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In many ways, the President is the nation's self image. I can't tell you how many times I've seen comments at DU and other places that Bush is an "embarrassment." He is a shame to the nation--and the writer or speaker feels it personally. And it's not just because of what he's done--it's because of what he IS--a stupid, inarticulate, "all hat, no cattle," privileged bully. That image makes people cringe. They don't want to be identified with it. It makes them queasy. Why? Because, in some sense, they identify with the President as the "sum of the nation"--our most visible expression in the world, the person who sets the standard of behavior, the person who represents our collective identity.
So it's very important WHO this person is--and, in this world of electronic media--WHAT he projects--to us, and to others. Is he is open-hearted and open-minded, a book-reader, intelligent, witty, charismatic and visionary? If so, we feel better about ourselves--we feel that we can doing anything. Put men on the moon and bring them safely back to earth? No problem! His qualities in some ways reflect on us, as individuals. (I'm using "him" and "his" only because all presidents have been male--and I'm speaking of what has been true, historically.) Is he fearless? Does he say, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" If so, we feel less fearful about taking on both Hitler's Germany and the Imperial Japan at the same time. The President sets the tone. His popularity is especially important in a crisis, but it is always important.
The war profiteering corporate news monopolies--and Rove & Co.--have tried to force this incredibly stupid, flawed person--Bush--upon us as OUR self-image. They've created false events, such as Mr. Codpiece of "Mission Accomplished," and "Bush, the rancher," clearing brush, to shape this jerk into some semblance of a popular hero. And then they've stolen elections--so they can commit mind-boggling theft of our treasury, the hijacking of our military for a corporate resource war, the shredding of our Constitution as a protection for the People against Corporate Power, and other crimes, with idiot Bush as their "front man"--a criminal enterprise that has made it SEEM as if this horror has the approval of most Americans. "Bush, the war-president," and "Bush, the cowboy," have been very much a part of this horrendous manipulation BECAUSE the president's popularity is so important.
Presidential popularity is more important than with any other office. News organizations and others are constantly "taking the temperature" of the country by measuring the president's approval rating--which is as much a popularity measure (a matter of the image being projected), as it is a measure of the president's policy. Of course, if the policies are particularly bad--or good--that has more influence on "approval," but it's aways a mix of perceptions of the personality of the president and policy.
And this is regardless of whether or not it is a good thing, in a democracy, for the citizens to be looking to the president for their self-image. It probably isn't a good thing, in many ways--it's way too monarchical, and it also leads to phony image-making, at the presidential level and all levels of government and politics. But it is a reality. And it's positive aspect is that a "popularity contest" is a component of leadership. It is the duty of leaders, in a democracy, to INSPIRE people, to motivate them, to set a good example, and to get them to work toward good goals. We haven't had this--inspiring leadership--in a long, long time. And I'm sure that's why people are flocking to Obama--he's young, he's essentially uncontaminated by the cauldron of corruption that our government has become, and he's in tune with the people, who are very much in need of inspiring leadership, to get out of the morass that the Bushites and collusive Democrats have put us in. Congress--22% approval rating! Bush--19% approval rating! What does THAT tell ya? It's about the war, yes, but it is about so much else. It is about LACK OF INSPIRING LEADERSHIP.
I was young Kennedyite in 1960. I was 16 at the time, and it was my first experience of politics. And I remember the 1960 Democratic convention. JFK's chief rival for the nomination was Adlai Stevenson, who was a far, far better leftist than Kennedy--on matters of policy. Really, there was almost nothing to recommend JFK to anyone who really understood the "Cold War" and social issues like the importance of the labor movement. Stevenson was the best candidate--and also older, wiser and much more experienced than Kennedy. I remember the famous photo of Adlai Stevenson, relaxing outdoors, with his foot toward the camera, showing a HOLE IN HIS SHOE! It was...I don't know...indication that he was more on the side of the working class and the poor than glittering JFK, with his father's millions and his impeccable suits. But Stevenson's genuine credentials as a leftist, as a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, as an advocate of world peace, and all the rest, were not what I, nor my generation, needed at the time. We needed INSPIRATION. Stevenson was "old guard" in our view. We needed youth. We need CONFIDENCE that WE could create the future.
