Ugh
Shorter Ole Perfesser: I can and will shamelessly blame liberals for everything bad everywhere in the world.
In his latest column — link here for Times $elect subscribers — Paul Krugman complains about the cult of “authenticity” in politics, and how it makes people like John Edwards come across as phonies. FDR was a rich guy who cared about the poor, he says, so why can’t John Edwards be?
Well, John Edwards is no FDR. But the answer to Krugman’s complaint is found in the post 1960s political zeitgeist. Back before identity politics, and the notion that “the personal is political,” the idea of a rich guy representing poor people was entirely plausible. He could be rich, but still have ideas about poverty, and care about them. But now that we have identity politics and the like, that’s impossible: If only a woman can represent women, only a black person can represent blacks, etc. — Barbara Boxer even suggested that Condi Rice couldn’t understand mothers because she was childless — then obviously only a poor person can represent poor people. And since there are no poor people in American political office, poor people perforce go unrepresented. Thus, the “progressive” causes of identity politics and personalization mean that the progressives’ key clients can’t get “authentic” representation. This is probably bad for the country, but it’s certainly a bed that the progressives have made for themselves.
But, but, but, Perfesser! The whole point of Krugman’s excellent and super-awesome column is that:
a.) Republicans such as Fred Thompson and George W. Bush go out of their way to make themselves look like salt-of-the-earth blue-collar types.
-and-
b.) That our pathetic and stupid “press corps” all too often takes the bait.
Our “press corps” mostly shuns doing stories on policy and issues, preferring to instead pen fluffy “personality” pieces on how much “fun” or “likable” or “genuine” candidates are. Just look at this lovely piece by your pal DoughBob LoadPants, who comes out and says (and I happen to agree with him on in part) that American voters are dumb as rocks:
Interestingly, the GOP has a significant likability advantage (and disadvantages almost everywhere else). John McCain may be unpopular with much of the Republican base, but Americans would love to go to the pub with him. Rudy Giuliani, too, seems like a good guy with whom to watch a baseball game at the bar. The super-polished Mitt Romney’s a tougher call, and Duncan Hunter would be a pain because he’d keep asking the immigration status of the busboys.
But the GOP front-runners (save perhaps Newt Gingrich) all have the advantage over Hillary. She may have star power, but you get the sense that most Americans would like to have their picture taken with her and then drink alone. With the exception of Sen. Christopher Dodd, I’d guess all of the Democratic wannabes are more likable than Clinton, too. Sexism probably is part of the equation, but not as much as Clinton’s defenders will claim. There’s room for perceptions to change as we get to know the candidates (though we already know Hillary pretty well).
Please don’t be scandalized by all of this. It’s just something to think about. For the record, I think everyone should vote based on principle. But principles are for a person; they’re less helpful when it comes to predicting people.
If voters actually choose candidates based on how much they’d like to watch a baseball game with- and from conversations I’ve had with many voters, I have no doubt that this is the case- then they are utter, irredeemable morons.
However, I think much of the problem is the that people simply aren’t given the information they need to make intelligent decisions, which is largely the fault of our celebrity “press corps” who more and more resemble New York Post gossip columnists than smart people who give the public essential information. The embarrassing national dumbness of our celebrity press corps hasn’t gotten any better over the years. And if the early coverage of Fred “I’m-a-genuine-good-ol’-boy” Thompson is any indication, it could get a whole lot worse.
This adds up to one of the reasons why I’m leaning towards Obama. It may sound cold or calculating to say this, but the big media boys will be less likely to talk badly about a black guy than Hillary or a white guy. They just don’t have the balls to risk sounding the tiniest bit racist. (Against blacks. Latinos are different, apparently.)
And Rush and the rest will be crossing the Imus line daily. Wingnuts will become the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad. It’ll be horrible and wonderful both.
Not that this is sufficient cause to end up backing Obama, but definitely works in his favor in my mind.
