Boston
David Warren
"Strength and wisdom are not opposing values," President Clinton said at the Democrat convention in Boston this week. But neither are weakness and stupidity incompatible. Everyone pretends to be strong, everyone pretends to be wise, and in the wonderful motto of Robert Musil, "If it were not so hard to distinguish stupidity from talent, progress, hope, or improvement, no one would want to be stupid."
With their candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency pre-selected, the Democrat convention became a four-day election pitch, as the Republican one will be at the end of August. The Republican convention will be more lively, since the protesters at the DNC were only warming up. Most only dislike the Democrats, they really hate the Republicans, and so we can reasonably expect that New York will provide the hungry media, which also hate Republicans, with scenes of melee. Ditto for terrorists: much more likely to target a Republican than a Democrat convention, largely, I think, from lack of imagination.
The message from John Kerry was "strength". His arrival at the convention with Vietnam buddies, riding a water taxi like a landing craft; his obsessive references to his 16-week tour of duty in Vietnam; the home-movie clips of Kerry and buddies re-enacting their Vietnam exploits; his opening line about "reporting for duty"; his use of the word "strength" and its synonyms at least 17 times in his address; and various other hints combined to give the impression he was extremely sensitive to the charge of being a "girlie man".
It was an incredibly craven performance, made the more amusing by the enthusiastic cheering of delegates who are overwhelmingly anti-war. Especially the older ones, for whom Vietnam had been one long protest party, the life of which Mr. Kerry once was. By comparison, George W. Bush's arrival in a flight-suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier was an example of shy understatement.
America will choose. Three months is a long time in politics, and much may happen between now and the election, including, not impossibly, another major terrorist hit on the U.S. It remains far too early to bet on the outcome of Bush v. Kerry. If the present pace were maintained, in which the polls show the two candidates stuck in dead heat, with one of the smallest proportions of "undecideds" in polling history, Mr. Bush will win handily. For while the country is split about fifty-fifty between "Bush" and "Not-Bush", more of the "Bush" supporters will vote for Mr. Bush than the "Not-Bush" supporters will vote for Mr. Kerry.
America is polarized, not only between two parties, but between two cultures, and two worldviews, basically Christian and basically post-Christian, for which the Republicans and Democrats have become mere proxies. As personalities, Bush and Kerry make appropriate leaders. The sort of person who likes Bush -- who has some respect for what the man is, whether or not he agrees with all his policies -- will almost certainly despise a man like Kerry, and consider him a fraud and poseur. And vice versa: the sort of person who finds Mr. Kerry smart and "nuanced", will tend to find Mr. Bush a bloodthirsty ape.
The intense competition of a two-party race will slur the policy differences. It is a capitalist myth that competition engenders variety. The contrary is true, for as my friend Eric McLuhan writes, "Competition leads to sameness, and the hotter the competition the more the competitors are alike." This is in fact a selection principle of nature: cars get more like other cars, Coke like Pepsi, elephants get more like other elephants -- through competition. And politicians, like businessmen, get more alike, by competing for the same broad market.
So while American society may be splitting at the seams, the two ruling parties are struggling, tweedledum-tweedledee, to embrace the disappearing middle -- to find that ideal point, where the seam is, between the two rending buttocks of public opinion. The Republicans trying to be more compassionate, the Democrats more tough, until by election day they have got it just right, and are nearly indistinguishable, on paper.
But people are not paper, and the American public are looking not at policies but at men, and asking the question, which of these two necessarily flawed individuals can we best trust to guide us through the uncertain time ahead? There is nothing either Mr. Kerry nor Mr. Bush can do -- or nothing predictable -- to reduce or enhance their respective appeals to the two contrary constituencies. Events controllable by neither gentleman may suddenly swing a fraction of that electorate, decisively, a little to the left or right. |
