that easy!" I think most people adept at politics know Gitmo staying open isn't all Obama's fault. But the Obama campaign hyped up young people and others with limited political experience in 2008 and told them change was on its way. Now that change hasn't come as quickly and dramatically as people thought, some people feel duped.

Dinner with them would be insanely great, for me. Obama is a real reader, not a pretend one. I also want to meet Reggie Love in the worst way. And Michelle Obama! I saw her speak in Las Vegas during the campaign and I still haven't recovered. She has like this Galadriel-level aura.

Also: what Cord said x one million.

One thing I learned reporting my book is that Obama has become painfully aware of all he can't do. He began the presidency truly believing that his work could be transformational. "If you can't do it as a president of the United States it likely can't be done," was the way Eric Whitaker, one of his closest friends, put it to me. Then came the Republican strategy of total opposition, plus the countless other factors that limit what gets done in Washington. In private meetings, Obama began to tell people that this was one of his major discoveries about the presidency: it was much harder to get things done than he thought. It became a real refrain with him.

That is so funny that you mention that Maria...i do Kundalini yoga and the big teachers are obsessed with Michelle's massive aura. apparently to those in the know her energy field is way more massive than his. Ok sorry, you asked a Californian to take part...Cord -- GOD ok Jesus seriously. i never thought of that. I was always like...wtf is with these people? They're YOUNG. OK. Seriously...never occurred to me. I am not being remotely sarcastic. Just relieved to understand. Though I do know some people my age (42) and older who hate Obama as well.

It's absolutely embarrassing to feel betrayed by a politician. What idiot is emotionally or psychologically vulnerable to professionals selected to deliver moving speeches written by a bunch of nice middle-class white guys in their late twenties, and then expected to spend 40% of their time on bullshit like Easter egg rolling on the lawn, anyway? MERKEL IS NOT ROLLING EGGS. The entire office is a sideshow. But also a sideshow that robs people. And until literally half my money is no longer being sat on by the administration to avoid embarrassment, I don't see why I should have to act like it didn't happen because his twenty-something middle-class white guys write speeches that are designed to be more appealing to my progressive views.

In general, the presidency is a confusing combination of extreme power and extreme powerlessness. Obama personally supervises drone killings, holds the nation's nuclear codes, and can't walk down the street to get a cup of coffee.

Oh, and for the record, Michelle is so far and away the best that she makes Jackie Kennedy look like a Lucille Bluth action figure.

I can't think of anyone else who could have done better. Let's not imagine that Hillary Clinton would have been less obstructed than Obama has been. More, if anything. I seriously doubt she could have won because every Republican would have tottered out to vote against her.

That is to say, our real problem is nothing to do with the presidency: it's the impossibility of electing a rational Congress, in our current circumstances.

"Then came the Republican strategy of total opposition..."

I have to believe that that monolithic obstinance wouldn't have been nearly as aggressive or unrelenting as it was without the "black Socialist who wants to give handouts to blacks" narrative that now animates the GOP.

Disagree there, Cord. Monolithic obstinacy was already at eleven by the time of Bush v. Gore. And Republican hatred of Hillary Clinton is so very ingrained, so absolute. I am pretty sure she polled worse than Obama did among Republicans all the way through the primaries.

It's weird to like the president, isn't it? I "like" Obama less than I did in 2008, sure, because at the time he was sort of a pleasant idea, and now he's a Democratic president, and Democratic presidents always disappoint. (Or worse!)

I mean he is smart and a good writer and he was in the "Choom Gang." On the other hand, he controls America's vast machinery of death. I do remember the "man it'd be cool if THAT GUY was our president" feeling, and in that tribal sense I'm definitely on team "youngish mildly hip guy from Chicago" versus team "entitled second-generation wealth" but I try to cultivate a healthy disdain for people David Brooks admires, so it's a bit of a bind.

I think it would have been as aggressive (or nearly as aggressive) for different issues. The narrative would have been, "man-hating Socialist who can't control her emotions and think 'rationally.'"

Oh and Republican hatred for the Clintons is intense enough that I don't think she could have expected any Congressional cooperation at all, though it's certainly possible that the national mood of old white people hysteria might have been a little less apocalyptic.

Yeah. Uppity, either way.

Alex I often wonder what I would have been saying about FDR had we lived during that time. Would I have been as furious? Probably.

I definitely "like" Hillary Clinton a lot more than I did in 2008, for what it's worth.

I think I probably would have been a shameless FDR booster! I mean didn't the American Communist Party endorse him?

Yeah but what about the courts-packing thing!!? I would have blown about a hundred aneurysms.

I understand the frustration with people who got abnormally optimistic and then got abnormally upset when he didn't do certain things. But the quick dismissal of those people, WHO DON'T GET POLITICS etc., is also obnoxious. When politicians promise everything and are introduced with magical laser shows at stadiums a prioritize soaring rhetoric about a new epoch of lollipops and handjobs as victory tactic #1, they don't really have grounds to complain about the people on whom his campaign strategy worked.

