Good or bad, right or wrong, presidential campaigns are commonly judged on the vaguest of contours: the warm and fuzzy vs. the cold and steely, likability vs. aloofness, the clichéd who-would-you-rather-have-a-beer-with option. The wonkish are quadrennially frustrated. They watch their chosen candidates -- those with the ability to cite H.R. bill numbers like the alphabet -- go down in flames to the guy with the smile.
The presidential year 2000 was the last full measure of this dubious phenomenon -- and likely, historically speaking, the grossest. There was Al Gore, yearning to show voters he was the smartest, wonkyish, most experienced kid in the class, flawlessly rattling off byzantine legislative provisions and his long personal history of foreign-policy travels. Opposite him was Crawford, Texas' favorite homebody, George W. Bush, struggling in his eternal battle with the English language to say that he, on the other hand, was just a humble dude who favored the Good Book as his guide.
That election will always be known as the one about "character." Issues? A monkey with a pocket calculator could have told you that George's prescription for tax cuts plus defense-spending hikes would devastate the surplus and further bury us in debt. But that just didn't matter. With a little help from the judicially robed, voters opted for projected warmth over populist anger, kitchen-table talk over rarefied statecraft, unbounded humility over unbounded experience.
This isn't to imply that every candidate who exudes warmth, a certain kitchen-table facility and humbleness is always a lethal phony -- just that those qualities tend to hold more appeal than resumes in the electoral arena.
So it was that I read this morning with no small amount of bewilderment, if not amusement, E.J. Dionne's brief entry in the Washington Post -- "E.J.'s Precinct" -- on the Wisconsin ad wars taking place between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The latest ad originating from the Clinton camp raises substantive issues, but what most viewers will hear and see instead is "Sore Loser" plastered right on its face. Mr. Dionne may "want to think about all this some more" -- the issues inside, that is -- but E.J., if I may, it's all over. It is merely the feel of the ads -- that vaguest of contours -- that counts, and is already registering with voters.
Here's the text of the ad, and the pleasure derived from reading it comes mostly from counting the number of knives plunged straight at the heart of the Clinton camp itself:
Barack Obama still won’t agree to debate in Wisconsin. And now he’s hiding behind false attack ads. Maybe he doesn’t want to explain why his health care plan leaves out 15 million people and Hillary’s covers everyone. Or why he voted to pass billions in Bush giveaways to the oil companies, but Hillary didn’t. Or why he said he might raise the retirement age and cut benefits for Social Security. But Hillary won’t. Why won’t Barack Obama debate these differences?
I counted nine; a really polished deconstructionist of the French School could, no doubt, enumerate dozens.
But why would anyone observe that the Clinton attack possesses only an inward thrust? It's not that its claims are easily refuted -- which they are -- beginning with Obama's refusal "to debate" in the face of a gazillion debates aired in Wisconsin, followed by the ad's downright laughable assertion that it's Obama's camp "hiding behind false attacks ads."
No, it's the far more general -- vague -- sense surely derived by the audience that the ad projects merely a desperate silliness, or, if you prefer, a silly desperation. It positively screams, "OK, this didn't work, that didn't work, perhaps this new tack will work -- and frankly, folks, in case you haven't noticed, we're telling you here that this is the last bullet we've got. We're all out of ammo."
It also, and ultimately, screams the old "We're willing to say anything to win" routine. And what's at the suicidal root of that? You got it: character. Voters may not always be the best of the informed, but they're not always stupid, either. They can smell underhanded desperation from a parsec away, they know "Sore Loser" when they see it, and they don't like it.
Mr. Dionne, being more balanced and judicious than I, ventured no judgments or predictions in his short piece. Only this: "The question for now is: Will this line of attack work for Clinton? Is this ad fair? Will there be a reaction against the tone of the ads? Are Wisconsin voters in the right mood for them -- or is Clinton preparing the ground for Ohio and Texas?"
Unaddressed in my answers above was that final question -- "Is Clinton preparing the ground for Ohio and Texas?"
I'd have to answer in the affirmative. She's digging her grave.