Flawed Messengers and Wooden Soldiers: Why Obama Beat Clinton -- and Why He'll Beat McCain, Too
After all the pontificating on TV, in the end it didn't come down to sideshow jive like the Reverend Wright Imbroglio or the Great Sniper Fire Lie. It didn't come down to micro-demographics, or gas prices, or the war in Iraq. Incredibly enough, it didn't even come down to the issues of race and gender. No -- in the end, I believe, it all came down to a hard-to-pinpoint, rarely discussed, but desperately important matter: the personal authenticity of two human beings.
Let me digress for a second, though it's not really digressing. The impetus for this piece actually came this morning, as I tried to keep my eyes open watching John McCain on TV. I do not recommend this as a morning regimen. Try it. You'll feel an overwhelming desire to crawl back under the covers. To the degree that you can force yourself to watch him sleepwalking around the dais and spouting empty syllables, you'll find yourself wondering about peripheral issues. Like: why does a man who seems to be simmering with rage use the phrase "my friends" so compulsively? What's the real skinny on that lacquered blond lobbyist? And how did they finesse the payoff he got from the Keating Five? Somehow, the man himself is just...not there.
He's a Wooden Soldier.
But that's the thing about McCain. It's not just that his so-called "straight talk" is obviously badly-bent nonsense. Stylistically as well as politically, he's everything wrong, everything wooden, everything false. Like Clinton, he seems to be missing a core, and that lack of authenticity makes every word he says immediately forgettable (unless it's so dumb as to lodge sideways in the mind, like the Hundred Years War threat or his Bomb Iran joke.)
Unfortunately for Clinton, she campaigned as a Wooden Soldier, too.
By the seventeenth time she claimed to have found, or re-found, or re-re-found her true "voice" -- first she was the Imperious and Inevitable One, then she was the nice-nice I'm-So-Honored One, followed (a day later!) by the Hateful Vicious Shame-On-You One, and still later the Weirdly Sarcastic The Skies-Will-Open One, and then the Shot-and-a-Beer Working-Class One, so gol-dang down-home that you expected the next photo-op to show her smoking crystal meth in a trailer park -- until finally, with the Gas-Tax-Holiday Fake Populist One, she exhausted all the possibilities -- and exhausted the patience of America, too.
Meanwhile, Obama remained Obama. Quiet when called for, inspiring when given the chance, and once in a while a little obnoxious (remember when he told Hillary "you're likable enough?" I mean, admittedly she kind of asked for it, but it was pretty gratuitous.) In short: a human being. For me, a pivotal moment--unremarked-on by the robo-pundits on TV -- came in Obama's second Reverend Wright speech. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said it was crucial to remember the core meaning of his campaign, "even if the messenger is flawed."
Even if the messenger is flawed.
Here's a game that's zany fun for the whole family: try to imagine Senator Clinton saying such a thing.
That's right: never happen -- unless...
Unless Mark Penn told her that polling showed there was some kind of Flawed-Messenger Demographic out there yet to be milked for votes.
And here's zany family game #2: try to imagine Obama getting in front of the TV cameras on a night that gutted his entire campaign, pasting a transparently phony smile on his face, and crowing "it's on to the White House!" as Michelle and the kids fought off tears on the podium behind him...
Never.
I think people relate deeply to the concept of The Flawed Messenger, because who among us is not one--in our family-life, our work, our spiritual pursuits? Being a Flawed Messenger is innately heroic (the Messenger part) but also deeply humbling (the Flawed part) -- all in all, a perfectly respectable thing to be. And I believe that on some psychic level, people torn between Clinton and Obama felt more comfortable voting for a man who confessed to being a Flawed Messenger -- not just in the speech, but in the way he carried himself.
Clinton's ultimate gift, among many, to Obama was obviously the Gas Tax Holiday. It nailed down her credentials as a Wooden Soldier -- the epitome of the old-fashioned, say-anything, 20th-century politician. She went once too often to the voters-are-dullards well, and it finally pissed them off.
It's a mistake McCain will make, too, because like Clinton he just can't help it. Part of it is generational. Clinton and McCain came of age in a Nixonian universe -- and there has never been a more Wooden Soldier than Nixon. (In my own personal dictionary, when you look up Wooden Soldier, there's a photo of Nixon doing his ghoulish two-handed V-For-Victory salute.) And part of it is a choice, based on an outmoded belief that voters want an Impregnable Persona instead of a genuine human being.
But, in the early part of the 21st Century, that choice is dead wrong. The Democratic runoff proved it -- and (you heard it here, folks!) it will be proved once again, thank God, in November, when Obama defeats John McCain and becomes our next president.
