democracyarsenal.org: Chasing Authenticity

May 19, 2006

Chasing Authenticity
Posted by Michael Signer

I unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) can't write too much today, as I've gotten a little derailed at my day job, but wanted to chime in briefly on the very interesting debate about Joe Klein's new book. I haven't read Klein's book, but it seems like one of those books you really don't have to read to understand.

His thesis, summarized in this Time piece, is that politics has been ruined by think-inside-the-box consultants who take away Al Gore's passion for the environment, John Kerry's antiwar positions, and, to extend the logic, Bob Dole's humor. His peroration that concludes the piece is stirring:

I hate predictions. Most pundits, like most pollsters, get their information by looking in the rearview mirror. But let me give 2008 a try. The winner will be the candidate who comes closest to this model: a politician who refuses to be a "performer," at least in the current sense. Who speaks but doesn't orate. Who never holds a press conference on or in front of an aircraft carrier. Who doesn't assume the public is stupid or uncaring. Who believes in at least one major idea, or program, that has less than 40% support in the polls. Who can tell a joke—at his or her own expense, if possible. Who gets angry, within reason; gets weepy, within reason ... but only if those emotions are real and rare. Who isn't averse to kicking his or her opponent in the shins but does it gently and cleverly. Who radiates good sense, common decency and calm. Who is not afraid to deliver bad news. Who is not afraid to admit a mistake. And who, above all, abides by the motto that graced Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Oval Office: let unconquerable gladness dwell.

Good as it sounds, though, there are problems with all of this.

First, as a stimulating debate on Slate between the Daily Kos and Stuart Stevens illuminates, Klein's empirical emphasis is somewhat misplaced and perhaps misguided. He idealizes Bobby Kennedy's speech after MLK's death as the example par excellence of non-consultant-driven politics -- but this was a rare and perhaps unique event, driven by a singular human tragedy, and was completely spontaneous. Were politics always to have to respond to this level of debate, it wouldn't be politics at all -- it would be constant emergency. We couldn't sustain that level of energy and adrenaline, and of the rhetoric entailed. So RFK's speech was necessarily singular and generational.

And we do see similar examples of inspired rhetoric, anyway -- whether the convention speeches by Barack Obama "Audacity of Hope" speech in 2004 and Mario Cuomo's "Tale of Two Cities" address in 1984 -- or even the more ordinary but still moving, like a recent C-SPAN interview by Brian Lamb with my former boss Mark Warner, where Governor Warner talked movingly about his mother's battle with Alzheimer's disease.

There's a deeper problem, which I actually wrote about in a WaPo op-ed a couple years back, when I was interested in the worshipping of Howard Dean's "straight-talking." Because everyone -- including Joe Klein -- acknowledges that modern (or perhaps all) politics is intrinsically theatrical, the pursuit of authenticity actually just generates a circular paradox. We want people to convince us they are authentic -- but we don't necessarily want them to be authentic. And then, of course, when they're actually authentic (like George W. Bush scowling during the first debate with John Kerry) far be it from someone like Klein to praise him for it.

There's much more to say about this but, like I said, I gotta go. Authentically.

May 19, 2006 at 12:14 PM in Potpourri | Permalink

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May 19, 2006

Chasing Authenticity
Posted by Michael Signer

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May 19, 2006

Chasing Authenticity Posted by Michael Signer

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Chasing Authenticity
Posted by Michael Signer