Presidential Politics and the Absence of Authenticity

Doesn’t it feel like this presidential campaign has been dragging on forever? It does to me, but we still have so much left to see and hear from our two presumptive nominees between now and the first Tuesday in November. I have been watching John McCain and Barack Obama very closely over the last couple of months, and I am sad to say, I don’t like what I see so far.

I thought that this presidential election would be different. I thought we had two nontraditional candidates who were going to change the politics-as-usual. I thought we had a maverick Republican who would not focus exclusively on the extreme edges of the conservative base. I thought we had an outsider Democrat with the perfect grass roots national campaign. I thought we had two of the most authentic candidates in modern American political history, who would speak their minds, debate the issues and give us something wonderful to watch.

Unfortunately, it looks like I was wrong.

Historically, the strategy of the primary season has been very different from the strategy in the general election. Primaries have been about speaking to the die-hard members of the base, and general elections have been a fight over the middle ground of the electorate. This time looked like it would be different. A pro-choice Republican presidential nominee? What color is the sky in that world? And a Democrat not bound by the labor unions and the other traditional elements of the Democratic Party? Yeah… sure. But that is what it seemed we were getting, finally – a true race for the presidency between candidates seemingly willing to depart from the historical shackles of the extremist elements of their respective parties.

Authenticity, an important concept at The Latimer Group, seemed to be alive and well.

But now it appears that interest groups and our intense media and Internet culture seem to be killing any hope of seeing the authentic McCain or the authentic Obama. Over the last several weeks, both have been moving to safer ground, and an authentic debate between two authentic candidates seems unlikely. The simple fact is that our electoral process and our media culture do not allow authenticity to exist in a presidential candidate. They beat it out of them. There are too many compet­ing demands, too many conflicting interest groups, and an electorate that is too disparate for a truly authentic person to run, gain the nomination, and win the presidency based on speaking openly and honestly.

Obama, at one point committed to withdrawal from Iraq, has now begun a Clintonian parsing of his words, shifting his support to the withdrawal of combat troops.

McCain, once firmly planted behind the wheel of the Straight Talk Express, has become about as scripted and stilted a candidate as we have seen in a long time. The guy now makes Al Gore look like Robin Williams.

The simple reality is that our electoral process and over­exposed culture kill any hopes of straight-talking debates on the issues between authentic candidates. Everything is recorded, taped, and posted online by the close of business. I can’t imagine how frustrating that must feel to a candidate who has a nontraditional idea or just wants to say something a little different. Each candidate is surrounded by an army of consultants, handlers and strategists, and with that many chefs in the kitchen, the first ingredient that boils off is the extra dash of authen­ticity that made us excited for dinner in the first place.

I’m settling in for a fairly traditional presidential campaign. I was hoping for so much more.

Dean M. Brenner
July 8, 2008
Wallingford, CT

Beacon Issue - July 2008

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