What is the importance of Barack Obama in the nonfiction book, No Is Not Enough?

Mentioned relatively infrequently throughout the text, former President Barack Obama represents how Klein views the Democratic establishment – weak, unorganized, centrist, and out of touch with the populous. Klein believes Obama was gifted a monumental opportunity upon his election in 2008, with the big banks and the automobile industry on their knees, a popular mandate for addressing climate change, and a virtual blank check to pursue his stimulus plan. She claims, “his mandate for widespread change, along with the outpouring of goodwill that greeted his election, was accompanied by such rare economic powers that it could well have unleashed in a new era of economic fairness and climate stability” (214). According to Klein, however, Obama – and progressives overall – failed to act on these rare economic powers and in doing so missed a massive opportunity to transform the existing political establishment.