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Wooden soldier of yesteryear vs digital facade of today. Today we have manipulated high tech facades, digitally created. Either way the American people lose and not much changes. The lobbyist and special interests still prevail.
Except that with a digital face, there's a core consisting of all the people who upheld Obama online: the small donors having given more than any company or special interest, the people having carried our chosen representative into the record books because WE want to be the ones he owes--We, The People of the United States. Nobody said it's perfect, but it is MORE perfect and unified: far more real, exponenially more representative, and refreshingly more democratic than anything in our history.
This is a great post. I do think it's an authenticity thing. I remember seeing Barack and Michelle at a campaign stop which was a town-hall meeting. Like everyone else, I've seen him be great at the soaring-sp
John, I could not agree more. Obama's sense of who he is informs his campaign, his world view, his humanity. This allows him to improvise -- to be open to new ideas, resolve conflicting points of view, capitalize on opportunities as they present themselves.
The other two candidates, in attempting to be "what the voters want' compromise their humanity. It makes them rigid in their thinking, closed to fresh ideas, and unable to react honestly to the situations that present themselves. As Obama said yesterday of McCain, they "lose their bearings."
Clinton and McCain say to voters "I am one of you." It is the biggest Lie in politics. Since when is a former First Lady and standing U.S. Senator from New York with a hundred mil in the bank, or a decorated war hero with a brewery-heiress wife worth three hundred mil and her own private jet anything like you and me? They don't have any concerns about their health care plan, or paying for their children's college, or making next month's rent, or what they're going to do for a living when the plant shuts down.
Obama, on the other hand, says to the voters, I am unique, and so are you, and it is our ability to weave our unique histories into a shared vision of America that presents us with the ability to meet our challenges and realize our potential for greatness as a nation.
Authenticity is what so many of us crave and why so many have been turned off to politics. It's also why so many of the people supporting Obama were so turned off by Clinton. It was never her gender or the fact that she was a Clinton. On the issues, there's very little difference between the two. But with Obama, you get the sense his views are based on his own beliefs and values. With Hillary, you get the sense that everything is based on polls. What she says and does and doesn't do seems calculated. Take her vote for the war. She supported it cause polls favored it and she worried she'd look weak on national security. Then when the war became unpopular, she came out against it. She's the Democrat's version of Mitt Romney. It's hard to relate to her or feel like there's a real person there because who she presents seems like a manufactured product to sell to the public.
You seem to be under the illusion that the American electorate are not "dullards". While we all wish this were true the fact is that in the majority of cases Americans are dullards. How else can you explain the election of Bush the Squanderer twice!!
As this election process progresses it seems that there is no limit to how low you can go. I am willing to be big money that before this is over the rabid right is going to spew so much hatred and outright lies that they will have to use a ladder to find whale crap on the bottom of the sea. We see it already with the Hamas rubbish and the secret Muslim nonsense.
If the American public were not dullards this stuff would not only not work those that used it would be rejected and treated like the scumbags that they are. Sadly instead of that reaction those same scumbags are given multi-million dollar contracts to spew their lies and hatred on cable news and radio.
Damn, I was all warm and fuzzy and here you are pissing on my charcoal. You are right obviously, but I don’t have to like it!
Which explains a lot! Maybe that is why many from an older generation don't relate to Obama. They expect the wooden solider to be "presidential". Clintion certainly fits that image.
Obama WILL listen to the people..he always has. He can and will win against McCain. He is picking up supers at a slow rate, I believe this is to allow Hillary to gracefully bow out. Unfortunately, she can not see the writing on the wall. Her desperation will cause alot of damage. This is the greatest concern.
Hillarys comment about "white working class voters" was a slam to Obama and his skin color. ( forgetting he is both black and white) This comment is unacceptable to many Americans. First of all, we, may not possess a college paper degree. But we DO have commom sense and this requires NO paper document at all.
This labeling is very degrading. She needs to be pushed out. Why is everyone scared of the Clintons? They have had their time. Supers need to end this NOW!!!!!!!
I think it's terrible that she is using Americans who have not had the opportunity of higher education to embellish her credentials as to why she should be the next president. Many people, many parents want their children to go on to college and many can't because tuition is so out of reach for so many from all walks of life. I also think it abhorrent for her to pit one race against another. It's a truly sad and dispiriting thing to see. Just because a person doesn't have a college degree doesn't mean they are not intelligent and well read and can make sensible choices about their life.
SMP and apoyo - this is one of the things that disturbs me most about the current Hillary argument about why she is suppossedly the better candidate -- it paints all working class people as bigots who won't vote for a black person. There are certainly working class people who will behave this way, but there are also upper class, so-called "educated" people who will do the same. One hopes they are in the minority in both groups. As a middle-aged woman, I'm also supposed to be part of Hillary's "natural" constituency. However, so much of what she has said and done has so turned me off that I wound up voting for Barack in the primary, and I've never regretted it. What I don't understand is why working class people aren't insulted by her current position, and why so many of them keep voting for her.
