Main Street: Already Lost

I am not sure who is going to win this year’s presidential election campaign, but I already know who the loser will be. It’s the same sap who’s come out on the short end for the last two decades and more: the person on Main Street.

Wait, you say. Hasn’t this election begun to turn on “populism?” Isn’t Joe Biden the Working Man? Isn’t Sarah Palin the Hockey Mom?

Well, sure they are, but populism is not Main Street. Populism — the way it’s being practiced today — is all about anger and cultural warfare. Washington, Wall Street, bad. Wal Mart, Target, good.

A recent column by Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas in USA Today has them taking a stab at finding common ground. “The idea of a culture war seems so 1990s, doesn’t it?” says one. The other frets, “We’re in danger of heading down that pothole-filled road once again.” Having expressed their preference for reasonableness, the two spend the rest of the column bickering about whether Americans want more health care or less same-sex marriages. They argue over who started the “culture wars” and who is to blame for continuing them. Finally, almost an afterthought, they find something they seem to be able to agree on, and that is that a presidential election is not the place to find “quieter moments of reflection . . . with honest give and take.”

That, in a nutshell, is where we are at. Even people who are trying to find common ground can’t quite do so. We talk past one another, our rhetoric filled with anger and finger pointing, until finally we come upon a dispirited realization: that presidential campaigns are no longer designed around the idea of helping citizens make a choice as to who should lead, but instead are built on a foundation of warfare. I win, you lose. Just as war has evolved from arranged battles to guerrilla asymmetries, so too have campaigns shifted from debates to shin-kicks.

Where candidates used to “stand” for election, they now “run.” Where they used to seek to “govern,” they now say the seek office in order to “fight.”

Even within the campaigns (and, more stridently, the supporters) of Senators MccCain and Obama — of which each man can be made a strong case that they are willing and able to work across divides, placing results ahead of party interest — neither can seem to refrain from phony outrage and disgusting taunts.

Twenty years ago the political world laid hold of the power of organized fear in the image of Willie Horton which in part sunk Michael Dukakis’ candidacy for president. While not the first campaign ad to play on base emotion, it is widely regarded as the archetype. Since then, it’s gotten worse each year. Scare tactics are now the norm, not just in commercials but in almost every campaign communication. And they are not limited to one political party.

This leaves the folks on Main Street in the lurch. It literally perverts them by, playing on their base instincts of fear, hatred, and their urge to support their team at all costs. They see higher stakes, more dire consequences, more reason for outrage, than reality would dictate — all because the machinery of politics cynically eggs them on. My side is attacked – I must hit back and hard. People, under such pressure, tend to lose their equanimity and act more like face-painted sports fans at the Big Game. They’ve been ginned up, whipped into a frenzy.

I recently had the opportunity to eavesdrop on a political conversation between adolescent children. Depending on who was talking, each candidate by turns would “stop terrorists,” “end global warming,” “lower gas prices,” or “stop the war.” Neither candidate can actually do any of these things. Yet these comments are exactly in line with what we hear daily out on the street, as we circulate through life.

Gone is the sense that we are making a decision, weighing options. In its stead is the building-up of our team and the eviscerating of their team.

People on Main Street, meanwhile, are left with little else to do but go along with the mob, or check out of public life.

Little wonder so many pick the latter option.

Change, The Real Thing

There is another race that Senator Barack Obama has won hands-down.

He’s the only one with a decent logo. The Obama campaign has developed a contained, clear graphic that conveys just about everything most folks feel they need to know.

People know Obama’s got good design on his side, too. Next time there’s news of an Obama speech, take a look at the photo: often, it’ll be a stark image of the Senator against a dark background, so he stands out. Hovering, a bit out of focus, behind the Senator, will be that logo.

The fact of this logo’s existence says more than you might think about his candidacy. No other candidate has one. Sure, other candidates may say they have a logo — but it’s all just little wavy flags or bold stars surrounding their names. That Obama logo marks that the campaign, in part, has been about building a “brand.”

But we are not in an ad campaign; we are in an election campaign. The competition is far different than that between soft drinks. If I buy The Real Thing today, I can turn around and Do The Dew tomorrow. But the act of voting is more than simply stating a preference.

