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Presidents and Populist Platitudes

Nicholas M. Guariglia - 2/4/2008

The most annoying poll taken during election cycles is without a doubt the much-sought “likeability” poll. “Who would you rather have a BBQ with?” “Who would you like to go to a baseball game with?” “If lost, who would you most like to ask for directions?” It is a stale test, one that should be done away with, and one in which the lowest common denominator of an executive is trumpeted as something other than it should be. The intangibles of personal attractiveness and likeability ought not to be a desire our nominee choices pander for, but rather a byproduct of their genuine character.

It is generally suggested that the two most likeable candidates running for president this year are Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee. Anyone watching television during the recent primaries has heard this many times over: Obama’s got Oprah, Huck’s got Chuck Norris, and thus their personal stories of “hope,” and giddy individual persona, supposedly renders them likeable even if you disagree with their policies.
Well, I disagree with their policies… but the reason why I disagree so vigorously is because they disguise the methods in which they reached their policy conclusions with populist platitudes. Suddenly, Iran is explained away with a one-liner and a wink to the questioner… or a phony veiled threat to the “bad guys” who, just by coincidence, are encouraged by your political ascendancy. It is for this reason that I consider both of their candidacies to be the most offensive (of all the serious candidacies, that is). It is insulting to me, as part of the electorate, that these two men, who know so little about the world, think they can lead it. It’s rude of them to think they deserve to be my representative, at this stage in their careers. And it is for this reason I consider both to be the most obnoxious in the race.

Let’s start with Obama.

Everyone is telling me he’ll tickle my fancy. I’m supposed to be endeared. Apparently he does all sorts of amazing trance-like things to you: he’ll “look into your eyes,” “inspire” your political senses, and when he speaks to his audiences, he bestows upon you feelings you “haven’t felt in ages.” My, I thought… a Spa for President. Some cucumbers for the eyes and a little lotion, and maybe Musharraf will get his act together.

I was hearing all of these wonderful, enticing, quasi-erotic things about the guy, so I decided to check out his Iowa victory speech. Then I realized his ability to clearly and impressively speak –– what he is praised for the most, what even his opponents concede about him –– has an unnatural caveat attached to it. He pulls the same, subtle orating charade Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and a select few other African-American leaders have been pulling for years. He not only invokes the name of Martin Luther King Jr. –– which would be understandable –– but he also invokes his voice. No, not simply King’s quotes, but his literal octave levels.

Obama is praised as a great speaker, but either purposefully or subconsciously, he’s starting to, King-like, add in a soft downwards melodramatic tremble at the end of each “powerful” sentence. It’s blatantly obvious and it is something that needs to be heard to be believed. (Only Dr. King legitimately spoke like that; it was his genuine voice, and one for the books. But Barack, we know you don’t actually talk like that. We’ve heard you speak before, in other venues.)

So there’s some obvious style… and style… and then more style. It’s with this pseudo-performance that Sen. Obama speaks of change (“change” is the substance, by the way). His victories have been impressive and his base in undeniably excited. When pressed, however, his followers cannot specifically name why they have granted him their proud support, other than vague allusions to “change” (a theme Ward Cleaver, ahem, Mitt Romney has also tried to run with).

Change is fine, I suppose, but its proponents in the Obama campaign do not seem to recognize its politically neutral nature. High taxes, socialized medicine, and submission abroad would all constitute “change,” would they not? Some of the boldest changes to ever transpire were regressive and reactionary. None of that is good. (Food for thought: we’re the most affluent and leisured democracy in human history. We must be doing something right. Maybe we shouldn’t change all that much?)

Obama represents what Michael Barone calls “the 16-year itch.” Every 16 years, Barone’s theory goes, Democrats rally around this type of tenderfoot candidate: John Kennedy in 1960, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bill Clinton in 1992, and, presumably, Barack Obama in ’08. But just what has the four-year politician ever done? What are his accomplishments? Since when was “neophyte” good on someone’s curriculum vitae?