I suspect, as do some others, that he's not picking up Supers at a slow rate, so much as he has them 'cached' and is releasing them (some anyway) at a trickle to ensure that his campaign is showing constant momentum forward, even when he loses a state or two along the way.
It's the smartest way to ensure that the news cycle doesn't just reflect on Hillary's 'Win', while still showing the inevitable, relentless fact that even when she 'wins', she loses.
Wonderful article. It's about time the media is seeing through the smoke and mirrors and realizing this campaign is all wrong. It was like "tell the people anything as long as they believe me" is how Hillary ran her campaign. She was so polarizing and so negative, it made you feel bad inside. And for her to keep saying "this is the way you do it in Washington" made you feel "since when". I don't ever remember such a raunchy campaign as this. Not even the Kerry one wasn't this low-down.
So thank you for putting it into perspective and hopefully we can get through the rest of it in peace. I just wish it would end because it has drained all my energy trying to stay above the mire.
John, I always enjoy your articles. One thing I've always liked about Obama is his willingness to admit when he is wrong. His humility is in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton's arrogance, who in her universe is apparently never wrong about anything. I think John McCain is a weak candidate and could be beaten, if Obama is not injured by whatever slime the Republican attack machine will hurl at him this fall.
Indeed. I just wish more Americans exercised their built-in bullshit detector.
"Like -- what's with that weird elbows-out microphone-holding technique? He looks like one of those incredibly annoying light-operetta singers from Gilbert and Sullivan, the kind that laugh along with the melody in ear-piercing soprano trills."
Really? Do you find McCain's captivity amusing, too?
Hillary told Newsweek she's surprised she's done as well as she has. So, yes, I can imagine Hillary saying something humble.
You, on the other hand....
Hi.
You have to admit, he might be a little right about Hillary. She hasn't been very gracious in defeat, and she just couldn't bring herself to say: "I lied about Bosnia, and I'm sorry." Instead all we got in the end was "I misspoke."
She will NEVER EVER IN THIS LIFE admit she has lied. That word is not in her vocabulary pertaining to herself, that is. She has a personality flaw that makes one feel for her because she'll never be true to anyone.
I've responded to this twice already, in as straightforward a way as I know how--if your outrage is genuine, please see below. But one more time: he sometimes holds the mike normally, he shakes hands and does other things normally, and in researching this as carefully as I can, I've found nothing to suggest this is anything but a mannerism. I repeat what I said below--if you can document that I'm wrong, I will withdraw the sentence and apologize for it. Honestly.
John Eskow
No, I'd prefer that you clarify precisely what you're getting at--namely, are you suggesting McCain's injuries are not what they've been reported to be? Or that their effects on his mobility are not as reported? His injuries (and their effect on his person) are widely documented--a quick Google check shows references all over cyberspace. If you have a counterclaim to make, then please state it in full and offer support.
The burden of proof is on you to prove that McCain is pulling an act, and not on me to prove otherwise. Please don't expect me to fall for the oldest ruse in the world (the "prove it ISN'T so" fallacy).
Below (with no reply button?) there's mention of the "Prove it isn't so" fallacy. But sometimes, there's a good answer. Consider "Obama is a Muslim":
"If Obama were a Muslim, McCain would tell us and win the election with no problem. Why doesn't he do that? Because he can't! It's nothing but a big, stupid lie."
Or words along these lines. Why is this good? Because it's a clean slap-down, leaving very little room for argument. Better yet, it should work for almost any crazy, demonizing allegation.
Compare this to "No he's not, because blah blah blah..." / "Yes he is, because blah blah blah..."
(BTW, this is paraphrased from a comment by JennOfArk at TPM Election Central, and I'm taking the liberty of repeating it a few times here and there.)
Zanti wrote:
"Really? Do you find McCain's captivity amusing, too?"
You're right. McCain's soul is now being held completely captive by his master, George W. Bush. And no, we don't find that at all amusing. It's quite tragic, actually.
The weird mic-holding thing is pretty funny, though.
Nobody was finding amusement at the thought of mcbushs's captivity. He is one of thousands of pows. It doesn't quailfy anyone to be president.
"Hillary told Newsweek she's surprised she's done as well as she has. So, yes, I can imagine Hillary saying something humble."
Hillary is surprised she's done as well as she has?
And you believed that statement, why?
That wasn't an attempt at being 'humble'. It was an attempt at trying to make excuses for the fact that she'd taken what was perceived as an inevitable coronation, with name recognition and a political machine that was (purportedly) second to none, and got thumped by her competition, who out-thought her, out-organized her, out-fund raised her, and showed her for the cardboard cut-out she really is.