I’m backing the candidate that is least likely to blow up the universe. I used to have more ideals for politicians, but now I basically hate them all and only want the one that will do the least amount of damage to the world.
Well, yeah, but as we all know, that calculus leads to needing the Dems to nominate someone electable. The biggest risk I see is allowing the neo-con cancer in our government any further amount of time to spread.
Also means John Conyers has to do a lot of work, and well, in the next year and a half. Busting Rove’s machine is at least as important to the outcome in 08 as who gets the nod for either party.
I’ve always that suspected that the “voters want someone they’d like to have a beer with” meme is largely projection on the part of the DC press corpse, who actually do have beers with these guys (and gal) and would, in fact, prefer to have beers with some of them rather than others.
“Rudy Giuliani, too, seems like a good guy with whom to watch a baseball game at the bar. ”
Yeah, the kind of guy I would keep stealing sideways glances at, wincing every time I saw him knocking back a shot of whiskey, dreading the inevitable proclamation about the time he saved the entire city of New York, all the while with his hand on my girlfriend’s ass and drooling.
Is it just me, or are the republican candidates the creepiest group of old men assembled since, well, EVAR!?!
What the heck? Who wants somebody they’d wanna have a beer with for president? I have plenty of friends I’d like to have a beer with, and sorry guys, but I don’t trust you to run the country.
I want competence. Yeah, I could imagine having a beer with Bush, and look where the heck that’s gotten us.
And frankly, not all these guys seem like beer drinkers to me. This is what I see them drinking:
McCain ok, it’s beer, maybe a miller or budweiser, but maybe whiskey
Romney — well I’m assuming he’s a teetotaller, but if not, I’d guess wine.
Giuliani: Definitely a scotch or bourbon kinda guy.
Obama: another wine type. Maybe a gin and tonic.
Hillary: white wine.
Edwards: microbrew
Why are you naming posts after me? Please stop! 😉
I’m backing the candidate that is least likely to blow up the universe.
So you’re a Galactus sort of guy – he only destroys worlds.
Huh. So the Pantload actually makes a bit of sense, at least in general terms. But then he writes this:
But principles are for a person; they’re less helpful when it comes to predicting people.
What the hell does that mean?
Mo’ Shorter Ole Perfesser: Neener neener! IOKIYAAR! Ha ha!
Likability will always play a role in politics but the whole “which would you rather have a beer with” thing is self-fulfilling idiocy. Personality journalism is a lot cheaper to produce than investigative reporting. To justify shrinking budgets, news execs have long peddled the notion that the audience is bored by substantive stories and that the only way to boost ratings is to go tabloid. Fast-forward 10-15 years and the only information available is personality/tabloid shit, so its no real wonder that that’s what a lot of people (who aren’t die-hard infojunkies) will base their votes on.
Look, when you think it all the way through, it comes down to the information provided to the people and the (lack of) consequences for not providing any. Our political discourse is horribly broken. A journalist can ask tough questions if he wants, but the candidate is allowed to ramble off a canned, predigested soundbite riff that never even approaches the question that was asked. And the journalist just goes right ahead, nodding and moving on to the next question without apparently noticing what just occured. Every night on the news you hear the equivelent of:
But it’s not just the press. The politicians have become blatently obvious in their desire to provide as little information as they possibly can get away with. They don’t answer questions, they say a question is “hypothetical”, they duck and dodge and dance. What we need is both a press corps and a constituency that INSISTS they tell us who they are, what they believe and WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DO IF ELECTED. If we all made them understand that they will not get our votes if they don’t tell us what we need to know to make an informed decision, then the discourse would change overnight. They do it because it is working for them, it is much safer, more advantageous to avoid providing straight answers than to do so. And only we, the electorate has the power to change that calculation…
mikey
“Barbara Boxer even suggested that Condi Rice couldn’t understand mothers because she was childless”
This is one of those “Gore said he invented the Internet” stories where the fake quote is treated as gospel.
