Too Cool For School?
David Ignatius’s column in the Post frames Obama’s supposed unflappability as “cool,” unflinching. He seems a little flappable to me sometimes, but it’s a good political figure-ground experiment: you can read the coolness as statemanlike surety or uptight aloofness. (Guess which one the media will be going with this summer.) Ignatius captures some of this quantum fluctuation:
Obama has remained “Mr. Cool,” even when his campaign seemed to be blowing up around him. He didn’t do the politically expedient things: He didn’t wear his patriotism on his lapel with an American flag pin; he didn’t promptly disown his race-baiting former pastor, Jeremiah Wright; he didn’t apologize for comments by his wife, Michelle, that many Americans found unpatriotic. You can say what you like about the substance of these positions, but the interesting fact is that Obama didn’t flinch.
“Yes, we know what’s coming. I’m not naive,” Obama said in the North Carolina speech. “We’ve already seen it . . . pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy, in the hopes that the media will play along.”
That’s the message: Attack me; attack my pastor; attack my wife; bring it on. I’m ready.
The past several months have revealed Obama’s vulnerabilities, but they’ve also shown his ability to take a punch. Many whites are furious that he didn’t throw Wright overboard sooner, but blacks surely like him all the more for resisting the pressure. And there’s an instinctive American fondness for people who don’t rat out their friends, even when their friends are creeps. That’s why a Wright-based strategy may backfire for the Republicans, just as it did for Hillary Clinton.
Obama has a transcendent ambition: It’s part of what gives him the “man of destiny” quality. When you see him on TV or in pictures, he always seems to be looking into the middle distance — not to any person in particular but toward “the people” and the far horizon.
Cool is good, but overconfidence is dangerous. Obama’s had a delicate balancing act in the primary and I think he can be tougher on McCain (for several reasons) than he could on Hillary. But it’s not a processional to the White House; it’s a fight. How (and how much) can Barack get around the “elite” tag? Clearly, bowling didn’t work. This will be the trick of the general campaign, I think; he needs to show he understands voters’ fears and concerns, not just about “politics as usual” but about real, emotional issues. I think he does understand, and some of his rhetoric has been effective. But if he’s doing this in his campaign, he hasn’t yet figured out how to force the media to show it. He can say “it’s not about me, it’s about you,” but he’s got to show that with pictures and powerful, grounded emotional appeals. And supporters need to echo and amplify that, as well. The campaign should be producing quotes and talking points for the million volunteers that go straight to local, emotional issues. The message is not simply “Don’t you want change?” but also, “With Barack Obama in the White House and a new Democratic congressman in your district, we can finally get free medical coverage for your kids.”* How do we make that connection in our local media?
*When that’s fair to say, basing that claim on this, presumably:
- Mandatory Coverage of Children: Obama will require that all children have health care coverage. Obama will expand the number of options for young adults to get coverage, including allowing young people up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parents’ plans.
- Expansion Of Medicaid and SCHIP: Obama will expand eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs and ensure that these programs continue to serve their critical safety net function.
