Authenticity Missing Factor: The GOP Presidential Candidates Debate
May 4th, 2007 | 26 responses
They were identical decaplets, split ten times from the same zygote, and hard to tell apart.
Tonight, all ten GOP men who want to be president of the free world, lined up behind tiny podiums as though they were about to play Jeopardy. They vied just as hard as any time-limited contestant on a game show. They were eager to hit the questions running as soon as they were called on by the moderator, Chris Matthews.
But the deciding factor in the presidential race is going to be authenticity, realness with people about real issues. Not just clabber. Tonight, most of the candidates flunked. Most of the men’s responses were caseworked. Most seemed to have rehearsed facts and figures too hard beforehand. Instead of sounding thoughtful, leaderly, unique… if you closed your eyes and listened only to the words, all of the words could have come from any one of them, or all of them. No differentiation.
Except perhaps for Sen. McCain’s suddenly bellowing about being willing to follow Osama Bin Laden to hell, precisely, the gates of. McCain’s rise in redness and volume whilst saying that, was like listening all evening to muzak but then all of a sudden someone had spliced in three bars of a screaming Robert Plant. Startling ‘pounce and blurt’ followed by ‘a flash and then gone’ sardonicus smile.
The most natural sounding were Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Tommy Thompson… all consummate politicians: old school, deeply experienced as politicos. Regardless of what they say, any pre-planned torque was barely evident.
The one who stumbled badly was Tom Tancredo, giving too long a preamble to answer the question, then failing to pinpoint the year of the Ben Franklin quote he had planned to use. The hook came for him as he stuttered and stumbled, naming the wrong year, correcting himself, sounding rattled and addled. One of those horrible gaffes where “this great quote I want to use to wow you,” overtakes authenticity, and thereby sinks the speaker
It was peculiar too, that in a pack of men, wherein each one professed to be ‘a stand out’ candidate in the GOP nomination race, each one saying in their own way, “I’m the one, I’m the man, the only candidate who is different from all the rest…” all the men were dressed identically…
All were dressed in mourning suits of black and darkest blue, all with moderate lapels. Shirts white and palest blue with short collar points. Their haircuts, all as though cut using the same shallow bowl. Gestures, the same… though the seasoned politicians’ gestures were graceful and relevant to the words being spoken… other men’s gestures seemed fresh from the ‘animated speaking gestures’ course at Dale Carnegie.
The only things to differentiate one man from the next man, were their neckties.
Perhaps one could infer something of the person by the color of their neckwear. Rose red and black striped (Rudy Giuliani), dark green on light green striped diagonal (Chris Matthews), pale gray and pale mauve (Tom Tancredo), moderate blue and white stripe ( Mitt Romney in his nipped at the back of the waist tailored suit ), yellow-orange tie (Senator Brownback), deep purple and pink stripe (John McCain), blue on blue striped (Tommy Thompson), and the heavily symbolic red, white and blue tie (Gilmore).
All the men are smart and all are educated. Perhaps the fault was not theirs, but the questions themselves. The questions asked of the men seemed more like Trivial Pursuit, Junior Edition. I kept expecting Mr. Matthews to ask, Who is the prime minister of Outer Mongolia? What is the difference between a Kurd and a Chechnyan? Who is the president of Myanmar? How are Indians and Pakistanis different? I can almost guarantee that all candidates studied and studied as though for the LSAT, names, places, dates, history, quotes, et al, beforehand, in order to appear knowledgeable tonight.
Too bad it was just a Q and A instead of a conversation. Tonight’s questions and answers went along these ‘old dog track’ lines: What do you think of the war? What about Iran? National ID card? Privacy? Terri Schiavo? Sort of a run down of what media has covered. But not, perhaps, what the people would like most to know.
What if they gave a conversation and everybody came? What if the rules were, no grandstanding in front of Nancy Reagan. What if the rules were you all have to dress as your true inner spirit. And, what if the questions were like the people of this wide country, real, deep, and variegated?
For a time it was confusing about which century the debate was being held in; this one, or the last one: One of the GOP candidates averred that “…we won cold war through our industrial base.” I often think when I hear things like that, that said person must think all the rest of us are still living down on the farm chewing a stalk of wheat, without TV or radio, and that we’re all slow readers who can barely get through the Deere catalog.
Funny thing, if you ask many of the people who were once forced to endure the Soviet bloc, they think they are the ones who fought back and toppled the stranglehold their dictators had on them. They think they are the heroes who won ‘the cold war.’
Another GOP Candidate when asked what amounted to Miss America questions about how one would like to save the world… he said, “I would guarantee I would never abuse habeas corpus.” Um, does that mean you believe it is now being abused? and would that also mean you currently are abusing habeas corpus by not demanding an end to detention of those who have now been held for years without charges and without court hearings?
