First, the experience. Let’s look at some recent heroes of left and right, and the length of their public service before their most recent election.*
- Pres. George Dubya Bush. Six years as Texas governor, which is at best a part-time position, and four years as president.
- Governor Mitt Romney. Four years as Massachusets governor.
- Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar. None.
- Governor Deval Patrick. None.
- Senator Barack Obama. Seven years as a state senator.
- fmr Senator John Edwards. Six years as a senator.
- Senator Hillary Clinton. Six years as a senator.
Seven of the top names in politics today, with an assembled 16 years of federal experience, and 17 years on the state level! This is the best and the brightest, these are the people who are in the upper level of their parties.
But they all have charisma. They all get people excited and clapping and give good speeches (Hillary partially accepted). They may not have the chops to do the job, but they make people feel good.
Obviously, there is more that goes into a good politician than experience. Just as obviously, there are a few people who reach high office and have it within them to do well while learning on the job (Maria Cantwell springs to mind). However, for several years now people seem to have been valuing “charisma” more than experience. Incidentally, this leads to the fatuous experience of basing so much of our presidential selection process on how Iowans and New Hampshirites feel after they’ve met candidates in person.
I dislike this overemphasis on “charisma” for three reasons — its subjectivity, its devaluing of public service, and its results.
First of all, charisma is subjective. You can debate whether Edwards or Obama are inspiring or bladly insincere, but you can’t debate that Gore was VP for 8 years in a time of prosperity. If the press decides that somebody is “charismatic” aka Bush, all we can do is argue one opinion with another. If charisma takes precedence, all we’re doing is deciding who can shout loudest, not who is right. We get off record, and past indicators of future performance, and instead time ovations and count heads to see who gets people excited more.
Of course, this is great if your candidate has nothing to offer except getting people excited, which is one main reason why it’s taken hold.
Secondly, it devalues public service. The right wing has successfully posited that public service is something that really anyone can take a flyer on. It takes no experience, no special skills aside from tough talk and a bright smile. Why not let the guy you’d like to have a beer with run your foreign policy for eight years — heck if Reagan could do it, why not Bush? For that matter, why not take a gamble on someone who probably still has boxes of stationary giving his office space as a state house to do the same?
Furthermore, we’re sold the line that it is necessary to be inherently suspicious of anyone who has served in public for a period. We take one or two decisions out of decades, and talk about that rather than admit that their day-to-day service has been exemplary. Worse still, their rhetoric is parsed for clues about what they really believe (a holdover of the worship of rhetoric over results), rather than examining their record. Another pernicious result of the empty suit campaign, where longtime public servants are dismissed if their record isn’t perfect.
Finally, this tendency makes for bad officials. President Bush was elected president with no background, and look what happened to him. Mitt Romney, same deal. Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar had a disastrous beginning, followed by being slapped down on the referendum ballot. He has governed as a RINO, and was re-elected because the CA Dems are stunningly incompetent.
How’d Reagan work out?
Charisma makes for great electioneering, and poor governing. Having a bright smile on a tv is barely useful in a room with people who know how to work a system. And while it is fun to talk about “people power”, we can’t all come into those rooms when it’s time to cut a deal on some legislation.
I’m not saying this is every case, but rather most of them (I remain cautiously optimistic about Rep. Shea-Porter). Take a look at those folks who went into the presidency from non-elected government service, like the military. Was Grant a good president, or Taylor or Andrew Johnson?
While I’m sure that it is quite possible to dig up counter-examples, I would like to ask those who do value charisma so highly for personal reasons — not because “everyone else does” — why it’s so important to them. I must admit, I want my president to do their job well. If I want to be inspired or entertained, I’ll rent a feel-good movie.
This business of electing people because they are a good candidate is tirersome; I say it’s time to renew an emphasis on looking for good leaders.
*I allow that Hillary’s time as first lady could count as public service, given her role in the health care reform, and eagerness by many to treat her as a politician. (One final amusing note. To help with resarch, I typed “presidents who were in the military” into Google, and the first result was Bill Clinton’s official biography.)
Deval Patrick did have a couple of years at DoJ.
FDR: 4 years as Governor and Sec. of Navy years earlier
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Abe Lincoln: 1 term in Congress
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Teddy Roosevelt: 2 years as Governor
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All are considered great Presidents
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Of course, let’s look at some of the more “experienced” Presidents
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Nixon: 14 years as Congressman, Senator and Vice President
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LBJ: 20 years in the House and Senate (where he was King) and three as VP
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Hoover: He feed Europe after WW1 and served 8 years in the Cabinet.
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All were consdered failed Presidents
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You seem to be trying to make a connecion that does not exist.
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BTW, Andrew Johnson served in the House and Seante for 20 years or so (he was appointed military Gov of Tenn–is that the military experience you refer to?) And he is considered a failed Pres.
