Electoral psychodrama

We can all overthink, overanalyze, and over-react to any one thing a candidate does or says on the campaign trail. But sometimes there is a pattern, a group of statements and behaviors that hint at what is really going on inside the psyche of a candidate.



I think Hillary has given away what is going on inside her psyche, and John McCain is following her lead.



Both candidates are really pissed that this way-too-young Senator is challenging them for the presidency when he has not, in their opinion, paid his dues. Add to this the fact that both Clinton and McCain have been waiting years for their chance to run. We all know what happened to McCain when he ran against another young upstart, George W. Bush, eight years ago. McCain was treated horribly by that campaign, and in order to be in the best possible position to run this year, he has had to grovel before Bush, campaign for him, and support him in spite of how he must have felt to be the victim of Rovian smears. So in 2008, McCain has paid more than his share of dues and finds himself competing against another young upstart, someone who has only been in the Senate a few years. This must seem completely unfair and wrong to him.

Clinton, on the other hand, watched as her husband, the President, was attacked and ultimately impeached. She was publicly humilated, both by her husband and his rivals who exposed all of his sexual misbehavior in graphic detail. So to get back her dignity, she first ran for the Senate in 2000, hoping to build up years of governing bona fides to qualify her to run for president. Then, just as everyone is declaring her the inevitable nominee, this charismatic kid, who has never had to endure what she has, who doesn't have her experience, but who has loads of charm and likability, comes forward and says "I think I want this job."



This week both Clinton and McCain made their feelings about Obama obvious. Clinton's statement about staying in the race, using the example of RFK winning in June in California and then being assassinated was her big give away. Why pick that example out of the many other nomination fights decided late? Probably because Obama and RFK have a lot in common. RFK was also young(43) and charismatic, and Obama has often been compared to RFK as well as his brother JFK. Kennedy had only been a Senator for four years, the same amount of time Obama has been in the Senate, and was seen as a challenger to the Democratic establishment in 1968, which ultimately backed establishment candidate Hubert Humphrey.



Clinton also saw herself as the establishment, the inevitable candidate, until she found herself challenged by the young Obama. What comes across in all of Clinton's encounters with Obama, and in her demeaning statements about him, is her belief that he does not deserve this nomination, that he has stepped on her toes and her chance at the presidency, and that he is not deserving of respect. That is why she made that snarky comment about she and McCain having a lifetime of experience and Barack having only a speech. That is why she seemed to discount the legacies of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy, both young leaders, both assassinated, when she talked about how much more important Lyndon Johnson was to getting civil rights legislation enacted.



It is clear Hillary identifies with party insiders like Humphrey and Johnson, and looks with puzzlement on young charismatic figures like King, the Kennedys, and now Obama. She sees their appeal but does not understand it and cannot compete with it. And her language of feint praise, or in Obama's case disrespect, gives her away.



McCain has a similar reaction to Obama. Obama obviously gets under his skin (in much the same way he gets under Bill Clinton's skin) when he says anything to challenge McCain. On the Senate floor this week, with McCain absent, Obama expressed praise for McCain's personal story, but disagreement with his decision not to support the veteran's bill. McCain shot back immediately with praise for fellow veteran Jim Webb, who sponsored the legislation he opposed, and over the top disdain for Obama:

I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

Whoa! He attacks Obama for not serving in the military, for not, so to speak, paying his dues. He shows his contempt for Obama in this and in other campaign stops, where he calls Obama "inexperienced" and "young man." His tone is dismissive and, like Clinton, his words tell the whole story. McCain believes he has earned the presidency, and no matter how popular or charismatic or intelligent or capable Obama is, he hasn't earned the right to challenge the Vietnam POW.



This year we are observing an interesting psychodrama. Two older establishement candidates struggle to compete against a younger candidate with his amazing gifts of charisma, speaking ability, high intelligence, creativity, and organization. Three other young leaders with those same gifts were all gunned down in the sixties and we haven't really had another emerge since then - until Obama. Interestingly, Obama is, as the first African American nominee, a combination of the Kennedys and King. His supporters all pray that he will not meet the same end, that he will be safe, and with a little luck and a lot of hard work make it to January 20th, 2009, when he will put his hand on the Bible and take the oath of office of the President of the United States of America.

And just as an aside, this explains why so many of us were so horrified by Clinton's remarks about RFK's assassination.

Obama and the Kennedys: looking for change that lasts

Yesterday, Barack Obama's supporters were surprised as Maria Shriver, Kennedy cousin and wife of California's Republican governor, came onto the stage with her cousin Caroline and Oprah Winfrey, and endorsed Obama.

Some noteworthy endorsements in the Democratic primary have come from America's unofficial royal family, the Kennedys.

