Election '08; or, the tricky correspondence of image and ethos

The New York Observer recently published an article contradicting, to some degree, the received wisdom among nearly all conservatives and a number of liberals: that Barack Obama is all flash with no content.

The article isn't a perfect defense of Obama's campaign style, and perhaps it would be unhealthy to spend too much sweat and tears defending anybody's political campaign. With the (possible) exception of that of the maverick Ron Paul, every political aspirant will de facto indulge in some image-mongering and dishonesty in the interest of saying things that will get votes, rather than lose them. This is just human behavior, and we see it in corporate meetings, at dinner parties, and on blind dates every day. Nobody is deliberately going to create a repulsive image for himself/herself.

However, it is fairly evident that Obama is coming in for more than the usual rueful/sarcastic "oh, those politicians (pat pat)" criticism. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that opposition media (and the Clinton campaign) are trying to torpedo his candidacy with this accusation of insubstantial posturing and hope-mongering. I won't linger on the depressing idea that "Hope" is evidently a commodity we can no longer deal in, or the implied preference for candidates who hawk More War, Tax Burdens for the Middle Class, Corporate Dominance of the Polity, Pervasive Surveillance, Torture, And So On. I'd personally take vacuous Hope any day.

I would like to linger a little, however, on this idea of "image" and how an image might relate to "ethos," which I here take to mean the "true truth" about a person and his/her views (insofar as that is even knowable). According to the New York Observer's article, "the style is indivisible from the substance" in the case of Obama. His "oratory" and "inclusivity [...] signify profound differences in approach and philosophy from Mrs. Clinton." Gasp. The idea! That an oratorical style might actually "signify" something! The point, as the article mentions and as we've all known for a long time now, is that the policy differences between Clinton and Obama are relatively insignificant. The angle from which they approach these views, and the image-construct via which they present them to the constituency, is where the difference lies. Hillary Clinton's approach has been far more "traditional" thus far, emphasizing (as has been repeated by pundits ad infinitum) long-term political conflicts and the division-lines between parties. Obama consciously seeks out common ground with Republicans and Independents, and even (notoriously) with "Axis of Evil" leaders like Hugo Chavez. Although his message about the state of America isn't always a sunny one, he offsets it with tremendous optimism, which has been the hallmark of many of our greatest 20th Century leaders.

I also want to emphasize that *all* of the '08 candidates, and all the candidates who have ever run for office in any public arena, have constructed images for themselves. Clinton, as the article points out, "proudly referred to herself as [...] 'battle-scarred.'" John McCain is the dogged, uncompromising veteran; John Edwards was the Common Man (who just happened to make millions as a lawyer, ehm); Mike Huckabee is still the divinely-inspired prophet who's cool enough to play the bass; Giuliani, in Joe Biden's wonderful quip, was "a subject, a verb, and 9/11." Some of these might be more ingenuous than others, but the point is that Obama is not the only candidate occluded in a mantle of hoopla and linguistic prestidigitation. Every candidate presents himself/herself in a manner that is delimited by a hundred factors, including genuine personality, well-paid image consultants and campaign managers, media bias, etc. Our job is to look at real statements from these candidates to determine how well they line up with the image. I suggest skepticism of these images, but we also must remember that they give some indication of each candidate's fundamental attitude. And after George W. Bush's attitude of insolence, arrogance, and confrontation, a more conciliatory approach looks more appealing than I can say.