Not now, not with this war. Obama promises to invite, without preconditions, the Iranian mullahs, Assad and his assassins, Kim Jong Il, the Castro brothers, and Hugo Chavez to the White House during his first year in office. He calls this “strength” (or “change,” shall we say). He wants to stop “just air-raiding villages and killing civilians” in Afghanistan, but implores we move into Pakistan. He refers to Iraq, the world’s current vortex of jihadist antagonism, as the “wrong battlefield” (this is not in reference to the decision to intervene in ’03, which is a separate debate, but rather how he views Iraq in ’07-’08). He still, to this date, despite all empirical evidence, shuns the wisdom of the troop surge. And how does he explain away the dramatic decline of violence in Iraq?

He doesn’t give credit to Gen. Petraeus, or to Lt. Gen. Odierno, or to their new counterinsurgency plan, or to the Marines in Anbar, or to the brave Iraqi tribes who rose up against al Qaida. Instead, he gives credit to the Democrats’ electoral victory in the 2006 midterm elections. Apparently their tough talk –– Reid’s “this war is lost” and Richardson’s “our troops are an impediment” –– led to the pacification of Ramadi, in that they convinced Sunni sheikhs we were serious about withdrawing, and thus scared them into positive action. Someone needs to tell Sen. Obama, in a very direct way and on a very bright stage, that it was the likes of Col. Sean MacFarland, who negotiated the support of Sunni tribes to fight al Qaida in exchange for a greater U.S. presence and increased security, who changed the war… not newly elected Democratic House Representatives who promised flight.

Contrary to popular opinion, this “hip” Generation X chap isn’t all that much of a uniting figure. He’s quite partisan. Outside of the media’s protective igloo and the veneer of infallibility that has been bequeathed to him by pundits, his verbal phoniness will eventually resonate and turn sincere people off. He has no record, and therefore, admittedly, few blemishes… but he still has no record, nonetheless. Growing up in Indonesia isn’t foreign policy experience. Telling the Salafists your middle name is “Hussein” won’t win you any hearts and minds. Speaking admiringly of what would be capitulation overseas isn’t a positive agenda. If he gets the nomination, his novice missteps and juvenility will likely be his downfall. Ah, those kids and their damn MTV…

Huckabee, on the other hand, represents all that is caricatured about the Republican base. Pastor Mike shoots around the country with the likes of John Hagee, and then gives us Jonah and the Whale analogies when asked about Pakistan. He was apparently clueless on the Iranian intelligence report and embarrassingly tried to link the assassination of Bhutto to the sensitive immigration issue. He’s a panderer in its most concrete form, and a religious huckster to boot. His social conservatism is sincere, but his pandering to evangelical voters is more a form of exploitation. Suggesting he alone understands Islamic extremism because he alone has a theological degree was an unforgiving insult to pro-American Arab secularists, who have bore the brunt of the jihadists’ wrath for decades.

He’ll go on Leno and play guitar to ensure West Coast liberals that conservatives, too, can be cool. He’ll oppose punishing the children of illegal immigrants for the sins of their parents, but supports reparations. His candidacy is one of pedestrian clichés. He doesn’t tell you how it is, but what you want to hear.

In interviews, he spouts off any and all information his foreign policy advisors recently drum-beated into his skull, none of which he knew a few weeks prior. In a world where the next administration faces a still-defiant nuclear North Korea, a possible nuclear Iran, an unstable nuclear Pakistan, and oh yeah, the Iraqi and Afghan wars –– and more –– it is an absolute affront on the voters’ own intelligence for this beginner to think his Jenny Craig turnaround renders him Grade A war-fighting material. It’s offensive. He has no business in this race.

Just compare this attitude to that of his opponents. McCain has a quarter-century record, the stoicism of a former POW, and the resolution a would-be wartime leader. Giuliani has the confidence of a proven crisis manager, the swagger of an executive who got unprecedented results and told Arafat to chew on it, with the Brooklyn moxy of a guy who destroyed New York City’s five crime families and bragged he’d do it beforehand.

Mike Huckabee has… dimples.

That’s the difference. Democratic and Republican voters need to seriously take a step back and reconsider the ramifications of voting for these two populist, albeit “likeable,” sub-par candidates.