Is California prepared for Governor Barack Obama?
Most likely not, as polls recommend he’s an extended shot, however Barack D. Obama Shaw is among the many dozens of candidates working in California’s gubernatorial major that concludes Tuesday. Whereas the Democratic candidate has gotten a little bit of press for his well-known moniker, Obama Shaw didn’t make the reduce of the highest seven candidates in a poll released Monday that was performed by California State College, Lengthy Seashore Middle for City Politics and Coverage.
If it equally looks like an extended shot that there simply so occurs to be one other Barack Obama with political aspirations, you’re not fallacious: That wasn’t the California candidate’s authentic identify. Fairly, he was born Cecil L. Shaw III earlier than legally altering his identify by way of what he describes on his campaign website as an “impressed imaginative and prescient” in 2013.
Although Obama Shaw advised Newsweek that he was in comparison with actor Denzel Washington after highschool—which impressed his alternative of Denzel as a center identify—that later modified to comparisons to the previous president. Whereas serving an eight-year stint within the U.S. Military Reserves, he wished a “uniform that didn’t come off” and a reputation that “was going to remind me of the brand new me: an individual of hope, an individual of music, an individual of management.”
Simply as rappers and superheroes undertake new names, Obama Shaw determined to do the identical. “President Barack Obama introduced a hope into the world that I had by no means seen or skilled earlier than and this was the catalyst that had me legally altering my identify as a result of I imagine that folks in the present day want that very same kind of hope,” he wrote on his marketing campaign web site.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
That identify hasn’t executed a lot for Obama Shaw politically—but. He ran for mayor of town of Alameda, within the San Francisco Bay Space, the place he hosts the weekly present, Alameda’s Obtained Expertise. However he garnered lower than 1,800 votes to complete in third out of three candidates.
And if sharing a reputation with one of the vital well-known males on the earth didn’t assist a candidate break by way of in a small race, it seemingly received’t in a a lot bigger contest just like the gubernatorial major. Certainly, a workforce of political scientist researchers concluded in 2025 that identify recognition provides solely a negligible electoral benefit.
Nonetheless, Obama Shaw’s political aspirations weren’t dashed then—and sure received’t be after Tuesday’s major. As he wrote on his marketing campaign web site, he stays “actually excited” in regards to the alternative to make a distinction politically. “My purpose is to carry concord and confidence to the state of California.”
Obama Shaw is working on a platform to deal with the state’s homelessness disaster, construct extra housing, and get rid of pointless spending. The enterprise coach and keynote speaker was bitten by the political bug after he determined to cease complaining and begin campaigning.
And Obama Shaw thinks everybody ought to run for workplace in the event that they imagine their concepts are higher than the incumbent’s, as he advised Spectrum News.
“In case you really need the longer term to be higher, you actually need to go on the market and create it,” Obama Shaw mentioned. “Simply do it and imagine in your self.”
