Obama's Dukakis Moment: Bowling Blunders Matter
Last week many had their fun poking fun at Barack Obama's gutter balls. Monday on Ellen Hillary Clinton decided to toss a little ball at some pins on set in order to keep Obama's bowling blunder in the conversation. It wasn't the most tactful response. But Obama's poor showing was again talked about.
Forest for the trees, bad bowling really should not matter in the making of the president. Right? We are likely in a recession. We are at war. A lot of folks don't have health insurance. Great presidents need not be able to bowl. But then, it does matter if he is to win that Oval Office.
What Obama's bowling highlighted was a larger mistake he cannot make when reaching out to the white working and middle class. He cannot be the man he is not.
This has less to do with his race than his Ivy League professorial demeanor. Democrats have long nominated candidates who exude the worst stereotypes of the conceived liberal elitist.
It's not bowling that's the point. Many modern presidential candidates have bowled on the trail. But there is something particularly embarrassing about a 37 in seven frames for a candidate who is attempting to prove he is one of the guys.
What could prove fatal is if Obama keeps making this mistake. A far more consequential version occurred in the 1988 race. Michael Dukakis donned military coveralls on top of his suit, got inside that M-1 tank, gripped the machine gun, and murmured "rat-a-tat." He looked like a boy playing war and was pummeled for his Patton moment.
"The tank has to go down in history as one of the classic political blunders in the world," Ronald Reagan's pollster, Richard Wirthlin, once told me. "It goes back to my point. You can't stretch the candidate. You've got to portray who he naturally is."
All politics is Shakespeare. When John Kerry spent the whole of his 2004 convention calling attention to his service in Vietnam, it highlighted Democrats' own national security insecurity. "The lady doth protests too much," as it was put in Hamlet.
Obama's bowling was not Dukakis' tank moment. But it did become the butt of late night comedians. Jimmy Kimmel quipped, "I bowled a 37 when I was a baby and I was drunk, by the way."
Obama can ill afford to offer Kimmel such good material if he is to make inroads with middle and working class white men. Issues matter, but not as much as our conception of the person advocating those issues.
This was not Obama's first time stepping into a role he could not pull off. Last October, Obama went on Ellen himself. He danced in a way that was well, consistent with a stiff professor. But of course that's an issue of undermining his "cool," a positive perception not so easily refuted by John McCain. Bowling is an issue of undermining his inner regular Joe, one easily refuted by McCain.
Obama should have known that if he cannot bowl, he should not bowl. A president does not throw out the first pitch, if he cannot throw a pitch. It has always been a male presidential candidate's burden to not sissify him self on the campaign trail, an inconvenience that falls particularly on Democratic candidates because of past mistakes. That does not mean bowling is that masculine. It's not in fact. But it is emasculating to attempt to be the kind of guy that bowls and look like the kind of guy who does not.
It would be absurd to discuss bowling in the context of the presidency if it did not evoke a larger lesson. Reagan, as well as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, understood that symbols, narratives, and sets win presidencies. Should Obama not, it will lead to a Dukakis-like moment that could serve as his tattooed slip up.
Consider JFK. Even as he was suffering from Addison's disease he was shown swimming or tossing a football with his family. FDR more famously hid his disability. But he also pioneered the use of themes in radio to captivate voters. In this YouTube age a candidate's image cannot be tailored as even Reagan's was. But then images now matter all the more because the mistakes are replayed ad nauseam.
Obama's bus tour through Pennsylvania was an attempt to ground his lofty image. In America, a presidential candidate cannot just care about the people he must show he is one of the people. So Obama ate chilidogs. Fed a calf. Toured a factory. The trip was meant to show him as one of us. But he ended up looking like one of them -- them being that liberal caricature.
It is axiomatic in presidential politics that a candidate must refute the worst stereotypes of his party. At least Kerry was a good shot when he put on L.L. Bean and blew two pheasants out of the sky. The problem was Kerry also went parasailing and snowboarding, against his senior staff's advice. The elite vacations reaffirmed the negative perception of liberals as elite. That, like the tank moment, made it into Republican ads.
Obama decries the superficial in our politics. And perhaps he can win denouncing gutter politics and throwing gutter balls. But that's not the making of past presidents. Sometimes, even as we "turn the page" it's important to consider the lessons of all those earlier chapters (even the silly ones).
David Paul Kuhn, a Politico.com senior political writer, is author of the The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma.
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So instead of taking the bus tour, Obama should be traveling in Pennsylvania on a Harley?
I think that MR.kuhn makes a very good point, republicans in the past have been very successful in painting the democratic nominee as a latte drinking liberal elitest who are out of touch with regular americans, they did it with kerry,gore,dukakis,mondale and mcgovern.The only two candidates they could not do it to where the only two democratic candidates that have went on to become presidents in the past 40 years, clinton and carter,i think it has to do with the fact that they are both from the south and it was hard for the gop to paint them as ivy league liberals.That is why i always thought that john edwards would make a much better general election candidate.