I don't like him much as a person. But I don't know what that has to do with supporting his reelection. He governs unsentimentally. Acknowledge that and you'll better understand how to pressure him into advancing your pet policies.

One contradiction that seems to be prevalent is the beliefs that (a) we have major systemic and institutional problems that severely hamstrings any president's ability to act (domestically at least) and (b) maybe we should have gone with Hillary Clinton! She would have done some things better and some things worse, but I all I know for sure is that we'd be saying right now that maybe we should've gone with Barack Obama, who would have a 90% approval rating.

The fascinating thing about Michelle Obama's success as first lady is that even though she makes it look fairly effortless, it did not come easy. That's part of what my book's about-- the extremely complicated behind the scenes process of her figuring out the job.

Hillary's a red herring (and she disqualified herself for the presidency when she hired MARK PENN to help run her campaign), I don't think that many people outside the troll pundit class truly think 'we should have gone with her!' And I still think that "disillusionment" with Obama is pretty much an Internet phenomena. In my neighborhood his picture is still up in salon and barbershop windows and people still wear bootleg Obama gear. The people who voted for him in 2008 but won't vote for him in 2012 aren't the rapturous young people, they're the (fairly conservative) independents who "gave him a shot" last time around.

Eh, you'd be surprised about the Hillaristas, I reckon, among women voters d'un certain âge. One old friend straight up told me, "it's her turn," seriously, near-fisticuffs in the SUV, back in 2008!! They still feel "cheated," some of them. #pfft

What Jodi said, about how Obama really *did* believe his talking points about his ability to sit everybody around the table and work things out so as to bring about transformational change, seems truer and odder by the day. It's sort of like when Wall Street says that they (many at least) turned against Obama because he called them fat cats and stuff. I thought for years that those were entirely crocodile tears and they were just trying to stop his pursuit of minimal regulation. But the fat-cat stuff really does shock and sadden them! Why are these smart, frighteningly calculating people most driven by one childish feeling that seems like the thing they're bullshitting about more than anything else?

They'd gotten used to being flattered for screwing everyone else over in the eight fatuous years of Bush II. Like kids whose every hideous crayon scrawl was cooed over, covered in gold stars and proudly displayed on the refrigerator.

Thinking about the original question: Obama's likeability won't actually affect the way people vote. It'll really only matter when it comes to whether people vote.

Actually, Shani, his likeability is expected to be a huge factor in the election. Here's the lede from our story last week, breaking the news that Obama has a decent lead in swing states: "President Obama is struggling to convince voters that he deserves to win re-election based on his handling of the economy, but his empathy and personal appeal give him an edge over Mitt Romney in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania." That's what's fascinating/surprising here: given what's going on with the economy, he really should be doing a lot worse. His reputation for being decent, upright and personal-scandal-free may win him a second term.

In 2008, there was Obama, the idea. In 2012, there is Obama, the President. I still love the idea of who is he is and I love that he can present that idea to other countries, to be a positive figurehead for the United States. Like Jodi said, A decent and upright person.

Obama has proved himself to be a politician above all else. But I didn't pull the lever with the feel-good Pollyana idea of hope and change in mind, I knew going in it wasn't going to be all rainbows. It never is. Some of his policies prove that.

I still like the man and the idea. But I like the politician a bit less.

Maureen!

"Obama smashed through all the barriers and dysfunction in his life to become a self-made, self-narrating president. His brash 2008 campaign invented a new blueprint to upend the Democratic establishment. So it’s understandable if Obama, with his Shaker aesthetic, is not inclined to play by the rococo rules of politics. Yet, as the president struggles to stay ahead of Moneybags Romney, his selective insensitivities may be hurting him."

Also, Jodi, that's interesting. He's back to being slightly ahead of Romney in today's Quinnipiac poll.

"What Jodi said, about how Obama really *did* believe ... his ability to sit everybody around the table and work things out ... seems truer and odder by the day."

I suppose that, to me, this is the saddest part about this whole discussion, and it's something I didn't know before: That he actually came in assuming The President can really get things done, no problem. And then to have that fantasy destroyed before his eyes must have been so dispiriting.

It reminds me of my mother, who a couple years ago paid a lot of money so she could retire early from an elementary school principalship with her full pension. When I asked her what the rush was, she said, "I've gotten to a point when most of what I do isn't about helping kids." :( :( :(

I don't think of Obama as having been some kind of starry-eyed Pollyanna when he took office. Rather, the movement that brought him to power didn't follow through to force the government's hand. That is a task we still face; the people have to find the right representatives and then push like hell. But the devastation wrought by Republicans during the Bush years, together with the deranged disinformation campaigns of Fox News and the Tea Party craziness of the far right have bamboozled and discouraged us, hardened the cynicism of the left and the cognitive dissonance of the right.

In his victory speech, Obama asked the country to "join in the work of remaking this nation." That can still happen in a second term.