Coming our way, soon, was a revolution in social justice like nothing we have ever seen in this country, before or since. The civil rights movement. The women's rights movement. The gay rights movement. The indigenous rights movement. The anti-war movement--the revolt of an entire generation against unjust war. The black power movement. The environmental movement. The liberalization in the Catholic Church. All previous social barriers, and blockades of true democracy, came tumbling down all at once. And if that wasn't enough, we broke the bounds of earth itself and put men on the moon. The JFK presidency was the BEGINNING of all this. It was HIS creative instinct--his ability to change--that answered the need of the era. Popularity. It's not just glitter. It's not just high rhetoric. It's the perhaps unconscious--or half-conscious--perception by the people of the intangible qualities in a leader--especially of a president--that answer the age, that provide what "WE, THE PEOPLE" need to change society for the better.
Adlai Stevenson was the better candidate. JFK was the inspiring one. And, in 1960, it wasn't what he said. It was who he really WAS, beneath the skin of privilege, and aside from his "Cold Warrior" rhetoric. A president who--like his youthful followers--was able to learn and grow, and gain perspective on the world, and try to change it. By the end of his shortened term as president, he had stopped two wars with communist countries (Cuba, the Soviet Union), and was working on stopping a third--Vietnam. (The latter is why they killed him, I'm sure of it.) He had initiated civil rights legislation and the first nuclear disarmament treaty. He had begun the conversion of the military budget to peaceful uses (the space program). And much more. He fulfilled that intangible quality of youth, hope and creative intelligence--the ability to change--in many concrete ways.
And let me tell you--having been there--that JFK's youth and "inexperience" was a MAJOR ISSUE, not only in his campaign for the nomination, but also in his campaign against Richard Nixon (who had been Eisenhower's VP). As a Kennedy volunteer, I was constantly dealing with this issue--through the nomination process and the election. And it was not only meaningless to me, it was INSULTING. *I* was young! I identified with Kennedy's youth. How dare anyone say that the young could not lead?
If Clinton, or McCain, think that they are going to get traction with the "young and inexperienced" issue, they are very mistaken. The kind of youthful political energy that Obama is inspiring will only intensify with every insulting mention of his being "too young" or "too inexperienced." And, in any case, what has age and experience done to help our country lately? NOTHING! The powers-that-be--the "old and experienced"-- have come close to destroying our country.
I see many flaws in Obama's policy--not the least of which is his vagueness on policy. Personally, I'm not sure who he is--who or what he is beholden to--and it's extremely difficult to tell these days, who a candidate is, given the phenomenally delusionary quality of the rightwing corporate news media. But I think one thing is clear: who his SUPPORTERS are! They are representative of the SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people who oppose the Iraq War and want it ended, and who have had no voice in the affairs of the nation. And they are representative of an IGNITED young peoples' movement to change the country--on war policy, social justice and other issues.
In this sense, Obama is very like JFK. Though he opposed the war--and appears to have better foreign policy advisers than Clinton--he voted to keep funding it. His policies are ambivalent and hard to read. But his SUPPORTERS know what THEY want--and that's not bad. It means that, if he becomes president, they will at least have a voice in Washington DC, or HOPE of a voice. They will feel encouraged and inspired. It takes more than a president to reform a country. It takes the whole country. Citizen involvement is essential. And even if Obama disappoints his followers, this new citizen activism is a great, great plus.
Very unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, she is associated with the past--with all the compromises the Democrats have made (why Congress has a 22% approval rating--good god!), and with the disastrous policies of the last eight years, which she has never sufficiently opposed. Nobody knows what Obama would have done, had he been in office longer as a Senator. And that is in his favor. He is largely an unknown. He is a new face. He represents the aspirations of the young and the previously excluded--the majority of Americans, not just blacks and other minorities.
What young, energetic presidents do--or a president like FDR, facing an unusual crisis (the Great Depression)--is create a "brain trust." That's what Obama will do. A president doesn't have to WRITE policy. He merely has to guide it. His job is to get the nation behind what the "brain trust" comes up with. To inspire. To lead. And that duty is as much about popularity (personal projection) as it is about substance. Ask Adlai Stevenson.
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