The ghost of John Kerry?
“Now, I’d like to hear Obama clearly say what he does want — not what things don’t necessarily mean and so forth — what he actually wants.”
I’ve been waiting for an excuse to blog about Obama’s Substance Gap, and I feel like this is a good one.
A lot of people have complained that Obama lacks substance. They say he’s full of soaring rhetoric and inspirational oratory, but short on specific ideas. This complaint usually goes hand-in-hand with the experience canard, whirch suggests that previous legislative or gubernatorial experience is correlated with White House success (it’s not).
When Obama first started campaigning in Iowa the press had a very different complaint about him. It was that he was too wonky. He was putting audiences in small town hall settings to sleep with hour long policy dissertations. They said that he’d never succeed that way. He had to spice it up a little bit. So Obama dropped the visiting professor schtick and went back to what had worked for him before — great, soaring speeches.
Why didn’t the visiting professor act work, while the JFK act does? Because of what I like to call the Obama Mirror Phenomenon. Everyone who examines Obama (and is predisposed to like him for one reason or another) sees in him whatever qualities they’d like to. Often those qualities are the same qualities they love in themselves. Hardcore leftists who want to nationalize oil refineries see that in him. If he doesn’t come out and say it, that’s okay… he’s just not saying it because he can’t get elected if he takes that position. Secretly, he agrees with me. And so on.
If Obama tries to bridge the Substance Gap he faces two very real dangers. First, he’ll start putting people to sleep at a time when the American people want an inspirational leader more than at nearly any other time in their history. Second, he’ll burst the Obama Mirror Phenomenon bubble.
Stay general, Barack. It’s for the best. I know you agree with me on every major policy issue, anyway. You don’t have to say it. Just do what you have to do to get elected, then run the White House like I would. I know you want to.
