What’s your message?
I listen a lot. Since there are so many talking heads around these days, and so many email blasts with press statements, there’s a lot to hear and sort out.
Couple of things I’m hearing. Too much negative campaigning. And too much talk about religion.
The presidential candidates are talking too much about their opponents weaknesses. They should focus on their own strengths. In some form or other, they’re virtually all doing it. A few times now, it has come off as a campaign worker dropping a snarky comment about one of the other candidates, which gives that campaign’s guy (or gal) the chance to grab the spotlight to apologize for it or squelch it, giving it longer life. The campaigns try to make their candidate look better by pointing out news stories critical of their opponents. This has all happened in both parties, for many months now.
They’re saying ‘look how wrong this guy is and why you don’t want him’. But better to say ‘this guy is wrong on this and that, and by contrast, here’s what I propose’. I’ve been saying on this blog for months now that Americans want leaders. Inspire us with what values you represent, convince us that your policies are the soundest and most promising for the nation.
Right now, the focus on values revolves around religion, way too much. There’s a pandering going on and it’s divisive.
Peggy Noonan wondered in a recent column if Ronald Reagan himself would survive right now in this atmosphere.
The Republican race looks — at the moment — to be determined primarily by one thing, the question of religious faith. In my lifetime faith has been a significant issue in presidential politics, but not the sole determinative one. Is that changing? If it is, it is not progress…
Faith is a shaping force. Lincoln got grilled on it. But there is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary.
But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far.
I agree.
Noonan points to immigration as a key issue that Americans are worried about, but candidates seem to be avoiding as much as possible. Out of kilter.
Because politicians see immigration as just another issue in “the game,” they feel compelled to speak of it not with honest indifference but with hot words and images. With a lack of sympathy. This is in contrast to normal Americans, who do not use hot words, and just want the problem handled and the rule of law returned to the borders.
Politicians, that is, distort the debate, not because they care so much but because they care so little…
A real and felt concern among the candidates about immigration is a rare thing. And people can tell. They can tell with both parties.
There is more of a disconnect between the people and the elites – political and media – than in past elections, I think. Veteran analysts don’t know what to expect, so they keep taking polls. But I think there are going to be some surprises.
So does Noonan.
It is a delight of democracy that now and then assumptions are confounded, that all the conventional wisdom of the past year is compressed and about to blow.
The current issue of Newsweek is guessing the John Edwards might be “The Sleeper.”
Within the ranks of National Review Online, the editors endorse Mitt Romney, with writers analyzing Gov. Huckabee for saying too much, and Sen. Fred Thompson too little.
Here’s my message, what I have to say.
Recently, I attended the wake and funeral Mass for Congressman Henry Hyde. Was he considered a ‘religious’ politician? No. He was a greatly admired statesman and a highly respected leader. But he lived his Catholic values and beliefs in his very prominent position in government. When I did the story for the National Catholic Register, I asked a couple of sources about that kind of leadership. They were concerned about it, to what degree it lives on. I heard a real grieving.