What is an American presidential election? "The most awesome
transfer of power in the world—the power to marshal and mobilize,
the power to send men to kill or be killed, the power to tax and
destroy, the power to create and the responsibility to do so, the
power to guide and the responsibility to heal—all committed into the
hands of one man."
Who asked this question? Theodore H. White
in his classic book, The
Making of the President 1960, his tour de force exhaustive study
of the election of 1960, an election not unlike this years contest
between the young upstart, charismatic Barack Obama in his faceoff
against the seasoned war hero and senior Senator from Arizona, John
McCain. In 1960 the young upstart was the charismatic John F.
Kennedy in a contest with the seasoned vice-president Richard Nixon.
I was thinking about the book and the 1960 election as I watched the
smarmy tale of John Edwards’ AFFAIR D’LOINS unfold last week. And I
was thinking that Americans are as naïve, if not stupid today, as
they were back nearly a half century ago when they elected John
Kennedy president.
Now don't get me wrong. I liked John Kennedy, but he was
elected for the wrong reasons.
In 1960, the young, handsome, charismatic
John Kennedy (the word made
famous during that campaign) and his young, beautiful, exquisitely
dressed wife, Jackie, seduced America just as the young, handsome,
charismatic Barack Obama and his young, beautiful, exquisitely
dressed wife, Michelle have seduced America today.
The Kennedy mystique was all about image. Television had come of age
in 1960 and the new medium required a new approach to those whose
job it was to get their candidate elected. The Kennedy’s were
created in the Hollywood mode, Washington style. They would
become the first political celebrities.
Though he had more of a resume than Barack Obama can claim, John
Kennedy was still considered a political neophyte in comparison to
his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon. No one cared. It was the
time when the definition of leadership changed from the meme of the
Father of Our Country so brilliantly executed in the Twentieth
Century by Franklin Roosevelt, to the new definition of leadership:
youth, vim & vigor and change as the answer to America's prayers.
And thus Theodore White’s book tells the story of the election of
the first packaged president, the PR campaign extraordinaire that
would be the model for all elections to follow despite the fact that
there are those who would say that but for the tragic ending of John
Kennedy assassinated in the prime of his youth leaving a victimized
wife and two very young children, America’s future might have wound
up differently, as well the Kennedy legacy.
For John Kennedy’s death was as packaged as brilliantly as his
candidacy though his 100 days in office were not the Camelot those
in charge of his legacy would have us believe.
Yet, since that election of 1960 Americans have been duped into
voting for its leaders, continuously surprised by the men they have
elected to office who too often have turned out not to be the men
the voters thought they were electing.
Image is the name of the game these days. He, not yet she, who has
the best image wins. But image is just that: it is illusion, it is
alchemy, it is wizardry, it is smoke and mirrors, and it is
legerdemain. Imagery is the art of making one see what one wishes
you to see, but it is not necessarily the truth. Image is about the
outside, not the inside. It is fluff, not substance.
It is the packaging of John Edwards, the small-town boy made good,
trial lawyer unparalleled, devoted husband and father struck by
tragedy with the strength to overcome, handsome, bright, charismatic
like John Kennedy, the man who never forgot his mill-town roots, and
whose mission he had made to fight for the common man that was sold
to Americans. When his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer and
the family made the decision to continue with their quest for the
presidency, we loved John Edwards even more, and especially
Elizabeth. John Edwards: the poster boy for our current ideal of
President, packaged to perfection with the help of fate.
Until a tabloid ripped open the false packaging and we learned that
the John Edwards we thought we knew, and Elizabeth as well, was
nothing like his perfect image In fact, we really didn’t know John
Edwards at all. We didn’t know that while his wife was battling a
terminal disease he was do-di-dooing a once-renowned New York party
girl enamored with the occult although in his ABC confession speech
Edwards’ wanted us to know that “it” happened while Elizabeth was in
remission. Remission sex? That’s a new one.
There’s more than the obvious lesson here. Sex and politics are
nothing new. No one could tell you that better than Jackie Kennedy.
And despite all the hype of the PR campaigns that define our
presidential candidates, the truth of who they are is always there.
Good PR is getting us to ignore truth and help us see our candidates
the way their handlers want us to see them.
Self-actualized after having come clean with his wife Elizabeth and
some apparent psychoanalysis, Edwards sat with newsman Bob Woodruff
and offered up all the clichéd lines and then some. He gave the
proverbial blame it on the small town boy inside of me not being
able to handle all that came my way and the “You cannot beat me up
more than I have already beaten up myself” line, the kind of
ammunition a good trial lawyer like say, John Edwards, would cajole
his clients to use in a deposition. During the interview Edwards
went from trial lawyer to psychiatrist diagnosing his behavioral
disorder as narcissism. And then John Edwards played the real trump
card gleaned from the Eliot Spitzer School of Cheating: I stand here
alone, not with my wife. This was my mistake, not hers – the I can
take my public humiliation like a man offense. What a guy, the guy
who was close to becoming if not our next president almost
vice-president!
Which takes me back to lesson and the words of Theodore H. White
written oh those many years ago, the words a caution to the
magnitude of the decision each American makes when he or she
walks into that voting booth and looks at the touchtone screen.
Beware of the screen of smoke and mirrors that candidates have put
before you. Your vote will give a man, and someday a woman “the
power to marshal and mobilize, the power to send men to kill or be
killed, the power to tax and destroy, the power to create and the
responsibility to do so, the power to guide and the responsibility
to heal—all committed into the hands of one man."
Charisma it seems to me should not be a qualification for giving a
man the power to send another to kill or be killed.
All Content Copyright ©2007-2008. Reprints only by permission from
Halli Casser-Jayne/The CJ Political Report