Making things happen

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Monday February 9, 2004 Volume VI Number 6

he Democrats own the media spotlight these days.  It’s primary season in presidential politics.  There isn’t much of a contest on the Republican side.  You might say the presumptive nominee pretty well has it sown up.  All he needs to do now is the stuff Presidents do, reminding the world that he is the incumbent, and that things are really going pretty well. 

It wasn’t that long ago that Dr. Howard Dean enjoyed the lead position on the Democrat side - the front runner.  The others followed in his draft.  Many assumed he would coast on to victory in Boston, riding the tide of popular support, funded by hoard of internet donors, bypassing the big money of “special interests,” a grass-roots kind of guy who would capture the hopes of millions of neglected voters all eager to reverse the results of the last presidential election and put a no-nonsense, plain speaking, Washington outsider inside.  So went the conventional wisdom.

Andy Warhol, the eccentric New York artist, might best be remembered for his belief that “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”  It became the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame.  Now, nearly fifty years after he said it, pop culture seeks out that fifteen minutes, knowing it can a career make.  If you are clever enough, bold enough, and if your timing is perfect, you can pre-empt any event - even the Super Bowl.  A wardrobe malfunction maybe.  What was everyone talking about this week?  Two dueling quarterbacks?  A last second, white-knuckle, nail-biting victory?  Record breaking scoring in final minutes – for both sides?  A football game for the ages?  No.

It was the half-time show.  A couple of needy pop-stars went for the headlines – and got them.  Andy Warhol was right.

And in the fickle world of politics, that fifteen minutes can go either way.  It can a career make.  It can a career break.

Poor Howard Dean.

Media perceptions are difficult to overcome.  He was in Iowa.  Many expected him to win.  Win big.  He placed a respectable third.  But as he approached the microphone before his supporters and every major news feed on the planet, something got hold of him.  Some assumed he would take the high road and offer praise for his opponent, the winner, and concede some measure of disappointment and then promise to continue the campaign anticipating future victories on the long road to Boston.  But they would not see their predictions come to form.

Instead, Dean announced that his third place finish in the Iowa caucus was a victory.  The cheering was deafening.  He clenched the mike and with fire in his eyes, he launched a speech that you’ve heard repeated now countless times.

It was Howard Dean’s allotment of fifteen minutes, predicted decades ago by Andy Warhol.

* * * * * * * *

It was not the first, and it will not be the last time that a moment’s dropping of the guard has taken a monstrous political toll. 

In 1962, Richard Nixon emerged from a narrow defeat in the Presidential election, losing to John F. Kennedy, to run for Governor of his home state of California.  Because of his popularity as Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President for eight years, and then coming so close to victory in the 1960 bid for President, it was widely assumed that Nixon could bring down the powerful incumbent Governor of the Golden State, Edmund G. Brown.  It was not to be.  Nixon was soundly defeated in that election, after taking a serious beating by the press, the Los Angeles Times in particular.  They underscored his right-wing association with conservative efforts to purge the nation of communist sympathizers, his eight years of neglect by his boss Dwight Eisenhower who rarely met with the VP during the White House years, and his poor performance in the televised debates against JFK.

A long faced, sullen Richard Nixon approached a bank of microphones after his defeat and complained that he had been treated unfairly by the press.  It cost him more than the election – it cost him his dignity.  He finished the speech with sarcasm – telling the assembled media, cameras rolling, audio recording, that they must be pleased, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.”

And he disappeared through the door behind him.  It began a six year, self imposed exile from public life.  And the public would never really erase that image, that voice, that self-pity from their memory. 

It would haunt him for the remainder of his career.

* * * * * *

Jimmy Carter surprised the world when he won the Presidency in 1976.  He beat Incumbent Republican Gerald R. Ford.

Carter was no favorite among traditional Democrats.  There was a considerable rift within the party, and Carter, along with his Vice President Walter Mondale, could not bridge the gap. 

Edward (Ted) Kennedy went after the sitting Democrat President in the primaries in 1980.

Jimmy Carter knew he was no match for the fabled Kennedy crowd.  In spite of Ted Kennedy’s personal foibles, the nation remained enamored with the magic of the the Kennedy mystique and the memory of Camelot.  So Carter refused Kennedy’s challenges for debate.  Kennedy fought hard, attacking the sitting Democrat President.  But Teddy had his own challenges.  Chappaquiddick loomed large enough to distract many voters.  And on the floor of the Democratic Primaries, Carter won a narrow victory.

But even so, Ted Kennedy was the popular favorite. His mere presence ignited party enthusiasms in ways the peanut farmer from Plains could not.  The celebration of Carter’s victory was muted that evening.

And in the end, when balloons fall and the band plays and the people cheer and the world watches, Ted Kennedy took to the platform with Jimmy and Rosaline and gave the winner a cool, obligatory handshake, and from then on refused to acknowledge the Nominee’s presence.  He turned and accepted the adulation of the crowd, overshadowing the winner.  He embraced everyone on the platform except the man who defeated him.  He refused to join in support of the party’s candidate, and Carter wandered on that stage not in triumph, but as a lost soul.  Shunned by a Kennedy.

