The Power of Biography
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 1st, 2008 8:45 amBill Kristol isn’t wrong when he says that biography alone can’t make you President, or that the candidate with the longer resume often winds up the loser. With that said, I don’t think McCain’s “bio tour” is getting the respect it deserves.
One of the greatest single misconceptions about campaigns are, or should be, purely a contest of issues. In a model Athenian city-state run by philosopher-kings, sure. But most people don’t have the time to devote to politics that blog readers like us do. In practice, people thin-slice the candidates. They quickly hone in on basic attributes and make snap decisions about a candidate’s fitness for office. Don’t dismiss this as intellectual laziness. Collectively, these common sense, wisdom-of-crowds judgments can be far more accurate and cut through the clutter far better than a readout of candidate talking points.
Biography is a powerful key that validates everything else a candidate says. It’s not the only thing, but when it’s aligned with a candidate’s issue positions and with the mood of the country, it can be a powerful force.
Kristol’s examples of previous “bio” candidates — George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and John Kerry — all failed to meet this criteria.
George H.W. Bush’s war hero record aligned perfectly with his foreign policy credentials and helped elect him in 1988. By 1992, however, Bush’s bio had been rendered obsolete by the end of the Cold War and pent-up energy around domestic issues. 1992, like Britain 1945, was a “gold watch” election in which the war hero wartime leader was retired in the transition to peacetime.
Four years later, running a war hero was even more jarring. We were deep into our holiday from history. The only conceivable use of military power at the time was the quick airstrike to dislodge some two-bit human rights abuser. Bob Dole’s biography was moving, but running on a 50-year-old war record in a peacetime election was a nonstarter.
John Kerry’s case is interesting. A generation from now, we will probably look back on the 2004 election as the archetypical wartime election of the last 50 years. The problem for Kerry wasn’t that his bio didn’t align with the times. It’s that it was utterly inconsistent with virtually everything Kerry did after he got back from Vietnam.
As Kerry learned, you can’t run as the anti-war war hero. The whiplash positioning was jarring to most Americans, feeding perceptions of Kerry as an opportunistic flip-flopper. Most importantly, his fellow veterans turned their back on Kerry as a turncoat, leading to the swift boat crisis that canceled out any effort to qualify Kerry based on his bio. And while Kerry had a military background, he didn’t exhibit the consistency and decisiveness expected of military men.
McCain’s case is different. He is running as a war hero with a hawkish positions in a wartime election. His positioning is consistent. The keys are all turned in the same direction.
But wait? Isn’t this a “change” election? Won’t it look more like ‘92 than ‘04?
Actually, it’s probably a weird hybrid that will look like neither. Just like ‘00 was a strange election that married the change impulse post-Lewinsky with a “don’t rock the boat” mentality surrounding the booming economy, ‘08 is a strange election that marries a desire for seriousness in uncertain, dangerous times (McCain, Clinton) with the sense that we need a clean break (Obama).
Indeed, Obama’s bio — fresh, different, multiethnic — has plugged in to the change leitmotif perfectly, just as perfectly as McCain tapped the security message in the Republican primary. (Romney tried to run as a “change” candidate, and lost.) Obama is winning because Democratic voters are focused on change, and McCain won because Republican voters were focused on security. But within the Democratic primary, Hillary is playing the security card and could wind up with a plurality of the popular vote.
As he aims to sell the security/seriousness storyline, McCain’s bio is nothing but an asset because it validates the narrative. The key is synergy. Unlike past “bio” candidates, McCain is not trying to run as a war hero while justifying anti-war positions or struggling to explain why a miliary record would be relevant.
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As a democrat, I think McCain is only going to raise his positives while the democrats continue fighting amongst themselves and his biography will be a welcome relief to the fighting between Obama and clinton.
The danger for him lies in the clear alignment of his biography and his hawk persona and his insistence on staying in Iraq to win. All the democrats need to do is offer respect to the biography and then hone in like a laser to his dogma in supporting the war since it’s inception.
As the economy crumbles and Iraq likely to fall deeper into chaos: this year is made for the democratic party. And McCain’s impressive biography will not play in this election. War is not what American’s want.
The problem is that McCain’s bio is too close to the current president. McCain got into USNA because of his father and won office in Arizona because of his father in law. He does not do the hard work it takes to master issues and his bio is that he is an old man who is too stupid to understand the difficult issues. Every gaff on the campaign trail, when visiting foreign countries, or while in Washington reinforces his bio of laziness and stupidity.
SD, did your daddy buy you a computer and tell you to stay out of his hair and blog on politics? Everything you say reinforces your image as a negative snarky young kid
There are four generations of McCain who have served our nation in uniform. That should mean something, and if it doesn;t, it’s pretty damm sad
Ironman,
Do you really believe that John McCain would have been admitted to Annapolis and been selected to be a fighter pilot if his father and grandfather had not been admirals. By guess he would be managing a tire store somewhere if not for his family. And if McCain would have stuck with his first wife instead of marrying the younger model with the rich daddy, McCain would never had ended up in Congress.
SD, do you think a white guy named Barry O’Bama from Orange County would have been admitted to Harvard Law School?, or would he have a Pepperdine degree and be out writing wills in Fullerton?
Ironman,
Senator Obama attended the most elite private school in Hawaii. I doubt he was admitted there due to Affirmative Action. He orginally attended occidential but transferred to Columbia. The real question for Senator Obama is who was the mentor who talked him into going to Chciago and whether he would have been admitted to Harvard Law if was a white guy going NGO work in Omaha instead of Chicago.
However, I guess that Karl Rove wannabe’s like Patrick can get rich convincing politicians that the faux narrative of their lives and careers is much more important than performance while in office. The narrative only works once. After that it is much more about performance. McCain just does not have the C.V. to be considered fit for being president. Senator Obama does not either but he has a better narrative.
The best thing would be for Republicans to decide that the C.V. is more important than the narrative and actually perform while in office.
McCain definitely has the more compelling bio overall. The problem, of course is that his political bio is that of a Democrat wannabe. Sigh.
Hey, Patrick! We missed you this weekend. Wish you could have been there - I hope all is well.
Jenn