Yesterday, the NYT’s Jim Rutenberg wrote a nice, straightforward description of campaign ‘08 as it stands in mid-July [e.a.]:
Every presidential election year, the nominees of the major parties vow to run cordial campaigns only to behave otherwise when the battle finally joins.
This campaign, though, had held out more promise than most previous election cycles to be something different, with two candidates whose pledges to change “politics as usual” have been central to their political identities. Mr. Obama has regularly inveighed against “all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington”; Mr. McCain, whose bus and plane are streaked with the words “Straight Talk,” has talked about running “a respectful campaign,” what he has called “an argument among friends.”
But roughly a month into the general election campaign, the Obama and McCain campaigns are already locked in a minute-by-minute fight, trading advertisement for advertisement, sound bite for sound bite, press release for press release — and, yes, insulting name for insulting name — with rhetoric that can be as harsh and misleading as that of any previous campaign.
At play, beyond real policy differences over major issues like taxes and Iraq, is a fierce competition to win the moment in a hypercharged news environment driven not only by cable and the evening newscasts but also by the scores of Web sites that now cover politics by the minute with screaming headlines attached to the smallest developments.
This description seems to suggest that the new media has somehow changed politics. But Rutenberg takes back the suggestion a few paragraphs later:
The tone of the discourse seems to carry risks for two men who in part became their parties’ presumptive nominees by speaking against partisan bickering, said Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for Mr. Bush. …[T]he campaigns blame each other for setting a combative tone that makes turning down the volume the equivalent of unilateral disarmament. … The force behind some of the harder-charging rhetoric may be no different than what prompted allies of John Quincy Adams to run searing attack pamphlets against Andrew Jackson nearly 200 years ago: It works.
Yeah, I suppose it does, on some level. Works to what end, though?
To a win for your political party?
Well, rah rah rah.
So. I’m back and I’m mellow—probably because I have studiously avoided catching up on the blogospheric eruptions that I missed while I was away (though I did follow the news, at a vast remove, in the International Herald Tribune, which, shockingly, costs € 2,20 [approx $3.10]; more later on following the news at a vast remove).
Among others, I had P. G. Wodehouse for company on my European idyll, and these words, from Psmith in the City, written in 1910, also helped to lighten my mood [e.a.]:
All political meetings are very much alike. Somebody gets up and introduces the speaker of the evening, and then the speaker of the evening says at great length what he thinks of the scandalous manner in which the Government is behaving or the iniquitous goings-on of the Opposition. From time to time confederates in the audience rise and ask carefully rehearsed questions, and are answered fully and satisfactorily by the orator. When a genuine heckler interrupts, the orator either ignores him, or says haughtily that he can find him arguments but cannot find him brains. Or, occasionally, when the question is an easy one, he answers it. …
The electors of Kenningford who really had any definite opinions on politics were fairly equally divided. There were about as many earnest Liberals as there were earnest Unionists. But besides these there was a strong contingent who did not care which side won. These looked on elections as Heaven-sent opportunities for making a great deal of noise. They attended meetings in order to extract amusement from them; and they voted, if they voted at all, quite irresponsibly. A funny story at the expense of one candidate told on the morning of the polling, was quite likely to send these brave fellows off in dozens filling in their papers for the victim’s opponent.
[Penguin; pp. 56-57]
In 1910, there was no Feiler Faster Thesis to explain (courtesy of Mickey Kaus) that candidates (and their campaign strategists) needn’t fret about not having enough time to connect with voters.
Even a century ago it was understood that only at the last minute do voters give political campaigns their
allotted minute and a half of concentrated thought.
Except: even a century ago Wodehouse knew that the great unwashed among voters don’t give candidates their thought.
They vote with their gut.
And they are likely to be swayed not by facts but by—dare I say it?—infotainment [that is: gossip, rumor, fabrication, PRopagandaTM or anything else that makes for a more entertaining story than what reality, and a factual rendering of it, can deliver].
Upshot: time isn’t the crucial problem for candidates. As always, perception is the problem. Image is the problem. (Then, of course, there’s the little issue of connecting with the public’s mood.)
It’s not fair.
It’s not right.
It could lead us where we definitely don’t want to go.
It’s likely to offer dismal results for those of us “earnest Liberals” who want to vote for Obama—or, rather, to live in a world where Obama’s views hold sway.
But that’s the way it is.
Finally, someone explains the incomparable atmosphere and ethos of the U.S. Open:
“This is not the cathedral of tennis like Wimbledon is,” said the broadcaster Jim Courier, a four-time Grand Slam tournament champion. “This is a stadium filled with New York’s corporate elite, who are not necessarily hardcore tennis fans but are here more for the spectacle.”
The Serbian player Jelena Jankovic explains how it feels from the player’s point of view:
“We love it in New York. Here, it’s crazy, like you are performing on Broadway and you know you are part of the show.”
No wonder her countryman Novak Djokovic, a ham if there ever was one,
[video removed]
is doing so well here. He just beat David Ferrer and is headed for the final tomorrow. Woohoo!