Commentators didn’t miss it.  Neither did the nation.

In 1980, it opened the door for the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan, who walked in and took the Presidency.

* * * * * * *

Michael Dukakis, another Democrat from Massachusetts, a popular Governor (presiding over the “Massachusetts Miracle”) got the nod from Democrats in 1988.

Term limits prevented Reagan from running for a third term, so Republicans nominated his Vice President, George H. W. Bush.  Reagan’s popularity was enormous by this time, bringing a dignity and international respectability to the office that hadn’t been seen since Eisenhower or Kennedy.  George Bush inherited much of that goodwill.

Democrats were determined to bring an end to the Reagan dominance, and put forward a brash, articulate, seasoned political veteran – Michael Dukakis.  Dukakis, a witty engaging spokesman who also hosted a popular television talk show, seemed ready for the media spotlight and an effective opponent against the pedestrian, bureaucratic George Bush.

But there was one photo-op, a single moment in a long, laborious campaign that created a sorry image that seriously damaged his bid for the Presidency.  It was a silly, unpretentious moment that had far more influence that it should have.  But the image damaged Dukakis as a serious presidential contender.

Democrats have always resented the frequent charge that they are soft on the military.  So candidates must, in some way, show their support for the armed forces.  Dukakis did.  He visited a military base, boarded an M1A1 Abrams Battle Tank, donned the big eared leather skull helmet of a tank commander and grinned at a camera man hoping to look hawkish and in charge.

Instead, he looked goofy.  Dorky.  The press had a field day.  Cartoons appeared, exaggerating the dork factor.  The nation tried to imagine this man as Commander in Chief. 

They couldn’t.

Bush defeated Dukakis in a landslide.

* * * * * * *

Howard Dean took the microphone. 

His supporters packed a small room in an Iowa hotel.  The shouts and whistles and yelps and applause were deafening.  Later, people in the room said they could not hear Dean’s amplified speech for the noise.  His emotion took control.  Whatever disappointment he felt over the third place finish disappeared.  As he spoke and the people cheered, he was possessed by something powerful.  It was a momentary epiphany.  He filled up with belief.  His supporters roared their approval as he announced his pleasure over Iowa vote.  And then he let it go.  State by state.  We will win.  We will not be denied!  We will take every state!  New York!  Ohio!  Illinois!  And then California!  And North Carolina!  Then Pennsylvania!  And Arkansas!  And Louisiana! And with each state named, the crescendo grew, as did the tempo and the conviction and the decibel level.  It was a swell of enthusiasm, reaching to fill the cosmos.

“And then we’re gunna go to Washington DC and we’re gunna take back the White House!” he cried.  By now, he had achieved a level of political ecstasy, a nirvana of enlightenment, and he cut loose with a shriek of exclamation that came from somewhere deep in the spiritual labyrinth of political ambition – shared by only a few Americans who go public with their desire for the highest office in the land – “Aehrghhhhh!” he screeched as the cameras rolled and the audio recorded, capturing the moment.  For all time.

Have you ever stood in the lobby of a church sanctuary, outside the glass and closed doors, and listened to the amplified voice of the person at the podium leading a congregation in hymnody?  You can’t hear the people, but you hear the voice at the platform… and it’s as though someone held a random mike at the mouth of a random person in the congregation, and it sounds terrible.

That’s what happened to Dean.  It was a regrettable distortion.  It was a moment of catharsis.  Caught on tape.  And it has been played and replayed until you can not separate the moment from the man, and about that same time, his numbers went south.

Once more, Andy Worhol came to call with his fifteen minutes of fame.  And the Dean hopes faded.

And the media strikes again.

* * * * * * *

It’s Monday morning.  You are a leader.

Politics is a funny, fickle game.  In a media age, image becomes much more significant than substance, and while it seems terribly unfair, you know it’s true.  And it’s true for you, too, right there in your office.

Howard Dean’s retreat from presumptive nominee to also-ran may have started with the endorsement of Al Gore.  But the trend was sealed by an innocent attempt to rally his troops for the next state in the primary race.  Jimmy Carter, shunned by a Kennedy, never recovered, the Presidency slipped away.  Nixon won office again, but his critics, his enemies, never forgot his bitter resentments and petty public whining.  Dukakis could not overcome the visual contradiction of a dork as commander in chief.

There is plenty of time for other unforgettable images in the remaining months of the Presidential campaign.

As a leader, image is a factor in your success.  You don’t like the games.  You resist the oversimplifications and the labeling.  But you know it’s for real. 

We’ve all had our Andy Worhol moments.  They live in our memories.  We need to be aware.  On guard.

But we also know what the media doesn’t.  Those moments don’t define us.  They are not the sum of who we are.  And they do not mark the end of our career, or trap us in a prison of memories.

Our life is not a political race.

Thank God.

Posted in Valley Center, California

© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2004

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