Who's Afraid of Charisma?
Sean Wilentz is a great historian who makes his home at my alma mater, Princeton University. His book The Rise of American Democracy
“What is troubling about the campaign is that it’s gone beyond hope and change to redemption,” said Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton (and a longtime friend of the Clintons). “It’s posing as a figure who is the one person who will redeem our politics. And what I fear is, that ends up promising more from politics than politics can deliver.”
“If you don’t talk about issues in great detail, if you do it in a way that is not the centerpiece of your campaign, of your rhetoric, then you become a blank screen,” Mr. Wilentz said. “Everybody thinks you are the vehicle of their hopes.”
This notion that because Obama is capable of giving an inspiring speech (and Mrs. Clinton isn’t), his campaign is devoid of specifics. I suggest Sean and the other pundits go take a look at the Issues section of the Obama web site. It’s pretty detailed. Sean is no Republican or a conservative, but some of the conservative critics of Obama who use the “cult of personality” meme, are moving in the direction of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Facism trope.
Prof. Wilentz complaining about Mr. Obama competing on the basis of charisma is akin to complaining about basketball players competing on the basis of height. If you got it, use it.
Moreover, I believe that the folk attaching the “cult of personality” label to Mr. Obama’s campaign are doing so for the sake of the label, missing out on what Mr. Obama may well be trying to achieve: using his “coattails” not to get members of Congress elected, but to get the public at large “elected”.
Mr. Obama’s policy proposals are rife with bringing the “public” back in public policy: increased transparency, waiting periods on signing legislation to collect public input, etc. He appears to be banking on a convergence between “Web 2.0″ Internet tech and his executive style to have the public help give him leverage in any potential tussles with Congress and to help energize more grassroots implementations of his general policy directions. Strategically, if he can pull it off, it’ll be powerful…but to pull it off, he needs millions of Americans to be interested in engaging with Washington, and to do that, he can’t campaign as a policy wonk. He needs everybody to think he is the vehicle of their hopes (to paraphrase Prof. Wilentz), because he needs them to actually express their hopes and act upon them during his term(s) in office. He can’t dwell incessantly on the inner workings of his policy proposals, as he needs the people to feel that those proposals are *theirs*, not *his*.
Tactically, campaigning on charisma is probably a necessity. One just doesn’t out-wonk a Clinton, and Mr. McCain’s going to play the “experience” card like it’s going out of style. As you alluded to in a previous post title, Mr. Obama has to go with a “rope-a-dope” approach on policy details, engaging sporadically as he feels is warranted (e.g., recent barbs regarding approaches towards universal health care), while maintaining the overall mantra of “you’re not electing me, you’re electing yourself”.
“This notion that because Obama is capable of giving an inspiring speech (and Mrs. Clinton isn’t), his campaign is devoid of specifics.”
I don’t think that’s at all what Wilentz is saying. I think he’s saying that it is Obama’s inspirational speeches and sound-bytes that are winning over voters, not the finer details of his policies. He provides details for those who are interested in digging a little deeper, but I think the strength and focus of his campaign is in the rhetorical component, as Wilentz suggests.
I know that when I vote, I vote for the politician who I believe most closely shares my values and worldview. Policy positions are a manifestation of these values and worldview. You can’t predict what decisions a politician will be asked to make while in office, so what I attempt to do is put a person in office who I trust will make the decisions that I will want them to make. I think the issue with Obama is that his speeches are so powerful that it’s likely that many people don’t bother to look at the details to ensure that they’re consistent with the values and worldview that resonated so strongly with them. People want to believe, and on some level, perhaps they don’t WANT to know that details…
In any case, I think Wilentz’s concern, that Obama is coming across as the embodiment of people’s hopes and dreams–whether realistic or not, given the realities of governance and politics, is an interesting one. “Yes we can” is all about raising people’s expectations. Well, what happens if people’s expectations are raised beyond what is actually possible? What happens to people’s faith in Obama and the political process in general when reality sets in? I think this is the issue that Wilentz is trying to raise. Personally, I don’t see this as being a problem. A great orator can make a nasty reality seem like a field of unicorns and rainbows. George Bush is quite skilled at doing that, and he is far from a great orator. I think Obama and people’s faith in politics will be just fine.
Mark-I feel much the same way about the Obama campaign. It becomes the vehicle for our hopes, but we don’t go into this with blinders on.
Melissa- We’ve all become so cynical that the notion that a candidate could actually be a vehicle for our higher selves is pretty daunting. The next month will tell that tale.
In policy terms, the run for the Democratic nomination feels a bit like that Futurama episode, where Jack Johnson is running against staunch opponent John Jackson – “I agree with everything my opponent has to say” etc etc. Not much between them, really.
However, I think it’s fair to say that no-one has seen the real Obama yet, as Mark suggests with the rope-a-dope analogy. Right now, he is reflecting what many Democrats want to hear – a promise for change.
The real Obama – and the real test of him as a president – will come when and if he wins the nomination and he faces McCain and the full ugliness of the Republican campaign.
And if anyone thinks that Obama is all talk, here’s a site that “showcases all the lovely things that the presidential candidate has done for you”:
http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/
(via http://www.kottke.org/08/02/single-serving-sites)
[...] Primary, Obama inspiration, Obama vs. Hillary, political intimidation Yesterday, in Who’s Afraid of Charisma?, Jon Talpin points out that Senator Obama’s obvious ability to give an inspirational speech [...]
mmmm…pie. Thanks Obama. : )
And another one. I am assuming most of you have come across this already, but it’s worth highlighting, in light of the charisma/qualifications question:
“The fight between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination is increasingly portrayed as one between romantics and realists.
“But a realistic view of Obama would be that he is best placed to seize and shape a new world of such possibilities. He has the youth, the global background, the ability to move people, and the demonstrated talent for reaching across lines of division, even those etched in black and white.
“He would, as Andrew Sullivan has written, ‘rebrand’ America.”
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/opinion/18cohen.html?em&ex=1203570000&en=2e91cd76a09ba6ff&ei=5087
Quite frankly, I feel that ‘the specifics of policy’ are overrated. No president works in a vacuum. It’s like Hillary didn’t learn this lesson with the 1993 Health Care Plan/Fiasco. You can have all the specifics you want, but has any executive, U.S. President or corporate president (with the possible exception of the Oakland Raiders’ Al Davis and we can all see how that’s working), ever gotten a plan implemented exactly as he or she planned it? I don’t think so. I’d rather have Obama in there with a grand yet realistic idea and the ability to bring consensus in Congress, than Hillary with a plan that’s perfect on paper but no way of getting the job done.