James Fallows has an insightful article in the Atlantic how President Obama’s personality traits contributed to some of the challenges he has confronted in his first (and perhaps only term). Among these personality traits, Fallows reports on an aloofness that inhibits the president’s ability to form a wide network of friends (ala Bill Clinton’s famous FOB’s — Friends of Bill). Hence this president has a small network of friends from which to draw advice. As Fallows notes:

Like Clinton and unlike George W. Bush, Barack Obama is said to be a night owl. But in the wee hours, Clinton would be on the phone, playing cards with friends, gabbing about history and politics, or doing anything else that involved live human company. Obama is more likely to be spending time with papers or a book, or even to be online—prowling through the same blogs and news sites as the rest of us, which is somehow unnerving given a president’s otherwise total cocooning from the daily details of shopping, driving, waiting, in ordinary Americans’ lives.

Hence, Bill Clinton was/is a hub of his social network. A connector that builds a broad base of relationships he can then draw upon.

This makes me wonder how Bill Clinton would fare if he had social media at his disposal. Instead of a rolodex, he might have had thousands of Facebook friends (Dunbar number be dammed)!  This raises an interesting question about whether high intensity social network politicians might actually be better at governing.  One way Fallows claims Obama’s aloofness or inability to form broad based networks harms him is in staff selection.  Fallows finds a number of Democratic insiders complaining about the quality of the “talent” surrounding the president:

 Shortly after William Daley, himself the son and brother of Chicago mayors, succeeded Emanuel in the White House, he came to Obama with his initial report. You are reeling, he said—stating the obvious after the Republican surge. Part of the problem is that the team around you is not good enough. To raise your game, you have to surround yourself with the best people available. There have to be changes.

Obama thought about it, and reportedly called Daley back in a few days later. “I like my team,” he said. “I am comfortable with who I have around me. Just so there’s no miscommunication, I’m saying that I like this team.” (The White House declined to comment on the episode.)

“The people he is most ‘comfortable’ with have the same limits of experience he does,” a veteran political figure told me. “An emotional reliance on people who are good people, and smart, but simply not A-plus players—it’s a limit.” These discussions often revolve around the central role of Valerie Jarrett in the Obamas’ professional and social lives. Her supporters say that she is the one friend they can truly trust; her detractors say that her omnipresence illustrates the narrowness of the president’s contacts.

I’m not sure I buy this since it’s hard to determine who has “a level” talent, but this is an area of inquiry I haven’t yet seen. Is it possible that social media makes you better at governing by enabling you to build a broad based network? I’m still partial to the idea of a president reading briefing books until late into the night rather than playing poker with buddies, but that might be my own tempermental and professional biases peeking through.