Statesman + Politician = President

I was watching the movie "Commanding Heights" the other day and in one part, Dick Cheney quotes Nixon's citation of Nikita Khrushchev's famous quote, "To be a great statesman, you have to be a great politician someday". Drawing allusions to President Obama's present situation,  one can conclude that Obama is a great statesman but a very mediocre politician. Unfortunately the wold of realpolitik demands that every President be a figure who has within him equal proportions of statesmanship and street-smartness. His charisma is undoubtedly unchallenged in modern history and his vision is comparable in magnitude only to FDR and the new deal. Yet in popularity ratings he probably shares the rank with George W Bush. Instead of matching the greatness of people like Kennedy and FDR and Lincoln, Obama is underachieveing. When elected in 2008, People believed he had the charisma of Kennedy, the spirit and humility of Lincoln, the vision of FDR and the facet of every great Chief Executive who had ever ruled in history. But what many Political scientists and average Americans in 2008 failed to notice is that President Obama wasn't half as good as politician as he was in character, spirit and vision. His weakness was finally shown in the most democractic way possible. On the night of the 2nd of November, 2010, when votes were being counted, the world watched the greatest statesman losing control of his congress. He has lost his support but Obama still has the will and the character to drive him on. But those two won't suffice in the political world Obama inhabits. He needs to be an effective politican. He must not crawl to the Centre but stick to the left and attack the republicans in the same way as they did to him. In 1996, Clinton got reelected with a mixture of shrewdness and compromise but in 2012 Obama will need shrewdness and lots of them along with sturdity and unwillingness to compromise. Obama became the President on the call for compromise, ironically he will need to shed this very compromising attitude and fight his tooth out to remain teh President. But maybe we haven't seen the Obama he will become- FDR changed, Clinton changed, Lincoln transformed, every great President eventually changed himself. For Obama who's nickname is "change", this shouldn't be hard!