Ted Kennedy and his niece Caroline, the daughter of his brother the late President John F. Kennedy, as well as Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, have all endorsed Obama. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has picked up the endorsement of three of Ethel's children, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., noted environmental activist.

Whether these endorsements balance each other out, whether some carry more weight than others, or whether they don't mean anything at all remains to be seen. While the Kennedy family can still make news, their glory has faded substantially from the high point of their popularity and power in the 1960s.

Of course, people my age still remember JFK and RFK, but people below the age of fifty have no real connection to them. Though I was only in grammar school at the time, I remember the day JFK was elected and the horrible days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which Kennedy successful navigated through.

I remember the glamour surrounding the Kennedy White House, the beauty of the new First Lady, who unbelievably was only in her thirties, and the use of the story of Camelot as a metaphor for the administration.

Later, when I was sitting in a High School classroom, I remember the intercom unexpectedly coming on with the words "The president of the United States is dead." I remember having the day off for the funeral, and sitting glued to the television set, with its black and white images of a little boy saluting as the horse drawn casket passed by, a beautiful woman, her face covered in a black veil, holding that little boy's hand and later, flanked by her brothers-in-law Robert and Edward, walking behind the funeral cortege.

I didn't know then what the assassination of that president might mean, as I didn't realize what the assassination of his brother, some five years later, would mean for the country or more specifically for the Democratic Party. As I look back now at those two tragic and violent events, I see how much they traumatized Democrats, and allowed the Republican Party to dominate American politics for several decades to come.

It was after the assassination of RFK, and the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., that something drastically changed for Democrats, leaving them wandering in the wilderness without a leader. Imagine, if you will, what might have happened to the Republican Party had the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan succeeded, and been followed by the assassination of someone like John McCain, perhaps, and then Newt Gingrich or even Rush Limbaugh. The party would most definitely have been devastated and left in disarray for years. It's not that new leaders wouldn't emerge, it's that something inside Republicans would have been so traumatized, so overcome with sadness and loss that it would lose its power.

That's what happened in the seventies. All the things the Democrats stood for: civil rights, equality, opposition to war, progressive tax policies, and so on, lost steam after the sixties. Even the antiwar movement, which has been so artfully used against Democrats ever since, and as recently as in the last presidential election, lost steam in the early 1970s, as troops began to come home, Richard Nixon began "peace talks," and the nation turned to the next presidential election. Ultimately, that election led to the Watergate scandal, which should have helped the Democrats regain substantial power, but it didn't. The short and failed presidency of Jimmy Carter made things worse as it gave Reagan Republicans an opening to take power for the next 12 years.

Election after election, starting with 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Democrats nominated weak candidates: Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. In all those years, only one Democrat, Jimmy Carter, became president, and he was defeated in his bid for a second term. And in reality, Carter's victory was more likely a vote against Gerald Ford and his pardon of Nixon, than it was a vote for him.

Then along came Bill Clinton, who finally gave the Democrats two presidential victories in a row. He was charismatic and young, and his popularity gave Democrats hope that their recovery, and a return to government that would focus on needs of the people, had finally begun. Of course, Bill Clinton's behavior gave the Republicans a chance to weaken him and his potential successor, and so the Democratic comeback didn't last. Once again the nation has been inflicted with eight years of Republican domination while the anger, frustration and demoralization of Democrats continued.

This year is so different from previous years. The entry of so many Democratic candidates into the primaries, and the popularity of two non-traditional candidates, has energized Democrats as they haven't been energized since 1960. I don't understand why some of the younger Kennedys have endorsed Hillary Clinton, but I think I know why the Kennedys who endorsed Obama did so. I believe they see a return of the energy that characterized JFK's campaign and presidency, a presidency tragically cut short. Furthermore, they see something in this young dynamic figure that reminds them of their brother, father, uncle and brother-in-law who was once such a bright star in the party. Obama represents to them a new day for the Democratic Party, but unlike the new day that dawned with the election of JFK, a day that might last. Obama's candidacy is one of optimism, hope and energy that comes with turning a page and moving the country in a new direction, not just for a few years, but for a generation. His candidacy offers a chance to finally overcome and leave behind the trauma of the sixties that cut short the hope and energy of an entire generation of Democrats.

Although Hillary Clinton would undoubtedly move the country in a different direction as well, some of us ordinary voters, along with a few members of the Kennedy family, who lost so much along with us in the 1960s, believe a Clinton presidency would still have one foot in a past that brought shame and disappointment to Democrats and helped hand the government back to those who are intent on destroying it. And the divisiveness that characterized the Clinton years is not something we relish returning to. We don't want the kind of change represented by Bill Clinton, change that will disappear after four or eight years because of a leader's raw ambition and blatant pathology. This time, we want change that will last, change that goes beyond a family dynasty, whether that dynasty's name is Clinton or Kennedy.

To us, Obama represents that change.