Before we all cry havoc and let slip the bashing of the MSM, consider: as little as 10 years ago, each paper in the Knight-Ridder chain had a reporter in Washington, working on political stories. The Philly Inquirer (the “Inky”), the Miami Herald, St. Paul Pioneer Press, San Diego Union-Tribune, Denver Post, San Jose Mercury-News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer … each of these proud metro dailies kept a reporter in DC to report on what their elected officials were up to, what legislation was coming out that would affect the Good Folks Back Home, etc. etc.
Two years ago, the K-R’s Washington bureau was down to one guy. And he not only had to file for print, but for the web. That means that starting at noon, eastern time, he had to move a story for the web for the East Coast paper’s webfeed. Said story had to be about some issue near & dear to the readers on the East Coast. An hour later, same deal for a story about the papers in the Central Daylight Time zone. All the way through to 4 p.m. for the West Coast outfits. Then, congratulations – he got an hour to cram a chicken sandwich down his gullet before he had to start updating the stories for the print editions due out the next morning. Thus, from 5-8 p.m., he had to scramble like a mad bastard to move the words to each time zone, again in succession, and answer the editor’s bumblefuck questions.
Today?
There is no such thing as a Knight-Ridder chain. Nobody to keep watch on the politicos, the lobbyists, the backroom deals. Nobody with a few years of experience on the job, who has a name and readership behind him that gets the door opened when he calls and says “Hey, about this medicare drug benefit – we have to talk…”
So if the info you’re getting is a little thin on the details, if all the reporter has time to do is file about the surface appearances rather than spend a couple months digging into the details behind the Bridge to Nowhere … well, that might not all be the fault of the guy on the other end of the pipe. Everyone says the web is “empowering” and that the future belongs to the “brave DIY souls.”
So stop bitching and sell your house and move to Washington and get to work, if your noses are so way fucking out of joint.
I do think rich guys can care about the poor, but I don’t think John Edwards truly cares. Rich guys who really care about the poor don’t spend $400 on haircuts, they don’t buy huge mansions, they don’t work for hedge funds to learn about poverty, and they usually donate a significant amount of their income to charity.
That’s where the hypocrisy lies, not in the simple fact that he’s rich. I’m not sure what’s so hard to understand about that.
Rich guys who really care about the poor don’t spend $400 on haircuts
Huh? You have empirical data? Why would these two facts be related? This sounds suspiciously like bullshit to me.
they don’t buy huge mansions
Again, got data? Of COURSE the rich buy huge mansions. How does that impact upon whether or not they care about the poor? More than bullshit, this sounds like lazy thinking and personal belief.
they don’t work for hedge funds to learn about poverty
Explain this whole “learn about poverty” thing. What deep mysteries lie in not making enough money to live comfortably, feed your family, keep a decent roof, send your kids to school? What do they need to “learn” about poverty in order to try to help alleviate it? This isn’t bullshit or lazy thinking, this is not thinking at all.
and they usually donate a significant amount of their income to charity.
Yes they do. And none so much as Buffet and Gates. Now, I don’t know what they spend on haircuts, but I would not be surprised if it was hundreds. I do know they live in HUGE mansions. And they probably know enough about poverty to help.
I dunno Mike. You might have some good, valid things to say, but you didn’t distinguish yourself with this one…
mikey-
John McCain may be unpopular with much of the Republican base, but Americans would love to go to the pub with him. Rudy Giuliani, too, seems like a good guy with whom to watch a baseball game at the bar. The super-polished Mitt Romney’s a tougher call.
Jonah, you pathetic goateed Anglopihiac fuckstick, “Americans” don’t “go to the pub,” we drink in bars (cars, public parks, offices, hallways, bathrooms & many other places) not “pubs.” t4toby summed up Gudi R. at the bar pretty well, but I’ll add: Is that some kind of “man-date” where you & Gudi watch a baseball game at a bar? As I understand it, Gudi had a permanent box @ The House that Ruth Built, and all the Yankee swag he could get his hands on for nothing. If you think he’ll be drinking w/ a clown like you in a bar, think again. (Story on Gudi Riuliani & the Yankees in the Village Voice somwhere.) And Mittens? He is a Mormon, and shouldn’t be drinking alcohol in a pub or bar or saloon or… And no coffee either. Jell-O, yes, Jell-O shots, no. (Super-polished = Phonied up beyond all belief, I bet.)