We go to a special place in order to vote, having in most cases waited in a line with others who are about to do the same thing. Tension mounts; we see our neighbors. The American flags and officious posters on the walls, the intent poll-watchers skulking about, the earnest volunteer election judges — it all adds to the seriousness. Even if I was not really focusing last night, or the week before, I sure am now, in line.

As I enter the booth, the import of my task strikes me. (I hear a similar thing happens among juries.)

On some level, I begin to realize I am not just saying who I “like” more, or who I would more rather go to Applebee’s with. Nor am I “hiring” someone for a “job.” I am, instead, making a choice that I believe ought to be binding on my fellow citizens. I am choosing for them as much as I am choosing for me.

Veteran political consultants know that the rules of the commercial world do not fully apply in election campaigns. While the two worlds use many of the same tools, they are different in important respects. Candidates who consciously proclaim “a different kind of message” run a risk when it comes to be crunch time. Because, for all of our complaining that campaigns have become a beauty contest — it’s not exactly so. Buzz, as we saw during Howard Dean’s candidacy, does not necessarily translate into votes.

But, from observing the Obama campaign’s mien over the last weeks, it seems the Senator or his strategists do indeed know the difference between ads and elections — you see that logo less and less these days.

The Clinton campaign now has a slim reed on which to hang, which is that the hard work that has gone before will pay dividends and allow her to hang on into the spring. But it is not a foregone conclusion that the slogging work of politics can overtake the undeniable allure of a powerful message and a charismatic messenger — which has now begun to focus like a laser on closing the deal.

I am a bit hopeful that the primary season will wear on, tiresome as it can be. I do know it may well be over soon. But the fight does the candidates good, and pays dividends to us citizens at home: Watching the repeated primaries, I am invited to check my own opinions — Who would I have voted for last Tuesday? How about the Tuesday a few weeks before? My thoughts become clearer week by week and, eventually, along with my neighbor’s and fellow citizens across the country, they build up to a collective judgment of who ought to be the nominee. Such judgments are improved by age.

I may be old-fashioned, but I am glad there is still an area of public life that we continue to keep closed off from the marketers. When we draw the curtain in the voting booth, even if we may not articulate this to ourselves, each of us stakes our own tiny claim for the seriousness of the task before us.

(Images from campaign websites.)

White Men Can’t Talk

The article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

There is a priceless moment in Oliver Stone’s unfairly maligned The Doors, when our heroes are prepping to go on the Ed Sullivan Show. They are met by a stage assistant, a real twerp, who informs them that, “The network guys have a problem with one of your lyrics. ‘Girl, we couldn’t get much higher.’” He goes on: ” You can’t say ‘higher’ on the network, so they asked if you could say instead: ‘Girl, we couldn’t get much better.’”

The band looks at him, bemused. He finishes with: “Could you dig that?”

That dork’s use of the word “dig” in this context perfectly illustrates what often happens when mainstream folks try to appropriate street talk: they get it wrong, either by not understanding proper usage, or just plain sounding silly. While we play such things for laughs, they ring true because we see the same thing every day.

I remember a song by a milquetoast rapper named Vanilla Ice, called “Ice Ice Baby.” You probably remember it too. It’s your standard 1990′s fare, filled with braggadocio about the protagonist’s many fine exploits. I can’t help laughing when I hear some of the lines in the tune. Vanilla says he is “Rollin’ in my 5.0″ at one point. We all remember the angular 5.0 liter Mustang that was popular then. Vanilla spends three couplets on his “5.0,” with evident pride not just in its fanciness but also in his street cred for knowing such slang. Thing is, that’s not what the term “5-0″ meant at the time — it meant “police,” as in “Hawaii 5-0.” (Vanilla, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, is a far more mature person now and a new crowd has come to enjoy his music.)

All this came back to me as the David Shuster saga unfolded. In an intemperate moment, our chalk-stripe-suited host says that Chelsea Clinton is being “pimped out” by her mom’s campaign.

This has generated a firestorm and Shuster is now suspended for uttering such a derogatory remark. For my part, I would have wanted to suspend him for not understanding the language he was trying to use. He pulled a Vanilla Ice.

