Presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have been widely regarded as father figures for the citizens of the U.S., a distinction that recent presidents have largely failed to receive.
Sampson Lee Blair, an associate professor of sociology who specializes on families, believes that president-elect Barack Obama will inherit this characteristic both inside and outside the U.S.
"For a lot of world leaders, they will look at Obama as a father," Blair said. "The status of being a father includes views of him as being caring, nurturing, but not only the soft side, Obama will protect the country as a father."
Obama will take care of the country as well as preserve the delicate and sincere nurturing nature that has been absent during recent presidencies, Blair explained.
"Obama is not only leading the country, but he's raising a family," Blair said. "It's endearing."
This statement can be taking literally, as Obama will be raising his own family in the White House.
"He took an hour or so off from his meetings one day so he could go attend a PTA conference," Blair said.
When he met with Bush, the very last request Obama made was to see the bedrooms where his daughters were going to sleep. Blair believes these acts reaffirm his notions about how Obama, as a family man, can make a great impact on the country with those very same principles.
"Obama has already put together a team of advisers to strengthen family relations, is planning on bolstering education funds, increasing Medicare for children and is enforcing more stringent policies on child support," Blair said.
By working towards a more bipartisan nation, Obama is already seen as working towards his future goal of making the country a family, Blair explained.
"The ideal notion America was founded upon was that it would be a melting pot society where everyone has an opportunity to achieve greatness," Blair said.
However, Blair believed that there was no real evidence for this until Barack Obama was elected earlier this month.
"When you think about ways other countries see the U.S. and how we supposedly stand for diversity, the run of our past presidents being Caucasian males never really backed up this notion," Blair said.
Now, Blair explained, the U.S. not only has a black president, it also had the possibility of having Hillary Clinton as the female president, retaining the values the U.S. was founded upon.
"I think a lot of voters took into consideration the generation twist where McCain was largely approved by the elderly supporting his social security programs and Obama was riding the tail end of the baby-boom generational," Blair said.
The generation gap played a huge part in Obama winning the election but was not the deciding factor, explained Blair.
"Obama, having been able to witness the Watergate Scandal, the Vietnam War and political corruption taking effect, rose not just because he is black or young, but because he is well educated," Blair said.
Obama speaks with eloquence and poise, traits that recent U.S. presidents have failed to display, according to Blair.
"Analogies between the John F. Kennedy and the Obama administration are there to depict the haunting similarity between the way they both speak," Blair said.
The American public looked favorably on Kennedy because of his children, and Blair imagines the public will react the same to Obama, whose children will also be residing in the White House.
"As an international student, from a global perspective, I view Obama as a global president," said Cindy Lin, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology.
Lin, an international student from Taiwan, stated that people around the world have not recently seen America in a positive light, but with the election of Obama they can really look at America and remember that is a symbol of democracy.
"In a time of recession, people won't lose hope because this election really proves how America still represents so much with this newly elected fatherly-figure Obama to lead the way," Lin said.
