Son of the Wimp Factor (Part II of Why Dems Lose When They Should Win)

In some ways, the argument I am advancing should be familiarto your own experiences. Most of us have known some of these realities sincehigh school politics. How many classvaledictorians were also the school president? Was it easier for the captain of the football team to become schoolpresident or the leader of the chess club? These are examples of the the "wimp factor" in our everyday experience. 

In a later installment, I will explore why the Wimp Factoris important electorally, and why it is important alongside (and not to substitute for) the policy positions of a candidate. Bush has shown that being a non-wimp is not enough,and cannot be a style of governance. Its importance is in the election (andgetting re-elected), but without policy behind it, it can lead to Iraq-typeblunders. 

YOU CAN’T BE A WIMP IN TV LAND 

The 1960 Kennedy/Nixon election is widely viewed as thefirst election in which television had a substantial impact.  Since that time, television and popular mediahave had an ever increasing role in the election process. Ironically, considering how Democrats aresupposedly tied into Hollywood, they have been losing the media battle since Reagan’s ascendancy.

Let's start with our current president. He is an intellectual lightweight who canscarcely get through a speech without mangling the English language and is ourcurrent master of the malaprop. In manyways, he is a laughingstock. So how did he get elected twice? 

In part, he has been packaged to fit an image, and now he isa prisoner of that image and is apparently unwilling to break free of it to getus out of Iraq. His handlers have molded him into the modernday cowboy. His narrowing eyes, surlygrimace and his entire stubborn persona are a cheap modern-day version of ClintEastwood. Watch his mannerisms and thenwatch an old Clint Eastwood movie, and you would think Bush was trying to mimicevery move.

This cannot be an accident. The most telling evidence of that is his now infamous "MissionAccomplished" performance. Heplayed dress-up with his strut across the flight deck in full flight gear (andpossible codpiece). Speaking under the"Mission Accomplished" banner, he played his role to the hilt. 

Think also of his "bring it on" challenge to theterrorists - a statement aptly labeled by Lewis Black as the stupidestutterance ever made. Yet, it perfectlyfits the persona his handlers created. 

Bush has been packaged to be our macho president. He was packaged to be the antithesis of awimp. There is an excellent article by Frank Rich in the New York Times  which points out the fundamental cowardiceof this president. However, it isdoubtful you would find many American voters who would so characterize him. 

Bush is now viewed as inept, incompetent, perhaps stupid andcertainly bullheaded. Very few voterswould label him a coward or a wimp. 

It is my thesis that his carefully crafted image is a majorfactor, perhaps the most major, in his two victories. Certainly, his flailing verbalskills and consistent record of business failure, not to mention his lacklusterreign as Governor of Texas, strongly suggest that image was everything for him(along with some rigged election results). 

I believe his persona was also carefully crafted to mimic thefictitious president in the movie "Independence Day" (circa 1996 - prior to the Bush v. Gore election). You mayremember how that President flew a jet fighter and heroically brought down the alienspacecraft. Bush has been packaged tothe American public as the real-life equivalent. Of course, the reality would have been thatBush would have used his father’s influence to have avoided flying in combatagainst the alien spaceship, but that is a side issue. 

Think also of Harrison Ford in the movie "Air ForceOne." Imagine an American presidentpersonally killing off a gang of terrorist hijackers and flying the plane tosafety. Realistic. While such portrayalsseem like harmless fantasy, there is a deeper emotional chord they arestrumming. It is the same emotionalchord which managed to elect Ronald Reagan. 

There is a reason that the Republicans deify RonaldReagan. As a Californian, I can speak tothe fact that he was a poor governor. Hedismantled the educational system and essentially undid the very programsenacted by Pat Brown and the Democratic legislature which made California the "Golden State." He lowered the standard of living for the California middle and lower classes and made it more difficult for their children to rise up togreater opportunities. He brought thesame destructive touch to the federal government. He ran up the deficit, he presided over domesticand foreign-policy disasters, he committed impeachable offenses in theIran-Contra scandal, and in spite of all his failures, was viewed as the"Teflon President."

Republicans claim that he "won" the Cold War as ifhe was Harrison Ford shooting it out with the Russian bad guys. That claim, by the way, is absurd. Sure, he called for Gorbachev to tear downthe Berlin wall. As if that speech caused Gorbachevto clap palm to forehead and suddenly realize the tyranny of communism!

No, the Russian Empire fell from internal economic collapsecaused by its endemic failures and by an unceasing stream of Americanpresidents acting in opposition from Roosevelt through Reagan. More significant contributors than Reagan to the collapse of that empirewere the Cuban missile crisis (which exposed Khrushchev as a Russian equivalentof a wimp, causing him to be succeeded by inept bureaucrats who ran the economyinto the ground) and by the Russian misadventure in Afghanistan (eerily similar to our current Iraq situation).

Of course, the biggest contributor was thecollapse of the Russian economic system. Reagan continued American policies in opposition to the Soviet Union, but he was primarily the beneficiary ofbeing in the right place at the right time.

Enough of that diatribe, the point is that Reagan was alsoan anti-wimp, which is what essentially caused him to get elected over JimmyCarter, who seemed to portray wimpish characteristics in the face of theIranian hostage crisis. Ever since, the GOP has been adopting the Reagan anti-wimp persona, and it has worked.

In this coming presidential cycle, the entire Giulani campaign is a one note song --I am not a wimp, elect me to do battle with the terrorists.

As part of the thesis that America will not elect a wimp aspresident in the television era, let's imagine these "matchups" ofpopular figures as presidential elections. Each will be posed as a popular figure having a strong non-wimp imageagainst a more intellectual opponent. Some of them go way back, so the younger readers may need to look themup.

So, imagine who would win in the following electoral matchups:
John Wayne vs. Wally Cox (“Mr. Peepers”)
Bruce Willis vs. Dustin Hoffman
Clint Eastwood vs. Tony Randall
Harrison Ford vs. Richard Dreyfuss
Russell Crowe vs. Hugh Grant
Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Phil Angelides (oops, we did that – and look how it turnedout)

In each of the above examples, the opponent in the rightcolumn is more likely the more intellectual, and therefore more policywonk-ish, candidate. However, it is hardto imagine any of the candidates on the left-hand side losing. 

All is not lost, however, because in reality the biggestfactor in not being a wimp is attitude. If Keanu Reeves can be an action hero in "Speed" or any"Matrix" movie, if Toby Maguire can be Spiderman and if SigourneyWeaver can kick alien butt (many times over in multiple movies), then there isno good reason why the Democratic candidates cannot morph into non-wimps. 

Now the question is: do the Democrats have it in them not tobe wimps? 

Don't be depressed. Of course, some do. Recall theJim Webb response to the State of the Union message. Think how that galvanized progressives andresonated with the American people. Thatspeech was a vivid example of how to be the antithesis of a wimp in thepolitical arena. And after all, it really is the Democratic tradition not to bea wimp. Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedycould not be characterized as being wimps, yet all were intellectually solid. They combined policy with an anti-wimp attitude. Clinton was widely viewed as a policy wonk, but he was certainly not a wimp. It is no accident that he has been the only two full term Dem president since Kennedy. 

The next installment will look back at some unfortunate examples of the Wimp Factor at work in elections of the past.