This week, my friend’s gay BFF suddenly left men behind him, hopped back into the closet and asked her out. People can surprise you. This might not matter in the long run for my friend but it has nastier effects on a political level – particularly when the person who surprises you is the President of the United States. Obama and Romney went head-to-head during the presidential debates last Wednesday. And, amazingly enough, the man praised for bringing rhetoric back to politics was defeated by an opponent so mistake-prone he makes Joe Biden look like a man who watches his words.

Four years after Obama-mania first struck, it’s hard to think of the hope that accompanied his election as anything more than mindless optimism. Giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was no less ironic a gesture than giving it to Henry Kissinger – a man still pursued by a French court. The Obama administration has used five times more drones than the Bush government in northern Pakistan. Their multiple strikes have scared off the humanitarian workers who try to help injured civilians. According to estimates, just 2% of lives taken by such attacks were those of high-level targets. On Wednesday, Obama failed to bring Romney to task on his personal tax, his history with Bain Capital or his idiotic remark about the 47%. Romney, despite being widely scorned for who he is – essentially, a die-hard supporter of the rich with a flexible sliding scale of right-wing ideas – managed for the first time to come across as a confident prospective leader. Charisma shouldn’t take precedence over actual policies, but it does – and is doubly important if the actual leader is floundering with the latter.

As the party conferences carry on in the UK, the news is full of members of the public doubting whether Ed Miliband can really lead when he speaks a bit like a frog. Public image still reigns supreme in the our minds and we are all guilty of thinking that just because someone can speak well, they will behave well. Look at Boris fever: Ipsos Mori recently found that 61% of people would prefer the blond bombshell to the beleaguered David Cameron, who came off much worse than his rival on the David Letterman Show just a few months ago. Boris’ popularity comes more from his ability to hold a crowd than from his political behaviour, which includes dining with the Murdochs while Scotland Yard was investigating the company over phone hacking. Don’t get me wrong, the man does have nice hair. But keratin alone cannot rule a nation, and offering a frog the electoral kiss won’t necessarily result in a prince.

Obama rose to power on a tide of personal appeal. Unfortunately, he has been lost in the four-year mire that comes from a blocked Senate and foreign policies that would make Bush blush. ‘Change’ was the message of his last campaign. It’s a shame that in the years since then, instead of changing the country for the better, he seems to have changed himself for the worse.