Rich guys who really care about the poor don’t spend $400 on haircuts, they don’t buy huge mansions.
Mike (NOT Mikey): If you don’t know, Edwards is the son of a working class mill employee, & now believes that opportunities for people to have a better life than their parents had are rapidly disappearing in This Great Nation of Oursâ„¢. He doesn’t have to wear sackcloth & ashes & live in a tarpaper shack to understand the problems of people who weren’t born w/ a silver trust fund in their asses.
Tara the anti-social social worker (one of the ten best innertoobze pseudonyms ever!): So true. Was going to say it myself. Extra clarification: Sen. B. said that as Sec’y. Rice had no children, and as Sen. B.’s children were too old, and her grandchildren too young, to serve in the military, neither of them were directly affected by the invasion/occupation of Iraq.
Mikey,
Either you’re woefully ignorant or I’m too tired to make any sense out of your post. You do realize that those things I mentioned are the things John Edwards has been drawing criticism for, right? If not, go read up on it.
Also, Warren Buffett does not live in a mansion. He lives in the same house he bought decades ago for $30,000. He’s a great example of a rich guy who truly does care about the poor. Gates, I’m not so sure about. He’s done some good things recently, but he could still do more.
Hah! Mikey defends his own good name, even as I’m obsessively rewriting & spell-checking myself. But just to emphasize: Sen. Edwards effing grew up working class, he didn’t need to go or work anywhere or do anything to “learn about poverty.” And I thought he was an attorney, not a hedge fund employee. (‘Though I don’t know his whole resume.)
M. Bouffant,
He doesn’t have to do those things in order to understand poverty, but he does have to do those things (at least something close to it) to show he truly cares about doing something about poverty. No one is perfect. For example, I use the internet and have a decent home, but there is a certain line of excess which you cannot cross and still honestly claim to care about alleviating poverty. Edwards has crossed that line.
Mike: I think Mikey (& I) have pretty much demolished whatever your argument was. Someone not as lazy as I might be able to see what Edwards’ charitable contributions (at least when required to disclose while serving in the Senate) have been.
(Oh, jeebus, I’m interacting w/ these people, instead of the ol’ post & run. Help me, stop me.)
Rich guys who really care about the poor don’t spend $400 on haircuts, they don’t buy huge mansions, they don’t work for hedge funds to learn about poverty, and they usually donate a significant amount of their income to charity.
Yes they do, yes they do, yes they do, and no they don’t. I have supplied as much evidence for my position as you have for yours.
I do not give a shit if he actually cares about poverty as long as he signs legislation that can relieve it. That’d be good, as the last 27 years have been kind of sucky.
No M. Bouffant, you haven’t demolished anything. You haven’t even addressed my argument and appear incapable of even understanding it. Perhaps you should’ve posted and ran, because you are out of your depth.
You haven’t even addressed my argument and appear incapable of even understanding it.
What you’re saying is that you’d like a sincere politician. That’s nice. I don’t think that’s as important as competence and an agenda I like, but it’s something people base votes on I guess.
MIke @ 1:51: Well, what’s he supposed to do, move his wife & four(?) children into a two-bedroom apartment, sell his big house, and drive through the streets of the inner city throwing the proceeds from the house sale out the window? The problems of poverty in the U. S. are structural, not that someone has a house big enough for his family. Therefore, Edwards wants to change the structural impediments to success/opportunity, through the use of political power.
(No, really, stop me.)
Righteous Bubba,
Yes, I think a candidate’s sincerity is more important than his agenda, because it doesn’t matter if someone has a perfect agenda before the election if you can’t trust them to carry out that agenda when elected.
