The Audacity of Hope

Well, the conventions have come and gone, and at least one of them went pretty much as expected, pretty much as conventions always do now. For the most part, the conventions have become highly scripted, choreographed, and controlled; little more than 3 or 4 day commercials for the party. One can hardly fault the major networks for cutting back coverage to little more than an hour a night… the networks aren’t in business to give away commercial time!

There were similarities between the conventions; both the presidential nominees were outshined by their VP choices as well as the party rock stars, Rubio and Clinton. Both of the wives performed admirably. Eastwood was more compelling than the glitteratti from the left, but the Dems had better music. There was the usual red meat to rouse the delegates… oh, and the funny hats. But there was a significant difference.

The usual formula for these things is that having secured your party’s nomination, the next task, beyond healing any divisions in the base, is to go after the undecided swing voters and strengthen your appeal toward demographics where you might be weak. The republicans seemed to stick to that model, though Ron Paul disciples might argue the part about healing divisions with what was considered an inadequate olive branch. The convention was well represented with blacks, browns, and young female speakers… all weak demographics for the GOP; and despite the requisite red meat for the delegates and the base, the prime time speakers avoided being harshly negative, something the elusive swing voters purportedly disdain. The nearest thing to unscripted controversy was an 80+ actor doing improv with an empty chair. Set your platform, humanize and lionize your candidates, kiss up to the moderates, drop the balloons and get ready for the debates. Excitement, emotion, but no drama!

In an extension of what seems to be the “strategy” that the President has pursued in recent months, the Democrats seem to have chosen to go in another direction. Instead of moderating the convention to appeal to swing voters, instead of trying to increase numbers in key demographics where they are weak or declining (men, older women, religious, jewish, or business owners…); they rather doubled down on the areas they were already strong… their left leaning base. This is an uncommon strategy, and uncommon because it doesn’t work. The last time it was tried was probably George McGovern… and that didn’t end well. If you’ve ever heard an American politician try to answer a controversial question, you know how hard they work to talk without actually answering the question. By nature, they are not risk takers. They live and die with polls, focus groups, and vague policy positions. Generally the electorate has in recent years been viewed as center right, and candidates running for national office have kept that in mind as they held their conventions. Patriotism, praise for the military, tax reform, and “God bless America”, have always been popular themes at both conventions. While these were not absent from this year’s Democratic convention, they were overshadowed by the more “base friendly” themes of same-sex marriage, contraception availability, redistribution of wealth, universal health care, and tolerance for undocumented immigrants.

Why would they do this? You can generally count on your base. In what is essentially a two party system, who else are they going to vote for? It would seem that the Democrats have made the determination that we have reached a tipping point in this nation. Apparently they believe that we have become a center left, or even left leaning electorate. Practically speaking they can’t speak too much about the past four years, hence their oft repeated motto: “Forward!”. They are seeking to recast the debate from what could be a job evaluation of the President, to a job interview process between he and Romney. The standard process is to give a guy the job for four years, if we like what we see we re-elect him, if he hasn’t delivered we try a different guy. It’s pretty much the only chance we have to change course, once they’re re-elected you have to live with the choice, it’s pretty much guaranteed, “four more years”. No matter which way the electorate leans, they do not lean toward incompetence; and that is why we are being encouraged to ignore the past four years and instead to view the election as a “choice of futures”. In this “choice of futures” the Dems apparently believe that leaning definitively left is a good strategy, or at least their best one. Having the record Obama has, it would be difficult for him to return to his vague promises of unity and post-partisan politics. The right and even the center right is lost to him. If his first term had been more successful with centrist issues, the center and center left would probably be in the bag for him; but lacking that, the only part of the electorate he can count on is further to the left, and even many of those are not satisfied with his performance. And so he hopes to find victory in energizing his base by offering them two very different visions for the future. In so doing though, he is offering all the electorate the same two visions. That is quite the gamble for a politician to take!

William Bolitho wrote, “A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.” That word, “hope”, is one often associated with the President, and may help explain his record, and his vision going forward. Barack Obama has had a remarkable career for a relatively young man. The only time he has ever lost an election for anything was in a primary to Bobby Rush in 2000; within three years he was elected to the US Senate, and then the presidency in 2008. That kind of success will give you confidence, but not much humility. What might cause a gambler to go all in on a losing hand?… One man’s hope is another man’s hubris.

The “hope” from “hope and change” was no doubt derived from the title of Mr. Obama’s 2004 keynote address to the Democratic Convention, “The Audacity of Hope”, which he later expanded to become his second book. In the speech he warned about confusing hope with blind optimism, or willful ignorance… advice we would be wise to heed. “The Audacity of Hope” was inspired by a sermon given by Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, where he spoke of the audacity to hope. The sermon, in turn, was inspired by a lecture Wright had attended given by Dr. Frederick G. Sampson that was itself inspired by the G.F. Watts 1886 painting “Hope”. So all this hope (and the audacity thereof) has its roots in this old painting. The painting shows an allegorical female figure (Hope) sitting on a globe blindfolded. She holds a wooden lyre with just one string left unbroken, she bends to hear the faint tone of the one remaining string. Watts comment on his depiction was that “Hope need not mean expectancy. It suggests here rather the music that can come from the remaining chord.” The mood of the painting was desolate and gray, inspiring G.K. Chesterton’s suggestion that it would have more aptly been titled “Despair”.

Forgive the digression into art history! It being the central thesis of the President’s political persona, this painting would seem to shed light on why he might continue to pursue failing policies and failing strategies. As he has so much as said, if he feels something is right he will continue to pursue it to the last lonely string… hoping that the success he has always known will again miraculously arrive. It has been said that a gambler gambles to lose, for only in losing does he finally discover his limits.

IMHO: For me the president’s convention speech fell flat, as does his campaign rhetoric. Kind of like a favorite musician who stays around a little too long, who seems to “run out of songs”. The eloquence is there, the cadence… the style, but it all seems too familiar, too rehearsed, recycled fluff. His biggest applause line was when he announced “I am the President”. (?) The speech avoided the past and was a missed opportunity to be specific about his plans for the future; it was unsurprisingly the shortest convention speech by an incumbent president in 36 years, there wasn’t much there besides “Trust me… I know what I’m doing.” A few hours later, new evidence arrived that, actually, he doesn’t. The dismal jobs report showed the lowest rate of labor market participation in 31 years, and the lowest participation for males ever recorded since the government began tracking the statistic in 1948. Still Obama hopes, he’s counting on the single chord of a coalition of the left: pro-choice females, OWS types, minority voting blocks, and people who can’t do math. Meanwhile, the convention was a microcosm of the administration: the platform chaos, the gamble in selecting an outdoor venue that they might or might not have been able to fill if it didn’t rain, the endless litany of leftist causes, and in the end, a 15 million dollar funding shortfall to pay for the convention… and no balloons? Heck, for a few thousand more I’m sure they could have had some back-up balloons ready just in case! The President is gambling on an untried path to re-election: he’s depending on a revitalized base which may never materialize. He’s gambling that the electorate is as poor a gambler as he is. A good poker player knows when it’s time to throw in a losing hand, even if he is heavily invested in the pot. A bad player won’t throw in the cards, just more money… Some might call that hope, players call it losing. The question is will the voters invested in Obama face the reality that this administration has not delivered, and will not deliver, given that the plan for the next four years is essentially the same as the past four years; or will they too double down on the same losing hand? Having proven my intellectual sophistication with my dalliance into art history, I feel entitled to close this post with those timeless words of wisdom from Kenny Rogers:

“You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run…”