Mike Huckabee, at 52, and Barack Obama, at 46, are the youngsters in their respective primaries. Both present themselves as breaking with the conventional hyper-partisan politics that emerged from the 1960’s and has intensified in the last decade. But both also represent a return to one of its most politically debilitating themes—the cult of authenticity. The ideological hothouse of the Iowa caucuses have unintentionally, though not accidentally, recreated the fervor for authenticity that found its home in both the New Right and the New Left.
Who could be more authentically representative of Rove-era Republicanism than Mike Huckabee, a pioneer-stock evangelical Baptist who wants to reclaim Americans for Christ? In Huckabee’s words: “I didn’t get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.”
This clearly has a considerable appeal in the Iowa caucuses, where upwards of 40 percent of the participants are themselves Evangelicals. As of now Huckabee, whose affability and quick wit make him an appealing figure, has a two-to-one lead over his nearest rival, Mitt Romney. (Huckabee took a jab at Romney’s inauthenticity on cultural issues when he insisted that social conservatives need a candidate who speaks “the language of Zion as a mother tongue.”) But as the 2006 elections made clear, this is not the kind of platform likely to be able to create the broad coalition necessary to win a presidential majority.
On the Democratic side, all the complaints from the Jesse Jacksons of the world about the questions of whether Obama is “black enough” miss the source of Obama’s appeal to upper-middle-class, caucus-going liberals. When Hillary equivocated on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants she paid a heavy political price. When Obama muffed the same question in a subsequent debate, he paid no apparent penalty in a state whose capital, Des Moines, is trying to turn itself into a sanctuary city for illegals. Why?
Well, who could better represent liberalism’s authentic ideal vision of itself than an eloquent, Harvard Law-educated, multiracial candidate who opposed the war in Iraq from the start, lived in the Third World, supports drivers licenses and perhaps amnesty for illegal immigrants, and promises to unify all Americans behind the liberal program. And, I might add, who arrives without any of Hillary Clinton’s baggage of pitched partisan battles.
But just as Democrats are salivating over the prospect of a Huckabee nomination, an Obama candidacy would almost certainly bolster the Republicans presidential possibilities. A new New York Times polls finds that only 14 percent of Democrats think that Obama (who has literally no record of political accomplishment) would be their strongest presidential candidate. That’s because what run-of-the-mill Democrats understand is that authenticity is antithetical to representation. Candidates who have the capacity to bring together a broad coalition are, of necessity, authentically insincere.