I don't suspect she's surprised she's done as well as she has. Her behavior has shown that instead, she's like the kid who can't win at her own game, and so wants to make it miserable for everyone else who is beating her at it.
She'll say whatever folks like you will believe. Looks like she scored with that one. ;-)
I hope this guy is right, but a part of me thinks that the educated media are too often guilty of being a little out of touch with the real America. And the real America has prolonged this contest that should have been over weeks ago - not Hillary. Everyone can't help pointing out Obama's black support, but everyone refuses to acknowledge that Hillary's white and female support are even more telling. These are the voters that chose to endorse a candidate with known character flaws for two un-talked about reasons: She is female, and she is white. Some of the female Clinton supporters will support Obama in November, just as some of the black Obama supporter would support Clinton in November. But, None of the voters who support Hillary based upon the color of her opponent's skin will ever support Obama in the Fall. Why is this any different than the voters who support Obama simply because of the color of his opponent's skin? It is different because the former are in the huge majority, and so will have a much stronger impact on the general elelction. I'm sorry people, but in 2004 we gave the White House to the Republicans out of fear, and now it looks like in 2008 we'll allow them to keep it out of spite. Pretty sad.
I believe that you are wrong. I was born and raised in Indiana and went to college there in 1966. I can tell you for a fact that at that time a black man could not have gotten 5% of the vote. It was inconceivable. The KKK actually ran the state in the 1930's when my father was a boy. Things have changed. Believe it. When a black man nearly wins the primary in Indiana with republicans crossing over to vote for his opponent, that man can win the general election.
I really believe Americans want better and in the end will do the right thing. Only those Americans who believe in the war will vote for McCain. I think right now, people are upset because their particular candidate is losing and it hurts them personally. But for the best of the country, I do believe we will do the right thing in the end.
Not exactly sure what Eskow is saying but do get the general tone of the responses. Hillary never says I was wrong, for instance: She uses the phrase "misspoke" and everyone get soooo AGITATED. We lack a political pilgrimage site in this country, unless its Mt. Vernon. But Hillary gets absolutely no tolerance from the media or the Obamacons, unless she whips out a hair shirt. She explained her vote on the resolution giving Bush the authority to use force umpteen times; not good enough. If a surrogates points out that Obama won South Carolina more because he is black and won 90% of the black votes, there are screams of racism. WHOSE RACISM? The exit polls didn't ask what particular program or issue of Obama's they liked the best. In Mississippi, 90% of the black vote went to Obama. His being black couldn't have a role to play in winning primaries in the South? Talk about authenticity all you want. The pretense is that Obama has all these marvelous ideas he is going to put into place WHEN elected is the least honest. Congress, unless the Movement decides to do away with it, has a role. But least honest is that Obama is going to win states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio or Pennsylvania, and, yes, even Indiana, rings very false knowing what we all do know about the make up of those states and Obama's unwillingness to really deal with racisim right smack in front of him.
This is a very thoughtful article although I don't agree with some of it. For a long time Americans have been taken for granted. Politicians long gone have underestimated and undermined the American people. So they do and say anything to get themselves elected to power and then forget immediately they are sworn into office everything they ever said. They use fear, intimidations, race and class to divide and rule the American people. Hence after decades of political deceit and division that has lead American onto a path of near destruction, the America people want their country back. This is what the octogenarians (Clinton and McCain) refuse to understand. They still believe Americans are not smart enough to sift through what they say. Therefore, by underestimating and undermining the American people, and still thinking fear and race can win election, they will and shall pay for it. American is not as racist as the politicians of old think, it is not as ignorant as they think and it is not as divisive as think. That is why Barack is winning and would be the next president of American. He talk to people on equal level and accepts his mistakes. Accepting your mistakes and understanding your flaws is an indication that your respect the intelligent of the other people and the American people are not dumb.
Great post! Obama's approach is one the American people were waiting for but few politician have the courage to take. Instead they fall back on to saying and doing things they dont believe, in order to get elected. This tactic usually works when your oponent is playing the same game, but Obama is not and unless your are really good at selling fake authenticity (Presdient Clinton) you end up looking 'wooden' when contrasted with an Obama type candidate.
WHO is an octogenarian? Think Reagan is dead.....a
Hell yea.
I would also avoid calling a "Wooden Soldier" anyone who has bled on the battlefield. Again, not to take away from the main point, that being the clear difference in genuineness and authenticity that are currently clear, and will become even clearer, between Obama and McCain. But there are some real landmines in campaigning against McCain that are not present in a campaign against Clinton.
See below.
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