What's left of the real Barack Obama and John McCain after all this nonstop being seen and heard? If Obama wins the prize Tuesday, it may be, behind all the political jabber, a victory in the media war of attrition not to lose his authentic self.
After eight years of having a beer with a nobody-there George W. Bush, voters gave the nominations to candidates who appeared to be most themselves--Obama over the seen-as-calculating Hillary Clinton, McCain over an empty suit known as Mitt Romney.
If McCain goes down, it will be due mainly to his mystifying decision to keep being the semi-fictitious figure required to appease the Far Right in the primaries and not reverting to the straight talker who won over so many media people and independent voters in 2000.
John F. Kennedy summed up the problem in 1960 saying he sometimes felt sorry for Richard Nixon: “It must be hard getting up every morning trying to decide who you’re going to be that day.”
In these past months, there have been too many McCains, with only rare glimpses of the real one, who has fittingly enough surrounded himself with fictitious figures like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.
Obama's most crucial campaign decision was to try to hold on, as much as possible, to his authentic self--a problem he recognized early in the process, telling Tim Russert with a worried smile that his wife and friends thought he was still there behind all the hype and admitting on 60 Minutes that the “attempt to airbrush your life...is exhausting.”
That he has made it seem effortless is an important part of his achievement, but if wins, it won't get any easier, as foreshadowed by his irritation with photographers last evening as he took his daughter out for Halloween.
In the White House, it will be four years of trick-or-treat, to say nothing of hide-and-seek with the media trying to find the "real" Barack Obama.
Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Saturday, March 01, 2008
The Subtext of '08
What do we know about voters' desires after watching them winnow down a score of presidential candidates to three?
To start, George W. Bush has ruined their taste for the usual white middle-aged male, or we wouldn't be left with a woman, an African-American and a Senior Citizen who doesn't play well with others in the political sandbox.
What the survivors have in common is that, among the choices available, Clinton, Obama and McCain seemed the least likely to lie to them all the time, a rarity for most voters under 40 after their years of Bill Clinton when the testosterone was high and Bush all the time.
"Authenticity" became the buzz word, and a sensed lack of it in Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards, among the others, certainly played a part in their elimination. Obama and McCain are obviously who they are, and even Hillary Clinton, although faulted by some for calculation, is no chameleon.
When the Obama-Clinton choice is made, authenticity will give way to a ramped-up argument about experience vs. change, particularly if Obama is the Democrat candidate. At the edges there will be "too liberal" and "not conservative enough" grumbling, but the essence of the campaign will be how far voters want to go in escaping the Bush years to find something better.
McCain will offer some variations on conservative orthodoxy and a new, improved Iraq war rather than a rejection of its rationale. Either Democrat will promise not just to shuffle the deck on the economy and the damage to individual rights but go back to the traditional rules of the game and get out of a misbegotten war as quickly as possible.
When the shouting is over and the ballots are counted, we will have an unfamiliar figure in the White House--a woman, an African-American or the oldest maverick ever--not the stereotypical middle-aged man from Central Casting.
That much has already been decided, and it would be hard for anyone to fault the electorate for that.
To start, George W. Bush has ruined their taste for the usual white middle-aged male, or we wouldn't be left with a woman, an African-American and a Senior Citizen who doesn't play well with others in the political sandbox.
What the survivors have in common is that, among the choices available, Clinton, Obama and McCain seemed the least likely to lie to them all the time, a rarity for most voters under 40 after their years of Bill Clinton when the testosterone was high and Bush all the time.
"Authenticity" became the buzz word, and a sensed lack of it in Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards, among the others, certainly played a part in their elimination. Obama and McCain are obviously who they are, and even Hillary Clinton, although faulted by some for calculation, is no chameleon.
When the Obama-Clinton choice is made, authenticity will give way to a ramped-up argument about experience vs. change, particularly if Obama is the Democrat candidate. At the edges there will be "too liberal" and "not conservative enough" grumbling, but the essence of the campaign will be how far voters want to go in escaping the Bush years to find something better.
McCain will offer some variations on conservative orthodoxy and a new, improved Iraq war rather than a rejection of its rationale. Either Democrat will promise not just to shuffle the deck on the economy and the damage to individual rights but go back to the traditional rules of the game and get out of a misbegotten war as quickly as possible.
When the shouting is over and the ballots are counted, we will have an unfamiliar figure in the White House--a woman, an African-American or the oldest maverick ever--not the stereotypical middle-aged man from Central Casting.
That much has already been decided, and it would be hard for anyone to fault the electorate for that.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
McCain, Obama: The Generation Chasm
After years of Bush's would-be and as-if leadership, American voters are choosing authenticity, albeit with a 24-year age gap and a world of difference in personal history and mindset.
Of all the accusations that could, and likely will, be made against John McCain and Barack Obama, the least plausible will involve calculation and deceit.
Last night's victory speeches laid out the broad outlines of their confrontation.
Turning Obama's central theme against him, McCain said, "My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.
"To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude."
Against McCain's message of traditional values, Obama offered a new approach: "This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up. And in this election, your voices will be heard.
"Because at a time when so many people are struggling to keep up with soaring costs in a sluggish economy, we know that the status quo in Washington just won't do. Not this time. Not this year. We can't keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result--because it's a game that ordinary Americans are losing."
This contest of new vs. old promises to feature civility and positive attitude from both candidates, although there will certainly be Rovian low blows from third-party fringes on both sides.
In stepping up to face each other, both candidates in passing repudiated those on their own side who opposed them.
Obama framed the Democratic outcome as a decision "about whether we choose to play the game, or whether we choose to end it...change that polls well, or change we can believe in. It's the past versus the future. And when I'm the Democratic nominee for President, that will be the choice in November."
On his part, McCain gave an oblique "kiss my grits" to the Religious Right by talking about faith in his supporters, the "American character" and "our country" without the obligatory bow to a Higher Power.
With Obama acknowledging McCain as "an American hero," the '08 contest is definitely looking up.
Of all the accusations that could, and likely will, be made against John McCain and Barack Obama, the least plausible will involve calculation and deceit.
Last night's victory speeches laid out the broad outlines of their confrontation.
Turning Obama's central theme against him, McCain said, "My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.
"To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude."
Against McCain's message of traditional values, Obama offered a new approach: "This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up. And in this election, your voices will be heard.
"Because at a time when so many people are struggling to keep up with soaring costs in a sluggish economy, we know that the status quo in Washington just won't do. Not this time. Not this year. We can't keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result--because it's a game that ordinary Americans are losing."
This contest of new vs. old promises to feature civility and positive attitude from both candidates, although there will certainly be Rovian low blows from third-party fringes on both sides.
In stepping up to face each other, both candidates in passing repudiated those on their own side who opposed them.
Obama framed the Democratic outcome as a decision "about whether we choose to play the game, or whether we choose to end it...change that polls well, or change we can believe in. It's the past versus the future. And when I'm the Democratic nominee for President, that will be the choice in November."
On his part, McCain gave an oblique "kiss my grits" to the Religious Right by talking about faith in his supporters, the "American character" and "our country" without the obligatory bow to a Higher Power.
With Obama acknowledging McCain as "an American hero," the '08 contest is definitely looking up.
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