[lit-ideas] Obama, McCain & Milton
- From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:16:37 -0600
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/the-power-of-passive-campaigning/?8ty&emc=ty
Other than the last paragraph (Republicans model their philosophy after
Jesus???), and what I think is a misuse of the word "passive", I find this
piece pretty interesting. (I do love George Will's reference to O. as the
Fred Astaire of politics...I hadn't seen that one.)
Reactions, anyone? Different "readings"?
October 26, 2008, 9:30 pm The Power of Passive Campaigning By Stanley
Fish<http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/author/stanley-fish/>
In the aftermath of the 2000 and 2004 elections, the post-mortem verdict was
that the Republicans had run a better campaign. They knew how to seize or
manufacture an issue. They were able to master the dynamics of negative
advertising. They kept on message. Now, when many print and TV commentators
are predicting if not assuming an Obama victory, the conventional wisdom is
that this time the Democrats have run a better campaign.
When did the Democrats smarten up? When did they learn how to outdo the
Republicans at their own game?
The answer is that they didn't. They decided — or rather Obama decided — to
play another game, one we haven't seen for a while, and it's a question as
to whether we've ever seen it. The name of this game is straightforward
campaigning, or rather straightforward non-campaigning.
We saw it in the 10 days when the activity around the mounting economic
crisis was at its height. Henry Paulson alternated between scaring members
of Congress and scaring the public. Nancy Pelosi alternated between playing
the responsible Congressional statesperson and playing the partisan attack
dog. Media commentators went from one hysterical prediction to another. John
McCain went from saying there's nothing to worry about to saying there's
everything to worry about to saying that he would fix everything by
suspending his campaign to saying that he was not suspending his campaign
and that he would debate after all.
And Barack Obama? He didn't do much and he said less (O.K., he did say some
reassuring, optimistic things), and his poll numbers went up.
Weeks later, the pattern continues, but in an even more intense form. The
McCain campaign huffs and puffs and jumps from charge to charge: Obama
consorts with terrorists; he's a socialist; he's a communist; he is
un-American; he's not one of us; he's a celebrity; he's going to take your
money and give it to people who never did a day's work; he's going to sell
out Israel; he'll cozy up to foreign dictators; he's measuring the drapes.
In response, Obama explains his tax policy for the umpteenth time, points
out that capitalists like Warren Buffet support him, details his
relationship with Bill Ayers, lists those he consults with, observes that
Senator McCain, by his own boast, voted with President George W. Bush 90
percent of the time, and calls for change.
What he (or his campaign) doesn't do is bring up the Keating Five, or make
veiled references to McCain's treatment of his first wife, or make fun of
Sarah Palin (she doesn't need any help), or disparage his opponent's
experience, or hint at the disabilities of age. He just stands there looking
languid (George Will called him the Fred Astaire of politics), always
smiling and never raising his voice.
Meanwhile, McCain's surrogates get red in the face on TV when they try to
explain away the latest jaw-dropping thing Sarah Palin has said, or proclaim
that anything can happen in seven days, or respond to ever more discouraging
poll numbers by saying (how's this for a weak cliché) that the only poll
that counts is the poll on election day. (I know things are bad when my
wife, a staunch Democrat, feels sorry for them.)
What's going on here? I find an answer in a most unlikely place, John
Milton's "Paradise Regained," a four-book poem in which a very busy and
agitated Satan dances around a preternaturally still Jesus until, driven
half-crazy by the response he's not getting, the arch-rebel (i.e., maverick)
loses it, crying in exasperation, "What dost thou in this world?"
Now, I don't mean to suggest that McCain is the devil or that Obama is the
Messiah (although some of his supporters think of him that way), just that
the rhetorical strategies the two literary figures employ match up with the
strategies employed by the two candidates. What Satan wants to do is draw
Jesus out, provoke him to an unwisely exasperated response, get him to claim
too much for his own powers. What Jesus does is reply with an equanimity
conveyed by the adjectives and adverbs that preface his words: "unaltered,"
"temperately," "patiently," "calmly," "unmoved," "sagely," "in brief."
In response, Satan gets ever more desperate; he conjures up rain and wind
storms (in the midst of which Jesus sits "unappalled in calm"); he tempts
him with the riches of poetry and philosophy (which Jesus is careful neither
to reject nor deify); and finally, having run out of schemes and scares and
"swollen with rage," he resorts to physical violence (McCain has not gone so
far, although some of his supporters clearly want to), picking Jesus up
bodily and depositing him on the spire of the temple in the hope that he
will either fall to his death or turn into Superman and undermine the entire
point of his 40-day trial in the wilderness. He doesn't do either. He does
nothing, and Satan, "smitten with amazement" — even this hasn't worked —
"fell."
Toward the end, the poem describes the mighty contest in a metaphor that
captures its odd and negative dynamic. Jesus is "a solid rock" continually
assaulted by "surging waves"; and even though the repeated assaults result
only in the waves being "all to shivers dashed," they keep on coming until
they exhaust themselves "in froth or bubbles." The power Jesus generates is
the power of not moving from the still center of his being and refusing to
step into an arena of action defined by his opponent. So it is with Obama,
who barely exerts himself and absorbs attack after attack, each of which,
rather than wounding him, leaves him stronger. It's rope-a-dope on a grand
scale.
And McCain knows it. Last Wednesday, campaigning in New Hampshire, he spoke
sneeringly about Obama's campaign being "disciplined and careful." That's
exactly right, and so far the combination of discipline and care — care not
to get out too far in front of anything — along with a boatload of money is
working just fine. Jesus is usually the political model for Republicans, but
this time his brand of passive, patient leadership is being channeled by a
Democrat.
[image: DCSIMG]
--
Julie Krueger
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