Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times entertainment section ran an interesting bit of election analysis from Mary McNamara. Considering the pop songs and television ratings generated by these campaigns, it would seem wisdom from observers such as Ms. McNamara is becoming increasingly vital. The election is, after all, a hit show. Ms. McNamara’s take reveals the strengths and the limitations of doing a purely Hollywood-type analysis of American politics: She hits the nail on the head in asserting that smugness has been the Democrats’ downfall, but she gets things woefully wrong in assuming Republican folksiness to be a sham.
When will Democrats learn that smug just doesn’t work for them? You would think after watching Al Gore go down in eye-rolling flames as George W. Bush’s carefully orchestrated folksiness trumped vice presidential experience, Hillary Rodham Clinton would have known better.
That Bush is at once learning-disabled and in possession of a dastardly brilliance has been a longtime talking point problem for the Left. Whether or not you like him, it’s plain as day that Bush’s easygoing manner is etched into his DNA. And the fact that Al Gore himself has gone on from his presidential defeat to try to remake the state of the very heavens suggests that no lesson in humility has registered. However, Ms. McNamara makes some useful points. Hillary at first ran on a sense of entitlement. As it became more clear that she planned to coast on overconfidence the media and the public grew nauseated. During this time, Obamamania ballooned. However, by the time everyone had left Hillary for dead, the balloon was now on display atop Obama’s shoulders. His overconfidence has become in itself an unprecedented phenomenon. “And what happened?” writes Ms. McNamara. “What has been happening in this race since Iowa. Democratic voters ditched smug for earnest and, whoops, there went Rhode Island, Texas, and Ohio right over to Clinton.”
Ms. McNamara recommends the candidates observe make-believe presidents on “The West Wing” and “Commander in Chief” for lessons in tempering their egos:
See the steely-eyed focus tempered with a sense of humor, the insanely quick grasp of the facts softened by the recognition that most everyone is flawed in some way? This is what you should be shooting for. Self-deprecating confidence. A little arrogance is OK because people with self-esteem issues don’t usually run for president, but there is no sense of personal entitlement, no smugness.
Hillary does seem in some genuine sense taken down a few pegs. “Humanizing” is what the press used to say she needed. The thing is—it can’t be faked, especially in someone as sincerity-challenged as her. If Hillary Clinton appears to have been humanized it’s because she went to the brink of political extinction and back again. So far, there’s no evidence that Obama is acknowledging the possibility of following her lead.