Did you really not get the point of the article? The intent, I believe, is to point out what can happen when someone in politics presents himself as something other than what he is. It is not charming or self effacing to say you need no help in foreign policy, when you have zero experience. It is arrogance. I do not find it charming when a Democratic politician is so ambitious, he will court the NRA for more votes. It is rude to say to a former first lady, "You aren't that unlikeable, Hillary" in a nationally televised debate. It is not common for a candidate for the nomination of the Democratic Party, to praise former presidents of the Republican Party and not mention one of the most popular Democratic presidents in the Party;s history. Pres. GHW Bush, a man Obama admires because of his intelligence war, left office with an approval rating in the 30's. Pres. Reagan was vilified by Democrats for his economic policies and neglect of social programs. But, Bill Clinton with an approval rating in the 60's and with a legacy of commitment to improving the lives of minorities, is ignored by this self effacing man.
Playing at bowling is a superficial way to appear as "one of the guys". Why does anyone doubt that? Obama's main task, really his only task since he isn't much of a Senator except as a yes man on other Senators' bills, is getting people to vote for him. He really doesn't find taking positions on issues terribly important unless that could impact the vote for him. Witness the business of boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympics. If he can garner votes that way, okay. But at least he could have tried to do a bit better at the game.
While images such as bowling prowess should not count, they do. This is not however an inditement of the poor bowling Mr. Obama, but of the American People esp. the media pundits. We constatnly ask for a leader, then we demand he be one of us. A leader should be out in front leading with persuasion and example, but as a people we hate anyone who stands out. Al Gore is a prime example. He was out in front on the internet development, then the liars took over. He warned us of global warning, and he was scorned. He rolled his eyes at Geage Bush and was ridiculed. Who isn't rolling their eyes now. Mr. Gore showed himself to be a leader again when he accepted "defeat".
HL Menken said that as democracy is perfected some day the common folk of the land would acheive their hearts desire and a complete moron would occupy the White House.
Perhaps the ridicule heaped upon Americans from abroad is deserved. We chose Bush, we might not choose Obama. American voters deserve the "leaders" they elect. Does anyone in the media have the guts to tell John Q Public to grow up?
I live in a super-Red state, so I am understandably cynical about the American voter.
You missed the whole point of the bowling exercise - it wasn't an ill-fated attempt to appear "one of the guys" by playing an idiot game. Seriously, do you know anyone over the age of seven who still bowls? Obama wasn't trying to fit in by being a good bowler, he was trying to fit in by mocking bowling.
"Look everyone! I'm like you! I suck at bowling and laugh out loud at people who seriously care!"
Well played, Barack!!!
I am not after the bowling score. What gets me is that Obama throws the bowling ball like a girl. Yes, imagine that, LIKE A GIRL! Is he as effete as Kerry?
People are missing the point. Of course it is stupid to think it matters if someone is a lousy bowler. But it was stupid to dislike Dukakis for being short or Kerry for liking to windsurf. But people who vote did feel that way. Lots of them. Screaming it is stupid does not change the facts of life, that image matters.
Forget bowling...I prefer to have a president who can play billiards and knows a bit of english.
I'm certainly not your guy, then Willie. I use proper english, and more important, I use it to good effect. I also have an ethic or two ready to use, and a decent grasp of human dynamics and what people need. But I guess that's all pretty much useless, because I sukk at pool, until I get a beer or two in me!
Dear Mr. Kuhn:
No wonder our elected leaders cannot solve urgent problems. If the ability to bawl is now a requirement as to who should be elected president, we are doomed as a country. Here were are in one of the worst economic recessions with millions of people loosing their houses and thousands losing their jobs, with a war in Iraq that is costing billions of dollars, with gasoline prices shooting up the roof, and all you have to worry about is whether a presidential candidate can bawl! Pretty soon the bawling alley may close not because Mr. Obama can bawl but because the customers cannot afford to to pay for bawling. I hope the majority of us are not so stupid to pick the president on the basis of their ability to bawl, or their ability play basketball, baseball, football, tennis, golf, etc.
This blog has got to be one of most petty, least relevant articles ever posted on Huffington.
Good thing Kuhn is not one of Obama's campaign advisers. However, I guess the only harm is space wasted that could have been used instead to contrast, for example, Barack's timetable for exiting Iraq with that of "Century" McCain.
At least Kuhn's preoccupation with Obama's gutter balls moved me enough to look up my password in order to post my frustration at such a silly blurb, considering everything else that truly deserves vetting and discussion after eight-too-many years of gutter balls from the current the White House.
Okay, here's the plan: let's get video of Barack playing basketball with his Secret Service detail.
You missed his comeback moment! He said when he won the whitehouse he would replace the bowling alley with a basketball court. He should challenge McCain to a one on one game to see who's got game. Then again, Mccain may want a flying dogfight. Maybe Hillary could talk you to death. I guess Hillary wins at being a natural woman.
McCain would want a cuss off. He knows he has few peers there, especially since Dick Cheney would not be participating.
Give me a freaking break. Are we so stupid as a country that we would count as important the bowling score of our President? If so...then we deserve everything we will get. Yet another moron as the leader of the free world. A moron who has old-age dementia.
Bowling? You've got to be kidding me? First Obama is too cocky--too self-assured. He shows some humanity, that he's not perfect, and now this is bad. How can he possibly win when he's being held to these crazy standards. Kuhn, could you write about something of substance--say Obama's policy of Iraq?
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