New School Politics

Barack Obama and the Cult of Personality

Ryan | 18 03 2008

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In the 1984 Democratic presidential primary the once heavily favored former Vice President Walter Mondale and young, post-partisan upstart Senator Gary Hart were running neck and neck by March. Hart, who was running on the slogan of “new ideas,” had momentum up until a debate in which he was expounding on that phrase. In a rebuttal, Mondale quipped, “When I hear your new ideas, I’m reminded of that ad, ‘Where’s the beef?’” That sound bite was the nail in Hart’s coffin. With New-Deal Dems as his foundation, the former Veep went on to capture the nomination only to be defeated by Ronald Reagan in an electoral landslide.

Twenty-four years later to the month the Democratic presidential primary is similarly juxtaposed. Senator Barack Obama, who has only a third the experience in the Senate that Gary Hart did in 1984, actually has a slight lead in the delegate race, a lead that almost no one would have predicted two months ago. And while Senator Hillary Clinton has essentially been asking for the beef for more than a year now, it appears that this campaign’s “where’s the beef?” moment will never come.

But what is so great about Barack Obama that has prevented him from meeting Gary Hart’s fate? How in the world could this man, who was in the Illinois state legislature just three years ago and would have trouble answering “where’s the tofu?”, overtake the juggernaut that is the Clinton political machine?

The answer is essentially found in the nature of both Hart and Obama’s campaign.

Both senators were underdogs. Both were going up against a candidate with more experience, more institutional support, and more policy expertise and issue familiarity. Both harnessed the power of rhetoric and idealism that reigns supreme among many Democrats. Both appealed to the wealthier, more educated, more liberal, less partisan, less politically needy Democrats, dubbed in this election as “latte liberals.” Winning these voters is almost like a popularity contest, the winner is the one with the blank slate, the non-partisan image, the high-falutin rhetoric, and the cool-kid reputation.

The simple reason that Obama is actually winning this race, while Hart met his demise, is that Obama is more of those things to more people than Hart could ever be. Hart was a popular politician. Obama, on the other hand, has become a phenomenon. The media adores him, celebrities glorify him, and the young and idealistic revere him. A new cult of personality has rallied around Barack Obama, casting him as the savior of a nation without ever auditing him for substance. The sad irony for Hillary Clinton is that she can’t get rid of the guy with the funny name for no other reason than he’s as slick, if not slicker, than the only other politician who has ever been able to overshadow her.

But while “Slick Willy” won two terms by building a coalition, Obama is making headway by rallying the political equivalent of idol worshipers. Rather than center the campaign around a platform, accomplishments, or a track record of any kind, the Senator’s candidacy has been built around his image as a post-partisan messiah–the second coming of Jack Kennedy, perhaps. Serious voters should have ceased to take Obama very seriously when Oprah started going around telling people that Obama “is The One.” They should have been similarly squeamish when they saw a music video called “Yes, We Can!” created independently by about a dozen celebrities consisting of them singing along to an Obama victory speech.

The concept was creepy in the first place, but the fact that the video was created without the sanction of the Obama campaign should also raise alarm. Powerful politicians are supposed to have their own heroic self-image, but when others start buying into that same self-regard it ceases to be cute and becomes just frightening. In the same way it was frightening when at a rally in Texas “The One” interrupted his stump speech to blow his nose and the 17,000 in attendance responded with resounding cheers.

I had the opportunity to witness the phenomenon first hand when I attended an Obama rally in Hartford last month. During his speech, he stopped to toss water and call medical attention to a woman who had fainted in the front of the crowd. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but not too long thereafter, while watching the news, I discovered that the episode was not at all random. In fact, the woman in Connecticut was the sixth to be documented fainting at an Obama stump speech this election season. The severity of the trend has led the Obama campaign to ensure medical teams remain in close proximity to the crowd at all times. It raises the question, how much credibility should a candidacy have when its events feel more like a rock concert than a political rally and it’s fanatics behave more like teenage girls at an NSYNC concert than partisans?

The media hasn’t carried itself much better. In a recent study, the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs found that the Senator has received the most favorable coverage of any candidate by a country mile. The study, which evaluated about 800 election stories by the major TV news outlets in December and January, counted 84% of stories about Obama as favorable. Meanwhile, the ever-oppressed Hillary Clinton received the least favorable coverage, with only 51% positive. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, for anyone who opens a newspaper, news magazine, or watches a news channel semi-regularly. At least for me, watching the likes of Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, and Wolf Blitzer futilely try to hide their man-crushes becomes unbearable at times.

The media’s fetish reached an apex of sorts in the last debate between the Democrats, hosted by the Obama sycophants at NBC. At one point, Tim Russert essentially asked Clinton a pop-quiz question, testing her familiarity of the political situation in Russia. Then the question shifted to Obama, but at that point the hard part had already been answered for him. Not only was it emblematic of the media’s general bias, but it was also a missed opportunity for them to really test Obama’s issue knowledge. Those paying attention are well aware that Clinton knows all the intricacies of policy and details of geopolitical situations better than anyone. Obama on the other hand, who has not been in a serious elected position for four years even, needs to be vetted.

For all the empty jabbering about change, there has not been a lot of talk about what Obama’s concept of change actually means. The whole notion that Obama is so fabulous because he’s offering change is fundamentally nonsensical. What’s so special about a presidential candidate offering change? Is not the point of almost every campaign–incumbents aside–that they will offer something unique to the presidency?

To the extent of my knowledge, there has never been a candidate who ran on the slogan “A status quo we can believe in.” Moreover, it is not even as if the “change” that Obama is offering is unique in 2008. There is almost no part of his platform that is exceptional when juxtaposed with the other Democrats who ran for the nomination. His domestic agenda is so hard to distinguish from Senator Clinton’s, for instance, that the Clinton campaign has even accused Obama of copying her economic plan.

Allegations of plagiarism aside, there remain absolutely no new political ideas coming from Senator Obama’s head. For those who have actually looked over his policy positions–which I surmise does not include many of his supporters–they will have little trouble deciphering that Obama is little more than a populist proposing a greater government tyranny over the market place. Despite talk of the “audacity of hope,” his campaign has been based on an extraordinary amount of fear: fear of free trade, fear of “predatory lending,” fear of global warming, fear of the price system and a free market in things like healthcare, the list goes on.

People have become so entranced by Obama’s rhetoric that they are failing to recognize the realities of his candidacy. Behind the deep, facund voice, Barack Obama is little more than a Gary Hart with a third the experience. While I realize it may be the political equivalent of little kids discovering there is no Santa Claus, young voters need be told there is nothing substantively special about the glorified Democrat with the funny name. When push comes to shove, an Obama presidency will mean more government, more spending, more regulation, and less freedom. The scary part is that Obama can sell even a useless, tarnished agenda like that one to voters. If he really offered hope and change, he would put his silver tongue to use by advocating market reforms and the roll back of massive government programs that are on track to bankrupting us in the near future. But the fact is he’s not doing that. As such, Americans will need a significant reality check, and quickly, because by November, it will be too late.