The Admiration Factor

ELECTING A PRESIDENT

“Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire…”

This is a line from HUD the 1962 Paul Newman movie about a selfish, think only of himself character much admired by his young nephew. This sage advice came from his grandfather trying to wise him up about his mean-spirited Uncle Hud.

Though we’d seen the movie countless times, the line just jumped out as a perfect measure of the ‘how and the why’ we elect Presidents. And once again we have a Kentucky Derby-sized field of two dozen potentials seeking to make Donald Trump a one-term President, And the perfect example we speak of – admiration – can be used to judge the field as they walk slowly to the starting gate a half year ahead of the call to the first televised primary debate.

Let’s not look too far back because examples exist everywhere.

There was Georgia Governor for two years, Jimmy Carter, with a background as a peanut farmer, but smart enough to work on the development of the atomic submarine. He ran against professional politician Gerald Ford, long-time member of the House, Vice President and called to the Presidency when Richard Nixon resigned. Ford’s chances were slim to none after he decided to pardon Mr. Nixon in the year before he would run for the office.

People admired Carter…he was the antidote to Tricky Dick…his sincerity, his frankness, his role as a Sunday School leader who could confess to a lust in his heart when talking to Playboy but knowing nobody would believe he would ever act on those feelings.

There was Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, from a background of single-parenting, poverty and struggle, the consummate political animal…with the Bubba smile, the warm caramel tones of the South mixing with the smartness of Yale. People admired his experience, his vast knowledge of government, his fighting spirit when overcoming personal behavioral problems – problems that would explode in his face when he was President. That admiration persisted even after a vote of impeachment. He didn’t go anywhere. People believed him when he said he felt their pain. And they admired him for it.

There was the miracle of Barack Obama with his experience as a community organizer, constitutional law professor, eight years as a member of the Illinois State Legislature and several months as a US Senator. When he came onto the big stage, with that dancer’s walk, that Joker smile and his arms flung wide to say “we are the change..we are the hope” that was all he had to say and America’s admiration for its own goodness in giving him the chance, made him President.

And then, of course, there is Donald Trump…a man who knew nothing of government, had no respect for it and couldn’t stand the people who served in it…”losers” he called them. And yet, who won the admiration of America’s working class because he was talking directly to them, knowing that the Democrats had stopped doing that years and years ago.

Trump spoke to them about immigrants taking their jobs, about globalization taking their jobs, about the elite ignoring their job loss. Trump stood up to the political class in the first Republican Presidential Primary debate…in the middle of 17 candidates …and told America that none of the 17…Governors, Senators, Congressmen… gave a damn about them, but only wanted to be elected and reelected. Not one of them faced him down…that night or all the nights that followed.

The admiration for his gutty, in your face, language-be-damned approach made him seem real so that the admiration of less than a majority of voters was strong enough to overcome the disgust of a bare majority of voters to make him President. And unless admiration for a Democratic candidate overcomes Trump’s fierce base of voters, nothing else—not the newly revised debate about abortion, the possibility of impeachment, the fear of war with Iran, the destruction of dozens of regulations controlling corporations of the powerful, the ferocity of the haters in our us against them society – nothing else will stop a second term for this President.

WHAT IT TAKES

Based on the above concept we know that policy proposals, big ideas, specific promises, being a front runner, experience in government, in national and international affairs, in elected office, in the creation of programs do not win elections.

And when you factor in that most believe they can do a much better job for Americans than Donald Trump is doing, we have two dozen Democrats running for President…and who knows how many more in the future.

It is premature to even speculate who the Democrats will select as their candidate. But keep in mind the above as you run down the list that includes a gruff but experienced campaigner who can bring the same energy to that same speech twice in four years; a 37 year old Mayor of a small Indiana town (even if Notre Dame University is part of it) who happens to be gay and married; the largest number of women ever to run for President; a Texan who couldn’t beat the most hated man in Congress, Ted Cruz; and former Vice President Joe Biden who ran unsuccessfully three times and probably would have beaten Donald Trump because he would have found the same base – one he is seeking now – but was nudged aside by Obama who sided with Hillary’s quest.

There is something reasonable to say about most of the candidates…a smaller number will take part in the debates next year.

While Republicans slamming into Democratic candidates say that they fear Biden the most, they are clearly aiming their biggest guns at the alleged Democratic “left wing”…the so-called Democratic socialists led by Bernie Sanders and alter ego Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ms. Cortez and other first-time women in Congress in Wisconsin, Michigan and Massachusetts are pushing hard for what some term the ‘impossibles’ such as a free education in public colleges, Medicare for All ( in the face of the private health insurance industry and its ownership of Congress) and an end to the use of fossil fuels. While nobody including Bernie Sanders is trying to explain how any of that can come true, Ms Cortez feels it is enough to work on these programs without there being a direct way for them to actually happen.

Somewhere one will find that ladder of admiration to climb…the one that provides the winning margin. We know that front-runners rarely win in a crowd but it is not impossible. We know that when people really want a candidate beyond any consideration other than admiration, that want can turn into a passion and passion wins elections.

A former Democratic leader in Youngstown, Ohio, a town the Republicans won against all odds, reminds us that elites shower before work, while working people shower after work and the Democrats stopped talking to that latter group years ago. He didn’t say talking about what… only indicated that the blue party had forgotten what elected its Presidents. The red party seems to have figured it out. It didn’t favor Mr. Trump but it has certainly learned how to jump on his bandwagon…come hell or high water.