I did like Senator McCain’s admitting that we are currently paying millions more for battleships than they are worth. Where I come from, we call that corruption and extortion and bunco and racketeering. He called it ‘pork barrel,’ which makes it seem almost alright. But to most of us, to pay $400.00 for a $4.00 hammer, well it seems like an approved form of insanity… even though most of my old country family people sincerely believed that senators and congress people really did read the four-bazillion paged budget (every line) and hold each line item up to scrutiny.
I also had to laugh at Mr. Romney’s answer when Mr. Mathews asked him if the Roman Catholic Church should deny communion to pro-abortion politicians. Mathews (a Catholic) asked, “What would you say to the bishops?” Romney (a Mormon) almost snapped at him: “I don’t say anything to Roman Catholic Bishops …they can do whatever the heck they want!†It was olio time at the Reagan Library.
However, Mr. Matthews should have asked instead about pro-abortion politicians, adding at the end, “What would you say to the Mormon elders?†Now that would have been electrifying television one way or another.
Throughout the debate, I found my mind wandering through, as my dad kept saying the first time we drove his big 49 Chevy through Iowa… ” all the corn and corn and more corn” of the ‘debate.’ I look at the audience instead. There was this one middle aged guy, honest to gosh, who looked like Barney Google with the Goo-goo-googley eyes. And Mr. Google is smiling and smiling, his nose reaching almost to his chin. It’s a great smile.
There was a woman with bangs looking bored beyond bored. Two dowagers peered over their glasses and sucked their cheeks in, looking all Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and thoughtful. They’re the ones I wish Matthews had asked the questions to… I just have a hunch, we’d been treated to some larger than life thinking… better than the smaller than life stage performance of most of the men most of the night, tonight.
Thompson, Romney, Giuliani, McCain have the cojones and the fire in the belly for running. Tom Tancredo might stay in for a bit but he has hemmed himself in with a moraine of quotes that show he is a one-issue guy: borders. The rest did not very well distinguish themselves this evening, but there is yet time.
I just keep wondering, what about a Bette Davis kind of women for president? Imagine the Harry Trumanesque posturing. And how about a Joan Crawford kind of dame for VP… surely there would be a continuous need in the House and in the Senate for the wondrous line that Crawford delivered upon assuming control of Pepsi-Cola in the sixties… a line that I had for years practiced to perfection in the mirror before going into some severe battles in the workaday world…
Miss Crawford was at a board meeting of Pepsi-Cola, and the male board members were patronizing her and had, behind her back, plotted to diminish her influence. She was onto them however. She leaned on the long conference room table, looked every man in the eye, and hissed
“Don’t ‘f’ with me fellas,
this aint my first ro-day-o.”
A VP should at least be quotable, don’t you think?
‘Authenticity Missing Factor: The GOP Presidential Candidates Debate’© 2007, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved, is printed here under Creative Commons License by which author grants permission to copy, distribute and transmit this particular work under the conditions that the use be non-commercial, that the work be used in its entirety and not altered, added to, or subtracted from, and that it be attributed with author’s name and this full copyright notice. For other uses, contact copyright holder.
26 Responses to “Authenticity Missing Factor: The GOP Presidential Candidates Debate”
Your recap is more interesting than the debate.
This was a GREAT semiotic analysis of the debate! Barthes would have appreciated it.
An excellent approach to capturing the sense of clumsy grouping of ten men – shaped by their respective communications teams – with diverse agendas in defining themselves within a narrow frame.
Just one question: Is the Joan Crawford line correct? What a fantastic line! It sounds too perfect…too Crawford…to be true (which, of course, I hope it is
Didn’t McCain said he’d follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, as in “if that’s what it takes to capture him” … ?
Otherwise, great recap, Dr. E.
domajot, Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Thompson all are planets in their own orbits and should probably not appear with others. Perhaps Sen. McCain too. I think it would have held our interest much better if it was just those four, or two by two, or just one at a time.
Marlowecan: My source is her daughter in the book she wrote about her mother, ‘Mommie Dearest.’ It was repeated in the film, I believe by the same name, “MD”. Imagine Faye Dunaway leaning in and saying, “Don’t….
Pete Abel, you are correct. I retracked my notes. Thank you for the head’s up
> Your recap is more interesting than the debate.
Her dyslexia works wonders. LSD sessions in the Sixties cannot compete. That includes her follow-ups (“Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Thompson all are planets in their own orbits and should probably not appear with others. Perhaps Sen. McCain[,] too.”)
> They were identical decaplets,
(decuplets — but “caplets”:)
> split ten times from the same
> zygote, and hard to tell apart.
Dwarf stock?
