[nostrademons]

But these types of personas always have a place in politics - that's a large part of what makes it politics. If you didn't play a role you wouldn't get elected.

I highly doubt that Obama is the same in private as his public persona - from everything I've heard, he's very much the intellectual, introverted college-professor type in private, and the gregarious "audacity of hope" person is a mask he puts on for public events.