The merciless mirror
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- June
- 5
After watching Sen. Barack Obama give the keynote speech at the Democratic convention in 2004, I told my friends, colleagues and just about anyone who would listen to me for five seconds that Obama would succeed President George W. Bush after his second term. Some scoffed. Others laughed.
I’m both proud and pleased to say no one is laughing now.
The minute I saw Obama on TV, I knew that he was a true leader, a 21st-century Alexander the Great, capable of using his duality to bridge two worlds instead of deepening the chasm between them.
All of us are people of the moment and in the moment. Few of us are also people for the moment. What the 2008 Democratic nominating process — the best reality show on the tube — has demonstrated is that Barack Obama is a man for the moment. Like Churchill or FDR, he balances the audacity of hope with the courage to be realistic. And like everyone from Ramesses the Great to JFK, he has understood the necessity of exploiting the medium of the moment — whether that be architectural sculpture or TV— to convey that message. This is absolutely crucial. As Nigel Spivey explained in his book and PBS series “How Art Made the World,” the powerful have always used images to crystallize their power and ideas.
But this isn’t just about images. The real leader must also be able to spin a simple personal narrative around a compelling core personality. Obama — and to a lesser extent, Sen. John McCain — has been able to do this on TV and the Net and in books. (There was even a telefilm of McCain’s autobiography, “Faith of My Fathers.”)
Perhaps because she is said to be an intensely private person, Sen. Hillary Clinton (seen here in an AP photo with Obama) has failed to create such a narrative or express such a personality. As the melodrama of a mismanaged campaign unfolded over the winter and the spring on the tube and YouTube, Clinton careened from Chill Hill, coldly telling Katie Couric that it would all be over Feb. 5; to Bill Hill, relying on President Bill Clinton’s eroding political skills; to Shrill Hill (”Shame on you, Barack Obama!”).
She was for the war until she was against it and for repealing the gas tax until that idea ran out of political fuel.
One day she was Rosie the Riveter; the next, an aggrieved woman. One minute, she was pledging to bring home the troops; the next, hinting that she wouldn’t hesitate to “obliterate” Iran if she deemed it necessary.
By the time she found her theme — Angry Women and The Men Who’ve Done Them Wrong — it was too late. And anyway, the message was both divisive and specious for someone who claimed to be as tough and prepared as the big boys.
When substance is confused, lacking or suspect, style — or the dearth thereof — takes on added significance. I have been watching Sen. Clinton’s presentations ever since I was asked by this paper to cover the televised announcement of her senatorial candidacy at Purchase College in 2000. When she and her husband appeared in a political spot at Mount Kisco Diner, stiffly spoofing the conclusion of “The Sopranos,” I said she would have to loosen up greatly if she were going to have any chance for the Democratic nod, especially against Obama, who appears at home in his skin and at home in the world.
Sen. Clinton tried, with mixed results. She was charming with Amy Poehler, whose gentle impersonation of her gave her a boost on “SNL,” but awkward tossing back shots or boogieing to music.
Overall, she remains the most stilted political performer this side of President Richard Nixon. The hard-edged voice begging for Henry Higgins’ coaching. The exaggerated facial expressions and gestures that on the cool medium of TV convey the impression of someone always trying too hard. The famed long-jacketed pantsuits that fail to flatter the Rubenesque figure. The color palette, with its forays into bright yellow and black — evoking the colors of a New York City taxi and its attendant baggage.
Clothes make the man, Mark Twain said. And the woman too.
Over the past few months, TV and its sexier sibling, the Internet, have held up their merciless mirrors to suggest not that the empress has no clothes but that there never was any empress.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 1:57 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
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