Better not to speechify too sweetly

‘My fellow Americans. The road is long. The path is steep. Our legs are short. Our sandals are silly. But we shall overcome. Because I have a dream. And so it shall be. Together we will walk that road. Together we can ascend that path, no matter how treacherous, no matter the obstacles. In unity is our strength, our bond is our faith. Four score and twenty minutes ago, you were there. And now we are here. Because we have faith. And each other. And together we are. Glorious will be our kingdom, for we shall beat our swords into ploughshares and reap as we sow. So join with me. Come with me. Abide with me and we can do this, together we can, as one people we can, united we can, you know we can! Who can? We can! God bless!’

This is the speech Barack Obama gave just two weeks before the election in 2008. Actually, that’s not exactly true. In fact, it’s not even vaguely true. But you can almost imagine him giving that kind of speech. You can hear his strangely staccato cadences, his stopping. And then. Starting at. Odd points. But it’s so deeply effective, and people are swept away by his rhetoric. They feel as if in the presence of something transcendent, something great, something special. A new dawn is breaking, a new world is being born, and they are witness to this moment. Amen and hallelujah. And all this because someone like Obama is so fine at the art of speechifying. He can take words and turn them into lightning bolts that strike deep into the hearts of those who listen. He can conjure images from the depths and prestidigitate phantasmagoria from the ether. He can convince us that truly something good will come to us, if only we go with him. Yes he can.

And that’s a problem. Because he can’t. Between the fantasy world the orator creates with words and the real world a President lives in (along with the rest of us), there is a chasm that can never be crossed. And as the great orator’s words soar into the stratosphere, so too do the expectations of those listening. They actually believe that the words spoken will become deeds done. But unlike the words which can keep flying forever – and if they never return, so much the better for the orator – at some point those expectations will have to return to earth, and the landing is unlikely to be gentle.

So what is to be done? Take a leaf, I suggest, from those who ingeniously temper their words so as not to raise expectations to a fever pitch. There’s no disappointment when your President says things like this: ‘I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president.’ Or this: ‘I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family’. When  George W. Bush opened his mouth and the words fell out, people knew what they were getting. He offered incomprehensible idiocy, and that’s what they got, and you can’t blame a man when he delivers on what he promised.

'What am I saying? How would I know?'

 

 

Voting for the President? Best not to think about it.

In just a few hours, Americans – possibly as many as eight or nine of them – will be going to the polls to elect a new President. Much hangs in the balance. As the political divide in the United States has widened, the choice of either Obama or Romney will mean a very different world in a variety of ways in the years to come. Global warming and climate change, the management of an economy in tatters, America’s response to conflict abroad and the rise of the Chinese dragon, all these hugely important matters will be dealt with so very differently by these two men. And so the question I would like to ask is this: how much thought will the voters who bother to turn out give to their decision? And the answer I would like to offer is this: stuff all.

It’s rather harsh when put so baldly, so let me substantiate my baldness. Following the sudden interposition of Hurricane Sandy into the into the presidential race, much speculation followed as to the effect it would have on the swing voters yet to choose their favoured candidate. Would it encourage them to vote for Obama, or would they turn against him and give their vote to Romney? According to a political scientist (who shall have to remain anonymous because I can’t remember her name, but trust me, I’m not making this up – I’ll tell you when I’m making it up), history suggests that when natural disaster strikes, people blame whoever’s in office. That’s right. Earthquake? Blame the President. Hurricane? Clearly the President’s fault. Heat-wave? The President again. Cool winds with a  slight chance of rain? You get the idea. So, without going into the reasonableness of attributing to the President powers of changing the weather or moving the earth, the basic point is that, if something bad happens just before an election, it’s not normally good for the incumbent. Why? Because people look out the window at the rain falling and think, ‘Useless bloody President’.

Now, the fact is that, like most democracies, in America most voters already know who they’re voting for. They don’t need to think about it at all because if you’re a Democrat, you’ll vote Democrat even if your guy is waxing lyrical about the virtues of rounding up all short people and putting them into gulags, while if you’re a Republican, you’ll behave similarly with respect to your man, even if he is suggesting that raising taxes and increasing welfare spending is a good idea (actually, in that case, it might not be true, but again, you get the idea). This means that something like 80% of voters (and here I am making the numbers up, but I reckon they’re about right) don’t have to think about their choice – they just vote (or don’t vote, as the case is with most of them). This leaves 20% who haven’t decided, but will apparently decide solely on the basis of the following methodology:  Step 1 – did a bad thing happen before the election? Yes? Vote the new guy in. No? Vote for the incumbent. Step 2 – if a bad thing didn’t happen, choose some equally banal reason for making your choice. The fact that the outcome will have a profound effect on the country and indeed the planet is no reason to give it any more thought than that.

That suggests, of course, that I think Romney will steal it (I mean that figuratively, obviously - no one would steal the American presidency...). But I don't. I think Barack will still win. Why? Because there is, in fact, a third possible step in the voting thought process: Step 1(a) did a bad thing happen but the President's done a swell job of sorting it out? Yes, vote the incumbent. And that's what I think will happen. 

Irrational? Of course it is, but then that’s  people for you. And lest anyone think I’m picking unfairly on Americans, let me assure you all of this stands for voters in any country (and for my views on irrationality, see my column 'Whoever said we were rational?' in which I describe my irrational love for my desk).