Mike @ 1:55: Your argument (opinion) is, I guess, that Edwards is some sort of hypocrite. You back this up w/ the usual RW talking points (hair-do fetishism, etc.)
Are you saying that these talking points will be effectively used agaist Edwards, therefore he may not be a good candidate, or just that you think he is two-faced when he talks about two Americas? (And therefore, because no one who isn’t wealthy & powerful can run for office in this country, and they’re all hypocrites, all the rest of us are screwed?)
Really, you didn’t make any sort of argument, you just stated your opinion, which is yours, & cannot be refuted, no matter how wrong it may be.
it doesn’t matter if someone has a perfect agenda before the election if you can’t trust them to carry out that agenda when elected.
I agree.
In the last couple of elections, though, much has been made of the sincerity of Bush, especially in the John Kerry campaign, and Bush of course, turned out to be insincere. Oops.
It’s reasonable not to vote for someone who rubs you the wrong way, but maybe you should start with the position that everybody’s a shit and give people points when they articulate positions you agree with.
But, but, but, Perfesser! The whole point of Krugman’s excellent and super-awesome column is that:
a.) Republicans such as Fred Thompson and George W. Bush go out of their way to make themselves look like salt-of-the-earth blue-collar types.
-and-
b.) That our pathetic and stupid “press corps� all too often takes the bait.
I wish some commenter named Mike would show up on cue now and parrot back the kind of substance free analysis Krugman’s article claims the corporate media has been shoving down people’s throats for years now. That would be cool because it would help prove his point that the electorate has been conditioned to focus on trivial aspects of a candidate’s suitability for office.
Regarding your statement of the coverage of Fred Thompson: Are you trying to tell me I won’t be seeing any N.Y. newspapers linking his pouting for a pardon of Libby linked to his high-tailing it to Israel immediately after?
Go figure.
I think I’ve witnessed “Mike’s” nitwittery on the former Yahoo! news comments, now removed after 99% of the comments went against the slant the articles and headlines were trying to push. A master of the circular logic argument.
Damn, now we get the dregs.
Forgive me if I am incorrect, Mike, maybe you’re just being an ass here.
For some reason I suspect that the only thing that would prove to Mike that John Edwards is sincere in his concern with the poor would be for John Edwards to call for the bombing of Iran and the immediate end of the “death tax.”
But maybe not. To show that he is truly contrite about his history of being such a insincere champion of the poor, he might have to sponsor bills eliminating the Department of Education, HUD, Social Security, etc.
Mike’s nitwittery is emblematic of the Right’s tactic of picking one guy who happens to advocate for the poor, and taking something that guy has in common with ALL the candidates on boths sides to club him with.
“I’m not voting for Edwards because although he advocates for the poor, he’s a rich guy and therefore a hypocrite. Instead, I’m voting for…..”
Who, then, Mike? So which one of the rich white guys and one woman are you voting for, then? Are you voting for the one who’s rich and DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT about the poor, because that means he’s morally consistent?
Or are you waiting around for the candidate who advocates for the poor and lives in a trailer park?
No, I know what you’re doing. You’re voting for the guy who DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT about the poor but who dresses up like he chews tobaccy and drives a leased pick-em-up truck and goes to a speech coach so he can fake an authentic-sounding drawl.
And you’ll get played again, just like you got played by the numbnuts in the White House right now.
Mike, a little thought will clear up your confusion. Here’s mine.
Edwards spends $400 on a hair cut because he is campaigning for president and has been for the last 4 years – he’s got a stylist that will come see him it more cost and time effective. He has got to look good to stand a chance.
Edwards left a very lucrative private law practice for a life of public service. A senators salary is chump change in comparison to the cash that a succesful trial lawer brings in. He made a huge sacrafice to serve people.
If I had his family I would love to also have a large house in a rural area – its all about providing the best environment for his kids. Its a sign of a caring personality.
I’m backing the candidate that is least likely to blow up the universe.
Good thing that no Tralfamadorian test pilot is running.