Dig: “Pimped out” means “made very fancy,” as a stereotypical pimp might decorate something. There are overtones of exploitation, too, as in when something is “tricked out” — that is, made alluring enough for a trick.

What Shuster probably meant to say was that he felt Chelsea was being “pimped,” as in “exploited.” It’s a small slip, like Vanilla Ice’s slip when it comes to his car, but it matters. On its face, Shuster’s remark meant the campaign was dressing Chelsea up. In context, it was incoherent. In trying to appropriate so-called street lingo, he botched the job and made the same mistakes any foreign speaker makes when idiomatically out of their depth, with similarly hilarious results.

When I was in high school, I hosted an exchange student from Belgium. He fancied himself quite the Casanova, but most of my friends thought him the opposite. We taught him that the term “doughbrain” was our slang expression for “ladies’ man.” I regret it, now, as it was just mean — but, man was it funny at the time.

If I were advising my exchange brother now, I would say to watch out and double check what idiomatic expressions mean, because you might just wind up sounding like a real Newman.

I guess David Shuster could use the same advice.

ADDENDUM: Looks like I made a mistake, and relied on my recollection and the lyric sheet when it came to Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” — instead of re-listening to the song itself. He doesn’t say “five-oh” (which is what I remembered) but says “five point oh.” Commenters at Pajamas Media who have pointed that out are right. Kicking myself. You should, too!

They’re also right that it knocks a big leg out from under my point, but not entirely: Shuster sounded really silly saying “pimped out,” like a suit trying to talk street, and (this much I still maintain) misusing the term in that way.

A Reformed Reformer

This article first appeared in Pajamas Media.

Recently, there was a little-noticed gathering of graybeards in Oklahoma, designed to place the political world on notice that things have gotten too partisan. I say little-noticed because, while the collected firepower in the room was sufficient to garner some approving mentions in the press, especially from the handwringing contingent, the statement issued by this group appears to have come and gone without leaving much in the way of ripples. Good thing, too.

Long ago, I led an initiative of which the Oklahoma summit would no doubt approve. Armed with hundreds of thousands of dollars from a foundation, I spent multiple election cycles trying to get opposing candidates to agree to simple ground rules for their campaigns and then stick to them. From my vantage point now, with no vested interest, I can say that in all honesty we had almost no success. Of course, we trumpeted battles won and progress made, and built an impressive book of press clipping — and we did so in sufficient volume to get investment from other foundations too.

Still, when all was said and done, the chief bit of learning from this lengthy effort is that candidates’ campaigns are not interested in “fighting fair” or working in “bipartisan” ways. They are interested in winning, so their candidate can then go on to govern.

It may be true that I just botched the job and someone else would have led the project to a more bipartisan glory. But I was not alone in my efforts. Across the nation in the late 1990′s, well-meaning nonprofit organizations tried to change the way election campaigns seemed to be going. For every small victory (a public financing system here, or an instant-runoff voting system there), there were far greater setbacks.

I’ve come to believe that, by and large, people are not interested in “bipartisan” approaches to “solutions” to our nation’s “problems.” They are interested in having the feeling that they are being led and led well, by someone who cares about their concerns and will honestly do their best. This was the political genius of Bill Clinton and of the team behind George W. Bush. They made 50% plus one feel that way.

By contrast, this is something that the technocrats who have spent long years in the halls of power do not seem to get. Having made policy for so long, they seem to believe that ordinary Americans want solutions, when what they want is leadership. This was the failure of Senators Kerry and Dole, who in retrospect seemed more to be applying for a job in government, than they were fighting to lead a nation.

People who do a lot of thinking about Democracy are worried sick about things these days. They see a hyperpartisan landscape that has choked government’s ability to act. They see an electoral system that favors style over substance. They see mean-spirited campaigns filled with veiled (and not-so-veiled) name-calling. They see a primary schedule run amok, with a yearlong presidential campaign already underway.

But I see a system that has responded well to the desires of the ordinary Americans who do not tune into C-SPAN and care little about the full text of White House press conferences. This is an America that mistrusts a government that “acts,” that bases any number of day-to-day decisions on an intuitive sense of “style” (I do not mean fashion), and that appreciates a good fight.

