WONDER LAND
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110004597
Thanks, Iowa
In politics, unreality takes a holiday.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, January 23, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
For politics, it was a most excellent week. Not because dour John Kerry rose from his crypt to win the Iowa caucuses. Not because George Bush said, "Our greatest responsibility is the active defense of the American people" in his State of the Union speech. The political week was excellent because it was that rare thing in our politics: It was real, totally, gloriously real. Much of the rest of the time it has become something not quite real.
Instead of sitting in their living rooms watching cable TV pontificate about politics, Iowans saw cable TV come to Iowa to watch them. For three precious "prime time" hours, Iowans crossed the line that now divides the contemporary world of public events between the real and the semi-real. Absent the Iowa caucuses or Mr. Bush's speech, most of America that tunes in to evening television for information about the real world would likely have watched Michael Jackson dancing, again, on top of a truck, or Martha Stewart--not-quite-real people in surreal situations. Similarly with our political candidates.
For nearly 12 months, nine men and one woman contested for the opportunity that arrived this week in Iowa. Once past the basic reality of Homo Democraticus, however, things got blurry in the pre-primary campaign.
The major candidates began to morph, reshaping their candidacies overnight when Howard Dean caused the barometric pressure inside the party to plummet. Dark clouds gathered over John Kerry's bright candidacy as the stormy Mr. Dean denounced the Iraq war, denounced Mr. Bush's tax cuts and seemed to make denunciation look good on television. Mr. Dean didn't just smile; he bared his teeth, a first in the history of our politics.
An almost comic interlude ensued, during which the Democrats took to out-denouncing the war in Iraq, such that critics could ask which side they were on. Messrs. Kerry, Lieberman and Gephardt, careful politicians, repositioned themselves on national security closer to the public median, at least closer than their opponents. Wesley Clark, until recently a Republican, jumped into the Democratic race after it had begun, much the way Rosie Ruiz, an imposter, had entered the Boston Marathon.
The Democratic pre-primary year didn't have candidates; it had clouds, drifting across the political landscape and assuming new shapes. At some point it became necessary to know what it all meant, and so the process turned to the one medium that provides meaning in politics now--the opinion polls.
The poll that struck me as the most real during this period is the one that said, several times, that most people knew next to nothing about the Democratic candidates. That was the reality. But an unacceptable reality. So the pollsters forced the few people watching the clouds drift by to identify one they liked.
Whereupon reality dissipated altogether.
"Dean Pulls Away in Dem Race" (Dec. 17). "Dean Has Double-Digit Lead Among DNC Members" (Dec. 15). Among those Democratic Committee professionals, Dean led Kerry 28% to 13%. Ergo, the Kerry campaign had "imploded" and "melted down." A December CBS national poll had Kerry at 4%, one point behind Al Sharpton.
This process, now pervasive, might be called fact-softening. Something real is obviously taking place. But after the polls, the punditry and the nightly analysis, the little that is solid gets softened. Much political reporting now is conjecture, guessing, predicting the future--fact-softening. Consume enough of it and one begins to mistake what is soft for something hard. Thus, Howard Dean was shaped into the presumptive nominee.
The parties to a great degree brought this unreality on themselves with the permanent campaign. If you're going to play a game whose season runs longer than the NBA's, everyone else needs a way to keep score, and the only way we have is the polls. Campaign contributors believe and we in the press believe even the softest polls. Mr. Dean's poll surge did translate into real events--real money for him, less money for the others. John Kerry had to mortgage his house just to make it to Iowa.
The real, the solid, did not materialize until about 96 hours before the Iowa caucuses, which is likely when Iowans decided it was worth investing their valuable non-work, non-family time in these candidates. Then it emerged that the race had "tightened," that it was now a four-man race. This was almost true. Iowa turned out to have been a two-and-a-half man race.
Reassuring as it was, the real world ceased in Iowa about 10:30 Monday evening. First John Edwards popped onto his stage, shaking hands like a rock star, weirdly driving his fists into the sky and performing a fierce, antique "Grapes of Wrath" speech. I thought: He's like that kid on "American Idol." Sen. Edwards makes a fabulous runner-up. In fact, maybe it would make more sense if we turned the political primaries and events such as last night's debate over to the producers of "American Idol." How different is it?
Then came Howard Dean. Gov. Dean's performance reminded me of Barry McGuire singing "The Eve of Destruction." He actually resembles Henry Rollins, who is rock music's angriest man ("I reach inside myself, I rip out a handful of bleeding, crackling wires").
A man for our half-real times, Gov. Dean got this far on the wings of an innovative Web-based fund-raising enterprise. At this point, Mr. Dean looks like the Webvan of politics. Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Tom Harkin all may have bought in at the top of the bubble. Maybe they should have a talk with Martha Stewart.
In his State of the Union speech, Mr. Bush said, "The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell." Mr. Bush presumably thinks he was positing fact. But his political opposition has argued for months that the president "fabricates" reality, mainly about the war in Iraq. Whatever the truth or facts, it is clear that repeated accusations of falsity are now seen as a powerful political weapon. Why not? It fits.
This places a heavy burden on voters, who heretofore only had to assume that the politicians were exaggerating. Now the whole system is inclined toward downgrading hard facts in favor of what we prefer to call "scenarios." Onto New Hampshire, known of all things as the Granite State. We'll see. Maybe.
Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com. |
