Candidates who connect to their real selves and deepest motivations win

[question everything]

Candidates who connect to their real selves and deepest motivations win. Phonies fade fast.
By Jonathan Alter
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 2:56 PM ET Dec 15, 2007

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Edwards sees politics as the extension of litigation by other means. The words Hillary used to describe his MO—"demanding change"—are fine with him. While his hard-core anticorporate rhetoric may be a cleverly honed campaign message that's at odds with much of his Senate record (and one likely to be softened if he survives Iowa), his adversarial approach to the world is not a pose. He first ran for office in 1998 to fill a void left in his life by the death of his 16-year-old son, Wade. The passion that works for him on the trail, as his wife, Elizabeth, explains, comes from fusing a desire to make Wade proud with a debt to those, like his millworker father, who struggled. But this idea that power can simply be "taken" from insurance companies and drug companies does not bear scrutiny. Edwards told me last week that the special interests would see "the handwriting on the wall" after his election and capitulate to the popular will. If only it were that easy.

Obama spent much of his childhood and early adulthood figuring out who he is. He succeeded (as his book "Dreams From My Father" conveys) and became an integrated man in the fullest sense of the word. The ease with which he carries the burdens of history is what gives him his appeal. His experience as a community organizer in Chicago helps explain both his success at building a sophisticated campaign from scratch in a few months and his preference for the kind of conciliation that succeeded with skeptical community activists there—and, later, in politics. (His success in bringing together the police and the ACLU to win landmark death-penalty legislation shouldn't be discounted just because it happened in Illinois, not Washington.) But Obama's lack of experience with confrontation increases the odds that he could be swamped early in his presidency, as Bill Clinton was. Hope has a way of wilting.

Hillary would likely get off to a faster start, and her willingness to sweat the details would improve her batting average on getting those details right. But even though the "scar tissue," as she calls it, from her failed 1994 health-care plan may make her a more battle-hardened Washington operator, it could also cause her to shrink from confrontation and settle for too little. And for all of her collegiality with Republican senators and small legislative wins, no major bill yet bears her name. She is an unproven conciliator.

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If only the strengths of the front runners could be melded. The strongest president would combine an instinct for a well-timed fight with an inspirational message of reconciliation and the doggedness and sophistication needed to get big things done. It's like a game of mix and match. Could a President Edwards, who settled plenty of cases before trial, mend enough fences among members of Congress to get bills through, despite what they see as a do-nothing Senate term and an unwillingness to cooperate? Could a President Obama prove himself a natural at confronting hostile partisan fire? Could a President Clinton go over the heads of Washington insiders and rally the American people to her side? MO matters. The candidates' histories and campaign themes don't always help us predict how they would actually operate in office (e.g., George W. Bush), but they're the only clues we've got.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/78161

[AndyTiedye]

1. They Have to Be Able to Look "Real" On TV, Which is Something Completely Different