I don’t believe Bush had carisma during the 2004 campaign, and especially during the debates, I thought he was a train wreck
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I voted for Bush in 2004 because his policies were better than John Kerry’s (my opinion of course). Iraq aside……Bush is much tougher on stopping terrorism than John Kerry was.
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I am pro Patriot Act
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You need wire tap survelance
You need to profile
You need to “follow the money”
and to do all this quickly, not filling out FISA reports everytime you want to do something.
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Further I think Bush was stronger on Immagration. Again Security.
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I do believe Bush was the best man for the job…At least against John Kerry
Not only that, but I believe that Johnson is the only person to have served in every position at every level of American government from alderman to President.
I’d take a look at Nick Kotz’s book Judgment Days for a good look at how LBJ used his experience and know-how in the Senate to ram through Civil Rights legislation. Yeah, Vietnam was a total disaster, but between Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights, Voting Rights Act… I don’t think you could call LBJ a completely failed president on the same level of Andrew Johnson.
You’ve got the wrong Johnson, I think: Lyndon rather than Andrew.
I place a high value these days on Democrats winning. I think that happens best with Democrats who speak from values and derive their policy positions from values and with Democrats who strengthen rather than undermine the Democratic brand. Certainly, that preference looks like a preference for charisma because value-focused folks, like Patrick, tend to be charsimatic too, but I don’t think that’s a matter of cheek bones, smiles, and turns of phrase. I think it’s just an effective approach.
I’m just baffled at your lack of understanding that the head of any large organization needs top-notch communications skills to motivate and inspire people. Are you a manager? Have you ever tried to get people to do what you want them to do, instead of continuing to do what they’re doing? It involves more than just giving them a checklist of things you want them to do. It means getting them to buy into your vision. This is not something apart from being a good leader. It’s part of the core of being a good leader.
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On a small scale, you can work with people one on one. In the Senate, for example, you can lobby your colleagues in person. That’s one set of skills. But part of the job of president is being a “figurehead” — not in the sense of being powerless, but being the public face of an administration. In a nation of 300 million people, that matters!
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This is why Karl Rove was so important in the Bush administration. Bush doesn’t have communication skills, so he needs techniques. It’s no accident that the only policies George W. Bush effectively sold to the American public involved manipulation of fears surrounding the 9/11 attacks. That was, unfortunately, effective misuse of communication and leadership skills. I’d prefer to have someone who can effectively use such skills for an agenda I support, instead of someone who can’t.
“But part of the job of president is being a “figurehead” — not in the sense of being powerless, but being the public face of an administration. In a nation of 300 million people, that matters!”
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I would say this is a very small part of the job. Being president, or any head administrator is to make decissions. Big ones, small ones, dumb ones….. what ever,
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Trust me – a democrat or republican can have all the carisma in the world….they will still get hit over the head by the other side of the isle. Right?
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I mean if a democrat takes the white house in 2008 the republicans will bash him reguardless of “carisma”
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And if a republican takes the white house again in 2008 the democrats will bash him reguardless of carisma.
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I think carisma is cheep….I mean we are not voting in the “High School Class President”
You seem to either have a very limited definition of “public service” or seem to ignoring a lot:
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As David already mentioned, 3 years as US Assistant Attorney General is a pretty solid chunk of public service to skip over. Add to that spending most of the 80s working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund after getting his law degree, and the year spent working for the UN in Darfur between college and law school, and that’s a pretty solid resume of public service experience. No elected experience and not that much executive experience besides the Clinton admin and the private sector, but in the future, a lot of elected public executive experience.
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Barack Obama’s entire career has been public service: after one year in business after college, he worked as a community organizer in NYC and then Chicago for 4 years until starting at law school; after law school, he worked for a civil rights law firm for two years before becoming a professor at University of Chicago where he taught civil liberties law for a decade while concurrently serving in the legislature as a state senator.
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Add to that the hugely beneficial experience of spending his childhood and adolescence outside the generally-insular continental United States (Hawaii and Indonesia), and the hugely important perspective that provides.
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It’s funny that you include Hillary Clinton as (1) I’ve never heard of “charisma” being considered a major strength of hers, and (2) she has been involved in public service for most of the past 35 years! You do acknowledge her involvement in the Clinton White House, but she played a far greater public service role during 70s and early 80s, through her work in Washington with the Congress, and her many community leadership roles during her husband’s term as Arkansas governor, as well as her far greater involvement in day-to-day governing in Arkansas as compared to the White House.
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Other than those three, I think you’re pretty much right about the others (though anyone reading feel free to correct me). You are right that commitment to service and strength of ability count much more and should be emphasized more (which is why I think Mike Huckabee should surely get much more support from conservative Republicans than Mitt Romney) but I think you have some very different ideas about what demonstrates those strength than I do.