The Campaign Circus

Adam Nagourney has a revealing piece on the banal diurnal doings of merely one presidential wannabe in Iowa. I often feel sorry these hopefuls -- both Democrat or Republican -- on the campaign trail, and Nagourney's article captures their ritualistic agony perfectly. Enduring the grind, uttering the same platitudes over and over, forcing robotic answers to simplistic questions -- all are part of the deadly dull but perhaps unavoidable process of getting oneself to the White House.

In this instance, the NYT reporter followed Rudy Giuliani in and out of diners in western Iowa, where the candidate had planted himself to "field the usual mix of questions. Taxes and terrorism. Iran and Iraq." We don't learn from the article what Rudy would do about these, but probably because we already know: he'd whip 'em all, and all with virtually no federal revenue. The impossible is easily doable on the campaign trail.

Rudy also fielded this question from farmers Betty Schuler and husband: "When you get back to the big city, are you going to forget the little guys out here who are farming to feed you?"

Right there, at that very instant, is when I would lose the race. Because the urge to answer with some honesty would be too great: "First, madam, the premise of your question is flawed. You're not farming to feed me, just as my car mechanic doesn't bust up his knuckles so I can get to the grocery store. You farm for an income. And by asking me not to forget the little guys, are you in so many words asking by how much I'll swell your subsidy checks?"

Crash. Bang. End of the Carpenter campaign.

The pros aren't so stupid. They know how to grin it, bear it, and cough up the emptiest of soothing answers: "Oh, I’m not going to forget the little guy anywhere," said Rudy to Betty. "When I got elected mayor of New York City, I didn’t forget anybody. The place that kind of won the election for me was Staten Island. It’s the closest thing that New York City has to -- I wouldn’t call it rural, but suburbs."

No, we wouldn't call it rural, either, Rudy. But with that, he considered himself as having comforted the denizens of greater Greenfield, Iowa, and was moving on to the next question.

"Have you spent any time on a farm?" asked another farmer, this one in Cumberland.

Rudy hesitated, for this required some unthoughtful originality. "Have I ever worked on a farm? No. I mean, I’ve visited a farm. But you know there are no farms in New York City." However, "People in Staten Island feel like they are part of their own community. You get the same feeling you get in smaller-town America."

By next week, Rudy may recall that he did, in fact, once live and work on a farm. Staten Island just doesn't cut it.

But I've got to admit, it's better than what I would have come up with: "Have I spent any time on a farm? Sure, lots of it, groveling for your votes. And odds are, if elected, I won't see another farm for four years." Nothing nasty, mind you -- just an honest statement of the way things are, and will be. Naturally, though, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to proffer this honesty, since I'd still be swinging vertically back in Greenfield.

Yet Rudy, as every top-tier presidential candidate must, oozed with accolades as he traveled the flatlands -- "marvel[ing] at what he described as the 'complex political' queries he was encountering": "Aren’t these questions great? This is terrific," observed Rudy. "We could be at the Kennedy School of Government."

Pathetic. But it does offer insight into how much honesty went into his other comments to the good citizens of Iowa and tag-along journalists.

What would I suggest as merely one campaign-trail alternative to diner encounters? Knowledgeable panels, perhaps formed from area universities, in town to town addressing subjects from agricultural problems to international relations -- grilling the candidate like it was a dissertation defense (which in a way, it is), and televised locally.

These panels might at first be a bit cowered in the presence of such noted notables, but after hearing a few minutes of the vast shallowness that spews from the politically esteemed and very available, the intimidation would end rather abruptly, I should think. Then we could hear if there's anything actually up there in the cerebral sections.

Almost any alternative would be better than what's in place. Lord, what a farce.

Comments

[Iowa Rick]

I would have asked Rudy if he ever had to wipe his rear with a corn cob on a winter's morning cold enough to freeze motor oil while the wind howled through the slats of the outhouse wall.

[Mooser]

Oh, come on! As you well know, the identity, policies and even the past (hell, especially the past) of Republican candidates are fungible, flexible and fuzzy. Rudy will say whatever he whatever, until when and if he gets the nomination. Then he'll let the pros go to work, and the rest of his campaign will reflect whatever focus-group tested narrative and phrases are deemed to be apropriate.
The Dem candidates? Why sure, they'll do somewhat the same. Big difference; the Repubs will have a willing ally in the MSM, which will flush when told, and vomit up whatever they're told, and do it all for free. (They've already gotten theirs.)