Obama and the Politics of Crowds
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October 30, 2008, by FOUAD AJAMI
The masses greeting the candidate on the trail are a sign of great unease.
America is a different land, for me exceptional in all the ways that matter. In recent days, those vast Obama crowds, though, have recalled for me the politics of charisma that wrecked Arab and Muslim societies. A leader does not have to say much, or be much. The crowd is left to its most powerful possession -- its imagination.