DLS, I started out spelling it decituplets; as in decimal, deca for ten. Then I looked it up, and for whatever reason (It’s English the language of nonconforming rules…might be the best explanation) when multiple births are ten babies, instead of being decUplets, (septuplets, quintuplets, et al) it changes to decAplets. Maybe not dwarves, but more like Aplettes. lol
I do not believe that one can watch the debate and conclude that Rep. Ron Paul is the same as the others. Mr. Romney. Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Thompson are all libertarians like Ron Paul? Hmmmm.
Are you sure you watched it all?
The answers that stunned me were Tommy Thompson’s statement that he would allow a business to fire someone for sexual orientation, and Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee’s admission that they do not believe in evolution. Do they think this gives them a leg up with evangelicals?
I thought Romney came off as media savvy- totally comfortable in front of the camera and in a debate setting. Giuliani needs some coaching on the abortion issue- that is his achilles heel. McCain seemed very nervous and wooden, but got better towards the end. Ron Paul was the only one who came as himself, but he had the scary idea of eliminating the IRS and substituting consumption taxes.
bucky1, yes. I think you must know far more about Mr. Paul than I. Mr. Paul is interesting to many, and he might gather more velocity.
I think though that the time format, the anemic litmus questions, and the beauty pageant quality of the gathering hardly allowed much of anyone to shine. I was surprised to see Chris Matthews cut off some of the candidates pretty adamantly. It began to look like the Gong show rather than a ‘debate.’
I look forward to seeing other formats, other inquiries for the candidates. I sense there may be some added to the gang, and perhaps some that fall out soon too.
How deliciously naughty to read about the debate through the eyes and ears of an expert in human behavior and not yet another press corps hack.
My own conclusion: Boy are the Republicans ever in trouble!
Dr. Estes- What do you make of the fact that the candidates brought up Reagan’s name 19 times, but barely mentioned George Bush’s name at all?
Dr. E.,
> I started out spelling it
> decituplets; as in decimal,
> deca for ten.
Understood completely. In some places, the year begins in the spring, and look at the Latin names of many of the months that remain ordinated rather than being renamed by emperors in Roman times.
And you probably realize the real meaning of “decimation.” (One in ten draw a black bean rather than a white bean, and the unlucky ones are marched to the wall…)
You actually had it right for children; I chose the name for celestial objects (those three or maybe four planets).
And of course you could just give up and say “10-tuplets”!
> English the language
> of nonconforming rules
Muchas reglas rotas!
And the difference between the writing and how it sounds…
> deca for ten.
Ten little Indians — no chiefs!
kritter, re “What do you make of the fact that the candidates brought up Reagan’s name 19 times, but barely mentioned George Bush’s name at all?”
I think the ten men and others in attendence were at what for them was sacred ground. I believe President Reagan is buried on the land there. Probably they have the same reverence and sense of place and the man…. that first generation followers have for Carl Jung, first generation followers of Freud have for Sigmund, that any of us who have known and loved a teacher face to face, have for that teacher.
Also, Mrs. Reagan was present front and center. I have seen that kind of behavior and calling out the name of the loved one at feschrift for retiring scholars, and also at poetry performances when a venerable one, or one of the loved one’s family members are in the audience.
I think of the men mentioning president Reagan as a carom shot in one way, and also as somewhat similiar to a tribal ritual… a kind of sympathetic revving whereby one feels stronger by mentioning the name of a powerful person or being, or alluding to their relationship with them in the past.
If it were Bush in the front row, the men undoubtably, I think, have called out to him in those same ways too.
With Nancy there, and her advanced age, there is a poignancy too I think. They all know that they are seeing the last of an era. They know the time of their ‘great one’ is passing.
When I saw those references to Reagan during the debate, I thought it might be a way of saying Goodbye to Nancy; saying like people do in the last days, all the good things they are grateful for… to the one who is not long for the world.
Thank you for asking a good question Kritter
I watched the debate closely – Evolution, Choice, Diplomacy, Immigration…
My money will go to Democrats until moderates retake control of the GOP.
I increasingly believe that the survival of civilization depends on getting the GOP out of power.
Thanks Dr., good answer. I, of course, being a political junkie, came to a different more cynical conclusion: that the GOP is at a low point under its current leadership, and the candidates felt the need to harken back to a time when the party and the country was at its strongest.
In order to project the image of strength and optimism to potential voters, the 10 invoked the words and deeds of the “Great Communicator”. I have seen many articles discussing who will be the next Reagan, and think that the candidates were each trying to fulfill that role for the Republican base. Is that why they lacked authenticity? Imo, they were studiously avoiding the current president while leaning heavily on the great reputation of a former one. Perhaps they need to come as themselves. (I did think Ron Paul was 100% Ron Paul, lol)
I fear your interpretation is much kinder and thoughtful than mine.
