Charisma = Leadership = Where's the Beef?...

Over at VA's is posted this interesting entry from yesterday. In this excerpt from her post she astutely observes:

Now may we please put an end to the illusion that Obama can 'transcend race' and be a 'uniter' because of his mixed heritage? This was my feeling about him from the git-go; he is a divider, and despite his half-white ancestry, he has a grudge against majority America.

Simply put, I agree...

I was flipping through the channels and happened to catch the first part of the Monday night Hannity and Colmes replay. That part of the show was dedicated to covering the democrat primary debate. One aspect of their coverage was on the Fox News live-feed piped in from some location here in the U.S. I'm assuming (lol) where there was a room full of 'average' folk who were to observe the debate as it transpired, and to offer their assessments of how each of the candidates fared as compared to the rest once the debate had ended. Naturally a lot of focus was put on the two most popular demo candidates, Hillary and Obama.

The interesting thing about the consensus among this rather 'diverse' group of participants, and as the Fox host kept reiterating, was that the overwhelming majority of them claimed to have come in preferring Hillary over Obama. Whereas when all was said and done in the debate, about the same number of participants, and most of the same people as far as I could tell, claimed to have changed their minds, now preferring Obama over Hillary. And their reasons for were interesting in light of some other blogging efforts done previously, particularly...

John Savage wrote about this (very observable in this gathering) preference among the American electorate for 'style over substance,' assigning to it the domineering quality of the "Triumph" of style over substance. And I think it notable that he doesn't limit the effect to liberals only. Moreover, that he identifies precisely what I observed; the exact sorts of responses to the questions posed of the host - which this 'style over substance' idea would predict - to the effect of "why did you prefer Obama over Hillary?;" "why did you change your opinion during the debate." John writes:

As an admirer of certain media critics, foremost among them Neil Postman, I’ve frequently criticized the way that style reigns over substance in the media. Like Postman, I think the triumph of style over substance (henceforth SOS) is a very bad thing, but it’s also not something we can expect to change. At best, we can hope that the news media (which currently has a stake in the avoidance of real issues) will stop reinforcing SOS by focusing on the style displayed at presidential debates at the expense of the issues. But to a large extent, SOS is an unavoidable direct consequence of television as a medium, of which Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message." The message of the TV medium is entertainment, which when applied to politics produces SOS – presenting oneself as honest, optimistic, unflappable, and responsive to constituents, among other things. In addition, most Americans want to get the impression that the candidate stands for Mom, baseball, and apple pie. Principles that are universally honored are prominently displayed, whereas unpopular principles, as well as mutually conflicting principles, are hidden...

Almost to the person, when asked to answer the question, this is the kind of answer they gave. "Obama was just more believable;" "I felt a connection with Obama;" "I think he (Obama) showed his leadership abilities because he was more believable, and I connected more with him," and such as that. While on the other hand the consensus about Hillary's believability, her 'disconnectedness' with the average person, and so on and so forth, and therefore her capacity for leadership was found to be wanting. One young caucasion male even referred to Obama as "Charismatic." I guess in his youthful exuberance he forgot how offensive that is to say about a 'black leader.'

There was also the desire expressed of one person in the audience that the two of them team-up, to which the majority of the rest of the group seemed to heartily approve of. Sean Hannity posed the question of whether the members, given such an alliance, would prefer Obama or Hillary as the top-dog? And once more the group reconfirmed their newly formed 'convictions' that they should prefer Obama to hold that distinction.

But the point I'm really driving at here is that indeed I think John is right that 'style over substance' is triumphant in today's American politics, and probably for the exact reasons he offers us in his excellent post. Not that I think either of them to have any firm attachment to any 'principled' stand that I would in any way approve of, but I came away from that segment of the show thoroughly convinced that to these people the debate between Hillary and Obama was nothing more or less than a competition between them for who could project the more favorable image; whose personality was most approvable to them. And Obama won that contest hands down. It saddens me that people tend to place so much value on their emotions, but I guess that's just the way it is.

Thanks to VA, and to John for continually providing us with some outstanding, thoughtful, and pretty darn accurate commentaries.

-DW