Primary Concerns

I love this primary season. Yes, I know that much of the coverage is shallow and concentrates on the horse race aspect instead of substantive issues. Still, you have to love the energy and enthusiasm—particularly among the Democrats. They have run out of ballots in New Hampshire!

You also have to love how the experts and pundits have been so wrong so often. Obama caught fire against the expert opinion that had Hillary on a coronation tour. Giuliani held up longer than expected, despite having social policies anathema to social conservatives. And Huckabee is a legitimate phenom—coming from nowhere. (Who ever would think a governor from Hope Arkansas could be seriously considered for the presidency?)

McCain’s political obits seem to have been premature, and Romney, now marketing himself as an agent of change, for once is telling the truth. He is change personified.

The good news about America and the bad news are related. As the great writer Peter DeVries observed about a pretentious fellow, “He is profound only on the surface. Deep down he’s shallow.” We tend to make our choices based on strange and often shallow criteria. We vote not so much on ideology (this to me is good news, since it means we can come together from time to time). We vote on chemistry, on pheromones. We vote for people we find to be warm, attractive and want to see in our living rooms over the next 4 or 8 years.

Yes, the famous “beer test,” got George W elected over Gore. And yes, this is the open secret of Obama’s trouncing (so far) of Hillary. As shallow as this is as a process, the law of large numbers has a record of demonstrating a certain amount of collective wisdom.

As Bob Dole in the midst of his, well, doleful campaign remarked, “Charisma is unfair.” People are drawn to some candidates, repelled by others and worst of all indifferent to most. When Bill Clinton said yesterday that he “Couldn’t make Hillary taller, younger or male,” he was touching on this point. The idea of a woman is attractive to many, but Hillary as a presence, not so much.

Obama combines both the larger idea (We can get past race) with personal charisma. He is exciting young voters and re-awakening memories of Bobby Kennedy in oldsters. Today is about more than ideology or party. There is a movement and part of it is generational. The normal categories of union, socio-economic class and political philosophy are, for a day, being drowned by a new generation asserting its power. Against the common wisdom, the young people are showing up.

Huckabee too crosses lines of ideology and religion. He will appeal to groups far broader than just Evangelicals. People like him. He seems genuine. His gestures and tone are in sync with his words. He sounds more like Reagan than a Baptist preacher. Strangely, Obama sounds more like a Baptist preacher than Huckabee.

Neither Bob Dole nor Hillary, neither Romney nor Biden or Dodd could fake charisma. We are in the process of choosing a president, a companion and an ongoing presence in our lives. Sometimes we make strange and desperate choices—as if in a bar at 1:55 am—and wake up next to Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Most of the time we do the right thing and find the person who makes us feel good about our selves and our nation.

There are brilliant technocrats who cannot lead—Jimmy Carter comes to mind. There are also people with the magic to inspire us to be better than we think we can be. Reagan was surely one. Bill Clinton was nearly as gifted. And as for Obama? We’ll see.