Just a bit from the most recent column by Peggy Noonan (former speech writer for Reagan) from the Democratic National Convention. I often enjoy her insight, especially when concerning the political trenches.
Michelle Obama's speech was solid, but not a home run. First impression: She is so beautiful. Beautifully dressed, beautifully groomed, confident, smiling, a compelling person. But her speech seemed to me more the speech of a candidate, and not a candidate's spouse. It was full of problems and issues. I continue to be of the Dennis Thatcher School of Political Spouses: Let the candidate do the seriousness of the issues, you do the excellence of the candidate. This is old fashioned but nonetheless I think still applicable. It has made Laura Bush (with a few forays into relatively anodyne policy questions) the most popular First Lady in modern American political history. Another problem with the Michelle speech. In order to paint both her professional life and her husband's, and in order to communicate what she feels is his singular compassion, she had to paint an America that is darker, sadder, grimmer, than most Americans experience their country to be. And this of course is an incomplete picture, an incorrectly weighted picture. Sadness and struggle are part of life, but so are guts and verve and achievement and success and hardiness and…triumph. Democrats always get this wrong. Republicans get it wrong too, but in a different way.
Democrats in the end speak most of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the government's treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers.
Who happen, also, to be a generally beset-upon group.
Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state, local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations. At Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don't dwell all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves.
Neither party ever gets it quite right, the balance between the taxed and the needy, the suffering of one sort and the suffering of another. You might say that in this both parties are equally cold and equally warm, only to two different classes of citizens.
Basic Peggy Noonan info HERE: You'll probably be shocked by how many of Reagan's great speeches were hers
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6 comments:
Wait, so the first lady should just sit in the background and not get involved in the "men's work"? Maybe this is what John Hutson meant when he said your grand old party is "just old". There's a place in the white house for an active, politically involved, first lady.
And Laura Bush is the most popular first lady in modern history? The pew research center reports that only 19% of respondents had "very favorable" impressions of her in January 2008.
She (or he) is not an elected official of the republic. Her (or his) role should be limited to ceremonial duties. They have no power and should not have power. Checks and balances. First gentleman like Bill Clinton should have no more power than Laura Bush. They can obviously advise their spouse in private but when it comes to active participation it needs to be limited.
I'm not advocating that the first lady be given any kind of power, and I don't think an Obama presidency would create a fourth "first-lady" branch of government. But they should have every right and privilege enjoyed by other members of our democracy -- which includes having an opinion on policy, and expressing that opinion publicly.
I don't think I ever disagreed with you on that point. (personal opinions made public from anyone) I think many disagreements come from assumptions.
You might not, but Peggy Noonan does: "But her speech seemed to me more the speech of a candidate, and not a candidate's spouse. It was full of problems and issues... Let the candidate do the seriousness of the issues, you do the excellence of the candidate."
But I think Noonan knows a thing or two about winning elections in America from a pragmatic point of view. Right or wrong, American voters (especially the ones that cling to God and guns) don't want first ladies or first gentlemen espousing serious political issues on the campaign trail. I think it hurts a candidate more than it helps (right or wrong)
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