At the end of our early primary season, we will have two candidates poised to do their best to convince us that they, and not their opponent, will lead us best. And people will decide — some by reading the white papers, but more by listening to the repeated sound bites.

Those sound bites, and bumper stickers, and slogans say more than the concerned would care to admit.

Long ago, I stopped “attending films” and instead decided I preferred to “go to the movies.” Around that time, I stopped basing my cinematic decisions on reviews but instead used movies’ own advertising to influence whether I would see a particular show. After all, a lot of thought goes into deciding just what aspect of a movie to highlight, in order to drive audiences. You can get a pretty good idea of whether you want to see something by reading its ad. My grand experiment has by and large worked very well. Even with the dogs (and there are a few), I am rarely surprised by what I get.

This is what the presidential candidates are trying to do. So far, they have done a pretty good job and the choices I face, along with the nation, are clear. Each party has a small handful of competing directions and will choose from among them. Those two will battle it out.

I hope they really go at it.

You Lose

This article first appeared in Pajamas Media.

My middle school daughter has announced that her new favorite president is Calvin Coolidge. I do not believe it is due to his business-first approach to the Roaring Twenties. My daughter, herself a girl of few words, admires “Silent Cal” for his terseness. Would that this quality were shared by more people, in more arenas.

Instead, ubiquity and volume appear to be the chief attributes of words these days. The dictates of our respective markets call on us to be prolific, even beyond our abilities. “Content!” screams the machine, with little regard for its fodder’s taste or nutritional value. Book writers must create and re-create their sequels, at ever-increasing length. Nonfiction publishing houses feel the urge to flood the market in response to major events — within four to six months. Politicians must debate into the double digits, not because more debates are better, but because each niche, be it geographic, demographic, or ideological, demands its own morsel.

In consumer- or popular-culture, this is merely burdensome, as I choose between TMZ or PopSugar. But in public life it matters.

While many attitudes toward politics have shifted in various ways over the last decades, at least one thing has remained constant. Citizens feel less and less able to find relevant information. They report that they “can’t find out” what various candidates think about issues that matter to them. But how can this be? They’re talking so much, after all, what about all those debates?

The problem is that increasingly much of what is said is, civically speaking, junk food — devoid of nutrition. As the content-machine requires more and more, the ratio of junk to nutrition decreases. It becomes harder and harder for people to find out what they need and want to know. Yes, it’s out there. Just buried, or hidden in plain sight.

No great revelation: It’s a cycle that feeds on itself. More outlets need more material with which to fill their maws.

Creating “content” has become a job in its own right. This is in itself a capitulation. We need to reclaim lost ground, at least when it comes to the public square. Writers must see themselves as contributing to important discourse, not creating a product that may later get “re-purposed.” Politicians and pundits must have something to say, not simply a need to speak. The organizations that serve all this “content” up to eager viewers, listeners, and users must return to the now-quaint view of themselves as leaders with a duty to enrich the public square and not starve its soil.

It’s exactly who we have deposed whom we can most use long about now: editors.

A friend of mine, an editor at a newspaper, once told me that the role of an editor is to find out what the reader ought to know, and get them to want to know it. This, of course, seems anathema to the radically democratized world of information in which we now live. I can imagine the comments now, accusing me of being league with MSM. Indeed, I myself am, as a “blogger,” the beneficiary of today’s lowered barrier of entry into the “public voice” market. So I say this knowing I am pointing a finger at myself.

Yet it is this old-fashioned approach that we need in order to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. So many new and useful voices have entered the public square (many on this site), at the same time as so much static. The lost role of editor can help me find quality, and help bring meaning back into public life.

In fact, the role of editor is needed not just in the news business, but throughout public life. We need people with backbone who will say no, put on the brakes, shoot down dumb ideas, and generally be grown-ups.

Looking around, there are so few grown-ups on the scene.

One of the Silent Cal anecdotes that had my daughter laughing out loud involves a dinner party. It is said that a young woman (in some tellings it is Dorothy Parker) found herself seated next to Coolidge. “I bet my husband,” she reportedly said, “that I can get you to say more than two words.” To which came the swift reply: “You lose.”

