10:29 PM - A Shockproof Electorate
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lacoste shoes,There was a memorable second in the third debate
in between Kennedy and Nixon back in 1960. Among the
reporter-panelists asked Kennedy about a Republican official's
demand that he apologize to Nixon for the fact that former
president Truman, well-known for his damns and hells, had bluntly
suggested where the vice president and also the Republican Party
could go. Kennedy handled this not-too-serious question easily with
humor: I don't believe there's anything that I could say to
President Truman that is going to trigger him, in the age of 76, to
change his particular speaking manner. Maybe Mrs. Truman can, but I
do not think I can. I will just have to tell Mr. Morton that. If
you'd pass that message on to him. To the astonishment of all,
Nixon, rather of just passing, chose to exercise his right of
rebuttal to comment on the answer, embarking on a flight of
sanctimony. For example: I see mothers holding their babies up so
they can see a man who may be president ... I can only say that I'm
extremely proud that President Eisenhower restored ... great
language to the conduct with the presidency. . . And on and on. So
spoke the man we were many years later on to come to understand in
the White House transcripts of his tapes as Mr. Expletive
Deleted.According to those monitoring the folks watching the debate
in working-class bars, church halls as well as other gathering
locations across the country, Nixon's response provoked a
nationwide collective groan along with a large amount of derisive
laughter. It was the first clear incident I keep in mind of the
goody-two-shoes political pretension being tried out to disastrous
impact. This was extremely heartening. It demonstrated that there's
a limit towards the hypocrisy politicians can get away with and
that the nation has both a sense of proportion and a sense of
humor. I believe something like all this has been at work within
the current campaign. Individuals so far have been awfully good at
threading their way through the rhetorical posturing and muck.Nixon
in that moment was presuming a different American in the 1 who was
available, an American who would be shocked by things that Nixon
himself did not really find shocking, but only pretended to.
Through the years I believe Americans have gotten, if something,
better and much better at sifting out this stuff. But that
improvement appears to have been recognized by everybody but the
politicians who keep dishing it out. Affected shock and horror by
some means give themselves away.This has been more of an issue for
Bush than Clinton (or Perot) this time about simply because shock
and horror are the currency of incumbents beneath siege. In some
campaigns it's simply a contest of traded nightmare scenarios.
Beneath Goldwater, we were told by the Democrats in 1964, we'd be
incinerated by nuclear bombs; the Republicans helpfully countered
that under Johnson we would all be murdered in the street by common
criminals-you spend your money, you take your option. Eisenhower,
Americans had been warned a few many years earlier, would strip
them of the whole New Deal social-safety net and return to the
perilous time of Herbert Hoover. The Eisenhower campaign was
meanwhile warning that the Democrats had brought and would bring
much more crooks and commissars to Washington. But this year, as in
1960, 1968 and some other people, the scenario is different. An
incumbent celebration and/or president having to defend or a
minimum of explain and promise to right what is usually regarded
like a huge national mess won't have a lot choice. The incumbent
will have to say, or at least imply by what he says, that poor as
things are, the challenger is scary and should not be permitted to
take the helm. So a lot of mock shock and fabricated horror will be
expressed. They already happen to be.I don't believe any two
elections are ringers for each other or that history repeats itself
except extremely broadly in the candidates who come prior to us.
But there are strong resonances in between 1960 and now simply
because in numerous respects the scenarios are comparable.
Actually, in the event you go back more than the defensive Nixon
arguments with the period, you will discover material that's
extremely familiar these days. Kennedy was inexperienced in
foreign-policy matters, naive about them, Nixon argued; he was also
going to tax you to death and give government all sorts of sway
over your private business. When Kennedy attacked the
administration of which Nixon had been a part and spoke with the
low esteem to which it had brought the country in the world or with
the sluggish financial conditions it had countenanced at home,
Nixon did what Bush does now and what many others in a comparable
pickle have done: he claimed that Kennedy had attacked not him and
his administration or what they had brought to pass, but rather the
country itself. He would thereupon piously point out that he,
obviously, didn't think this was a bad country at all. We heard
words rather like these only final week. He also set about
marginalizing Kennedy, attempting to set him apart in people's
minds from mainstream American values. Sound
acquainted?Additionally to these similarities of political
circumstance there's 1 other. Many neglect it now, however it took
a very long time for Kennedy actually to acquire solid acceptance
by the individuals who were eventually to be his supporters. He
left the Los Angeles Democratic convention the nominee that
numerous of the party heroes and elders-including Eleanor Roosevelt
and Harry Truman-had not however totally bought. Liberals believed
him as well conservative, not one of them. There was a
hey-where-did-this-person-come-from feeling about him. He was
considered an upstart. And he didn't seem a probable president. I
recall his traveling up the West Coast to campaign shortly
following the convention and his seeming not to become the
Democratic nominee, but just some youngish guy giving speeches
inside a funny accent.Like Clinton he was vulnerable to the
incumbent party's defense, prime materials for becoming denounced
like a risk. He was a a lot rough campaigner, but it was his coming
back once more and again inside a kind of rammish, head-butting way
on the administration's derelictions that got him inside winning
distance of the election. It was the sight with the two men
debating that lastly catalyzed choice and hardened loyalties,
putting him more than the line. There are king-size variations
between now and 1960, but despite them around the eve with the
initial debate we're in numerous methods precisely where we were
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