I remember the campaign where I first started following politics as intensely as I do now. I picked my candidate for a variety of reasons but mostly because I admired his competence and his ability to work really hard. A few of my former graduate school buddies and I had peculiarly discovered all at the same time an interest in politics. We all started having frequent jam sessions about this particular presidential race. I tried making the case for my candidate but due to my inexperience with politics and because of my candidate's low-key personality, my arguments never really won any converts.
My candidate lost that November. I was a little sad but had learned that candidates seen as "boring" or "pedantic" or "stiff" had an extra burden they had to overcome. I was able to admit at the time that I didn't find my candidate all that likeable. But he wasn't going to be my friend. I wasn't ever going to drink a beer with my candidate. But I knew my candidate would intensely think about the problems facing our country. That was a quality I was looking for when I decided who I was going to vote for.
My candidate's name was Al Gore.
Today he is seen as the greatest guy ever. I saw him give a speech in Houston in 2006. Everyone sitting by me laughed loudly at every joke Gore said. When he was talking about something serious, they listened intently. When he ended his speech, there was a minutes-long standing ovation. "Boring" and "pedantic" and "stiff" weren't going to be words thrown around to describe this speech. Al Gore had been reborn as Justin Timberlake. He was bringing wonky back.
My, how times have changed.
We are all so willing to make snap judgments about a person. We hold these judgments to be self-evident. But sometimes, we are proven to be spectacularly wrong. Al Gore is proof of this. I am happy for Gore. I liked him back in 2000 when it wasn't yet cool. He was a good person back then too. Nice to see some people jump on the bandwagon after the fact.
Hillary Clinton will undergo a Gore-like transformation too, I think. Now it is held that she is a shady character who helped preside over that terrible decade known as the 1990s. She is seen as promising "more of the same" of the Bush/Cheney years. (Strange since I thought the Clintons and the Bushes were rivals.) Clinton seemingly doesn't even know the definition of the word "change." (Ironic since if she was elected, she would bring the most "change" to the all-boy's club known as the United States Presidents.)
Clinton's place in history, whatever happens with her run for the presidency, will be to stand on the pedestal of great women leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul and Victoria Woodhull and Rosa Parks.
Some of us are "Hillary Clinton" early adapters. We get what she is saying. And what she is trying to do. The others? They will come around.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Reversal of Fortune
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5 comments:
Didn't Al Gore win the popular vote in 2000? How does that make supporting him uncool?
I admit he's cooler now than he ever was as veep or as a candidate but it's because he's finally free of the constraints of politics. He can and has pursued his true passion which is protecting and saving our earth. He now has freedom from focus groups, polling data and campaign advisers to speak his mind and from his heart.
So as for Hillary, your syllogism goes like this:
A. Hillary Clinton is uncool
B. Al Gore was uncool, but now is cool.
Therefore: Hillary Clinton will be cool in the future.
Frankly that's really kind of weak logic. First off, we've seen how Gore was never really uncool and secondly, it's not as if Hillary is uncool, she's received nearly as many votes as Obama, not to mention her '35' years in the national spotlight.
It doesn't follow that she's uncool. I know in these parts of the northwest, it is very uncool to like Hillary but go back a decade and things were quite the opposite in these parts.
So you may be an early adApter (thus the histrionics) but there is no way you are an early adopter...ask Noodle about how long she's had her Hillary magnet...plus last fall everyone had anointed Hillary as the Democratic Nominee Presumptive...what has happened in the last few months is a surprise to just about everyone and it has nothing to do with her being misunderstood...people know Hillary (isn't that why we want her answering the red phone at 3 AM.)
That said, you may be right about her place in history. That remains to be seen...and I wish a few more people in Florida had heard your arguments for Gore back in 2000...man do I wish I could have bought you a plane ticket.
He did win the popular vote but there is really no way that election should have been that close, Josh. People made issues of his clothing choices and that he sighed at debates and misquoted what he said he invented. After the 2000 election, I wondered to myself, "Has anybody ever been nitpicked more?"
You are right when you say not being a politician does free you up, Josh. All the candidates (no matter how corrupt or pure) has to play to their bases and traditional supporters and that will have the affect of appearing to be playing "politics as usual."
I don't think Hillary Clinton is a perfect candidate but far but I don't think she is "monster" as portrayed by Barack Obama's head foreign policy advisor Samantha Power.
By saying she used to be cool kind of proves my point too, Josh. People are very faddy. Which makes me question their judgment sometime.
A few years ago, I heard George Clooney talk in an interview about the shifting perceptions of people and how you couldn't take them seriously. He said he remembered a time (a few years before the interview I am talking about) when Kevin Costner was the greatest guy ever and he was just a washed-up sitcom actor. The whole perceptions of both Clooney and Costner then changed. Clooney was the Sexiest Man Alive and Costner was a punchline.
Clooney then concluded this story by saying he wasn't all that much better than his sitcom days and Costner wasn't all that much worse than his days when he won Academy Awards. Clooney thought he and Costner were both decent actors. And all that outside stuff was fluff.
Another thing that linked Al Gore and Hillary Clinton is their supposed inevitability. They were supposed to win their respective elections easily. Both of them probably made a mistake in emphasizing this point as America likes underdogs.
“Today he is seen as the greatest guy ever.”
Sure, anyone who invents the internet has got to be great. Oh wait...is that a mis-quote? Let’s check the instant replay:
March 9, 1999; Gore: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Seems pretty straightforward to me. Equally as true as your statement of him being seen as the “greatest guy ever” is a statement of him being seen as a total fraud, an environmental hysterian, and a seller of snake-oil. It just depends on who you ask.
“Strange since I thought the Clintons and the Bushes were rivals.”
Bill and George Senior might disagree.
I, for one, would embrace a Gore presidency. Most of the people who criticize him do so for personality reasons, as opposed to attacking his actual policy ideas. But if personality matters that much, voters get what they deserve.
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