-January, 2008
In
2000, while preparing for her New York Senate debate with Rick Lazio, Hillary
Clinton said that she had "steeled" herself "for the possibility
of personal attacks and was determined to stay focused on the issues –
not on Lazio as a person. Steeling oneself is a familiar political canard.
Politicians imagine that if they stay on the issues – gun control,
health care, the Iraq war – and stay off the person – themselves,
their spouses, and others – they’ll be more electable. This
chin-up stand tells voters, I’m above the fray; evaluate me only on
my persuasive abilities. But we don’t evaluate them that way. Nor
does our TV-mediated politics. We want the debate heated. We want sparks.
We’re looking for tics of emotion, the temper of resolve. Candidates
differ far more in self-expression than they do in their positions –
a fact everyone knows. Thus, abnegating the self becomes a stance no different
from a fine haircut (think Edwards) or a patented smile (think Giuliani).
Watching and listening to, even reading, politicians is the art of gleaning
the personal from the political when the two conditions seem inseparable.
Which is another way of saying that in politics character and its many expressions
remain king. For proof we need look no further than the putative depth of
self in Reagan and the indisputable lack of it in Bush. The
Rest of the Story.