For me, the most interesting aspect of the debate was Romney’s seeming ability to to get away with “whole cloth” changes in core Republican positions. He is very comfortable in front of a camera, has a slick Clintonesque [B not H] sincere-ish quality, even when explaining 180 degree flip-flops. People want to believe him, even if his political platform is determined at the intersection of his ambition and the polls. It is clear that, like Bill Clinton, he will govern based on polls and continuous compromise. Not a bad thing, since there will likely still be a Democratic majority in Congress in 2009. I am not opposed to a President that pays attention to the will of the American people. We will probably be in the range of 70% of America wanting us out of Iraq by the time the next President takes office. As President, Romney will get us out of Iraq quickly, no matter what he says now to get the nomination. He can be trusted to blow with wind. He is not my favorite Republican hopeful (that would be Hagel), but out of this batch of Republican candidates, he’s good enough.
Dr Estes demonstrates why Senator Obama will be the next president. She feels quite comfortable ridiculing the dress, ties, religious beliefs, personal histories, and even the haircits of all of the Republican candidates. But she probably will never criticize the apperance, religious beliefs, personal history, or haircut of Senator Obama. The left feels so uncomfortable saying anything bad about any black who is a Democrat that Senator Obama basically is above any criticism. Thus, he will be the next president.
Superdestroyer wrote:
> The left feels so
> uncomfortable saying
> anything bad about any
> black who is a Democrat
> that Senator Obama
> basically is above any
> criticism.
True so far. The lefty whining on the Web about the MySpace incident is not serious criticism.
Still, Hillary is the better bet for the Dem nomination.
It’s her vs. Obama unless Gore does get into the contest (“Republicans are dividers. With you, my fellow Americans [and, in particular, Democratic voters], I am a uniter!”)
> Evolution,
> Choice,
[sic; abortion]
> Diplomacy,
> Immigration…
None of those were extremist issues.
‘None of those were extremist issues.’
To me some or all were in substantial conflict with the majority of Citizens:
Three did not believe in Evolution.
Most do not support a woman’s right to choose.
All emphasize force over diplomacy.
Most inclined to deport 12,000,000 people.
They were appealing to the AM Talk radio crowd last night, and so took hard right positions on every issue. Brownback even attacked the separation of church and state, and Thompson said it was ok with him to fire someone because of sexual orientation.
There are some liberals in the Democratic camp, like Edwards and Kucinich, but there are also centrists like Clinton and Richardson. The Republican slate is pretty much all conservative. Giuli is a little more moderate on social issues, but fits in with the rest on the other issues.
SD-Obama is subject to criticism- there was some criticism of him about a blog that he took over from a supporter, and then didn’t pay him. I’m not sure of the details- also he gets hits about his lack of experience. But he hasn’t been in politics long enough to have a major voting record, so what would you have the Democrats criticize him about?
Kritter: I have an email here from I think the Thompson campaign saying TT apologized for his remarka little while ago. I have not read the entire parse yet.
Paul Silver: That was pithy analysis. To be brief is such a wonder to me. I spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to eke out the filaments of what I’m seeing/ hearing… and then it takes the equivalent of the entire Iron Age to write it out without a million spelling and grammatical errors in it, not to mention a constant jettison process.
SuperDestroyer: Stay tuned re Dem candidates. Let’s see how they comport. I dont have a dog in either fight. Yet. lol. You bring up a good point.. people might censor critique because of race. My personal experience as a Latina is not one of getting cut slack for my ethnicity, but a desire by some to ‘tokenize’ which I resist, and a different desire by others to spew pretty vile opprobium. Maybe it is that people say to private citizens what they will not say to public figures. I dont know. It has been a lifelong puzzlement to me.
mw: “People want to believe him” … poignant. this is the invisible element in voters (all of us seeking resonance to something we hold dear, and more) that is rarely spoken about let alone analyzed
DLS: Yes. I think, any issue may not be extremist when merely spoken about (although some are) … but a ‘castle in the air’ idea can become extreme instantly if made into a measure that causes living beings to suffer and have no reasonable remedy that is timely and not depleting.
It seems to me there is a combustion point at the moment of transformation from ideation to application. ‘The transformative moment’ might ignite and illuminate in the best ways.
Or when people are naive or careless fire handlers, not knowing or not caring about how to bank or contain fire, only knowing how to feed it… the bringing of ideation into materia can turn into an utterly destructive conflagration…. out of which, as we say in the backwoods, “That there situation, even if one side wins, dirty or clean… everyone loses.”
Shawn Mullen… yes, and I’ve been listening to the commentators on cable and network today, the day after the debates’ and they sound tepid no matter who is analyzing, but I think that might be because the questions to the candidates were tepid.