President Calvin Coolidge is also said to be the last president to write his own speeches. He regarded them as his chief works of art, laboring over each word, cutting, molding. Presidents now have speechwriters — in fact, office holders down to mayor now have them. Candidates now answer to a dozen and more “chief strategists,” all of whom has a bright idea for what ought to be said and how. It all adds up to more, more, more, backed by less, less, less.

To America, this glut of language says: “You lose.”

Hack This Vote

This article first appeared in Pajamas Media.

I used to work in politics. It was unglamorous, but one thing it seemed to do in the eyes of my friends was give me the sheen of knowledge. People would call me as Election Day approached and ask me, “Who should I vote for?”

My days of holding the cell phones of office-holders are over, but the questions have persisted. People ask me things about politics and current events. I try to be helpful and point to useful articles so people can get their own sense of what’s going on.

But often, such conversations take a bitter turn. People are disgruntled — disappointed with the choices on offer, underwhelmed by the policy pronouncements, skeptical of the promises, fed up with the news coverage that tells us what the latest poll said. More than anything, though, many of my friends seem exasperated that the political machine just grinds on regardless of what ordinary people think or do.

It’s clear that, as individual citizens, people feel they don’t really count when it comes to politics. In the vast majority of counties in the vast majority of states, it will not affect the presidency whether any single person votes or not. For most states, it is almost a foregone conclusion which party’s presidential nominee will get the electors. Maryland’s electors, for example, just aren’t going to be thrown Giuliani’s way. (Which is not to say I have no duty to vote anyway.)

Through it all, well-meaning organizations try proposing systemic fixes that seem to share the core attributes of unwieldiness, naivete, and improbability.

It is time to throw a few life hacks into the mix. No, I am not talking about the Diebold machines.

First applied to the behavior of super-programmers in 2004 by journalist Danny O’Brien, through everyday usage the term “life hack” has grown to mean anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever way. Life hackers take tools and ideas that, in their basic state, only partially work — and make them useful. It all sounds very cyber and Web 2.0, but it is really a basic human impulse. Perhaps the first person to popularize life hacks was the original Heloise, whose Hints have improved the lives of millions of people: Don’t wait for S.C. Johnson’s new version of Windex, instead make your own.

Life hacks are things you can do with existing, or little known, tools. They don’t require a big change in “the system” or some new law or regulation. You can do them on your own.

That in mind, here are a few vote-hacks that lone, disgruntled citizens can do that might make their participation feel a little more meaningful. It’s a short list — you can add to it.

Not everyone is cut out to be a life hacker. It takes being comfortable fiddling with things, an inclination to tinker, and a confidence that if it all goes pear-shaped, you can probably fix it. These vote-hacks aren’t for everyone, but they might be for you.

Voting in an early primary state? Start a group to vote in a way that is reflective of political futures markets. Such markets outperform opinion polls when it comes to determining how people will vote. Result: parochial primaries can become proxies for national opinion and we can wring our hands less over the front-loaded primary calendar.

Want more of a choice than just going Red or Blue? If you live in a swing state, swap your vote with someone in another state where the votes actually matter. Result: Minor parties maintain credibility and might even grow.

Weary of dodged questions in candidate forums? Use MeetUp or Craigslist to get together a group of local citizens, big as you can. Everyone agree to ask the same question at the next town hall.

Sick of keeping quiet? Put aside a few dollars a day and, when you’ve got a bunch of money, give it to a local candidate. And then start talking to them about the issues that matter to you. You will be shocked, shocked to hear that candidates actually listen more intently to donors than to voters. Result: You aren’t just some anonymous voter with an opinion.

Of course, it’s not just citizens who are fed up and could use a few tricks. The journalists, candidates, and office-holders I know are fed up too. So, here are a few more hacks:

Journalists: Do not accept quotes from spokespeople. Insist on only talking to the candidate. Your stories may sound less like press releases.

Candidates: Fire your consultants so your campaign is not just a bunch of hired guns.

Office Holders: End all “town hall” meetings with scripted presentations. Set up a desk at the mall and let people talk to you about whatever they want. Don’t invite cameras or press.

Life hacks emerge from the distributed, collective wisdom of people solving problems on their own. So, don’t keep your vote hack to yourself. What have I missed? Post it in the comments section at the original version of this piece at Pajamas Media so others can use it, too.

(c) By Brad Rourke