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Home > Blogs > Campaigns Don't Count > Archives > 2008 > August > 19 > Entry
Obama Charisma Star Still Rising?
Let’s start this thread with a comment that came in on another string. You’ll see why I wanted to do that.
First, however, a word: This blog is monitored. I decide which comments get posted. I am not posting comments that are arguments for or against a candidate. That just isn’t what we’re doing here. Plenty of other places are doing it. I can understand why my post about race was seen by some as pro-Obama. But that wasn’t the idea. Please try to remember that the predictive system in use here predicted Bush on ‘04, not to mention all the other Republican popular-vote victories in recent decades.
OK, here’s the comment. It’s a couple of weeks old. Sorry about that.
From Tom Q:
This place has gone…umm…a little quiet lately. Which is, I suppose, partly to be expected, given that it’s off-season until we hit the conventions. But isn’t it, in another sense, prime time for Keys-ers? To watch the nightly news now is to laugh uproariously, as one after another meaningless campaign back-and-forth is discussed soberly for the impact it might have on the November outcome. There are scattered people who’ve articulated “Gee, this election may not be so close after all, given the circumstances”, but for the most part they’re being shouted down by “McCain says Obama snubbed the troops! Might this kill Obama?” And, to go back to one of my favored points: do we still, after the overseas trip, question if Obama takes the charisma key? A whole lot of people seem to be throwing the word around these days. Are they all wrong?
A response:
You have more tolerance for the nightly news than I do.
You know, for years I have argued that familiarity with the Keys and the predictability of some presidential election outcomes does not decrease one’s interest in voting, in participating or in elections, in general. Lately, however, I find it does diminish my interest in the nightly news, broadly defined. At least SOMETHING is doing that. I suspect that’s the main reason the blog has languished. Will try to revive it now, though. There really are a lot of things to comment on.
As for charisma:, it’s a good question. The thing to remember about all the keys is that the threshold for turning them is high. A scandal must be a MAJOR scandal. A national hero must be an Eisenhower, not a Kennedy, Kerry or McCain.
A lot people used the word charisma about Bill Clinton, too. But Lichtman never turned the key for him; and we have to be consistent. There really is a difference between somebody who has a way with people, who dominates a room, who talks with special facility (none of which is so uncommon in politics), and somebody who stands out in his own time and in history for the emotional attachment he generates in great numbers of people. I’ve been watching Obama all along with the charisma key in mind. He had the best, most emotional political event I’ve ever seen in Dayton, in 25 years. But I’m really not seeing the special, Reaganesque star quality. It could still emerge, I suppose.
When Lichtman wrote his first book on the Keys in the early 1980s, he said that only once in history had a key changed during the campaign: 1n 1960s, a special star-quality attached to JFK after the debates. All of a sudden, the girls were screaming. (For the record, he didn’t need that Key to have the prediction made in his favor.)
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: 2008 presidential race
Comments
By Tom Q
August 21, 2008 1:53 PM | Link to this
Well, I’ll play devil’s advocate here, and say what Lichtman is being consistent at it is not judging anyone to be charismatic in real time: his book was initially written after the 1980 election, and his acceptance of Reagan as charismatic was pretty much after-the-fact (like, people voted for him despite his far-right philosophy, so they must have really liked him personally). This goes along with exalting the two Roosevelts and Kennedy — historically enshrined larger-than-life figures about whom no one is going to argue. A reluctance to rate anyone contemporary at the same level might just be akin to old baseball players’ claims that no one’s as good as the guys from THEIR day. I’ll say again, Obama, a less-than-one-term senator, has drawn extraordinary crowds, and bested the heir to the most popular Democratic president in half a century. If personal magnetism isn’t at the heart of it, what is? Of course, as you say with JFK, it’s not a key Obama needs to swing the election. But, if applied, it shows a truly sweeping anti-GOP gestalt this year, and makes the blather on TV (which has got even worse since I wrote that comment) seem even further out of touch. By the way: Any way to allow for a paragraph breaks in the comments? I keep using them, but when the comment gets printed, they’re gone, and it looks like I’m some illiterate writing endless run-on paragraphs.By Rick
August 21, 2008 6:19 PM | Link to this
It seems to me that the early bloom of Obama’s charisma has worn off significantly. The stuff about Rev Wright, Bill Ayers, his quick changes in position have some people looking at him with a less favorable light than they did at first.By TRS
August 21, 2008 11:17 PM | Link to this
I tend to agree. While Senator Obama is a likeable guy, some of his recent moves have removed him from the pedastal of a different kind of politician which was his appeal to begin with.By Tom Q
September 2, 2008 3:25 PM | Link to this
You guys still want to hold to that position, even after last Thursday night’s speech? The one that had even Pat Buchanan saying it was the best convention speech he’d ever seen? I mean, really…most of the world, outside of this site, appears to have declared Obama charismatic. Why such resistance?By Alice
September 4, 2008 8:29 PM | Link to this
I don’t know that we can fully determine this without seeing the effect history has on this race. The response notes, “A national hero must be an Eisenhower, not a Kennedy, Kerry or McCain.” but by what standards then are you a national hero? By how history judges you or by how you are judged in the present? Are they or can they be the same? Given our relatively short life spans (compared to the history of the US), and the bias that may subconsciously effect our opinions, I would guess it would be hard for any human being, including Lichtman, to really understand the general guidelines by which we would measure heroism and charisma. Obama’s opponents throughout both the primary and the general have always tried to frame his supporters in very narrow terms, as is usual with most candidates, the same way any candidate’s supporters/campaign tries to paint the opposition, regardless of party. The irony is that what took Obama from a virtual nobody to winning the Iowa primary is because people saw him as post-partisan, not as a democrat and not as a republican, but also not officially an “independent”. Maybe it is partly because he looks and sounds so different from any other candidate, I’m not sure. As an example, in talking to one of his early supporters the other day, they said they were supporting him not just because of his policies that they agreed with, but because there was something else about him they could not explain. The next part they were embarrassed to admit and did not like to tell very many people: They said there was something about him they felt was simply destined to be, but they couldn’t explain what. I doubt very much that many other candidates or elections have had that same effect on people (then again, I can’t remember 100 years ago because I wasn’t alive, I can only trust that the history books are correct). Others I have talked to since the primary ended have said that they support Obama’s policies but can not fully 100% commit because they just didn’t understand who he really was, not because Rev. Wright put doubts in their minds or because they thought he was some radical - they just weren’t sure why, maybe for the same unknown reason others are drawn to him. Many others have commented that recent revelations have caused that to wear off, and I would agree that it probably has with some, but I would also argue that it hasn’t worn off for two reasons: 1) the supporters like the one I mentioned earlier didn’t lose that gut feeling because of Rev Wright or any of that, even if it made them question more the source of their “feeling” and 2) the entire point of any campaign is to tear the other person down (ir that is what they have become). We can all agree that no one is perfect, so there could be no candidate that is perfect and there will always be “skeletons” and flaws to uncover. If we measure someone’s heroism and charisma by the amount of dirt the media can dig up, then how can anyone be considered heroic or charismatic? I would bet that if Eisenhower were running today, I could find plenty of people that would not be so eager to declare him a true hero, whether they were right or not.By Raoul
September 5, 2008 4:59 PM | Link to this
Pat Buchanan is grasping at straws, still trying to stay relevant. That’s why he is the token conservative on MSNBC. But of course it was a great speech delivered by a man of great charisma. My guess is that whatever ‘key’ is based on our feeling safe under his leadership will be decided in the voting booth, and not before, regardless of his obvious charisma.