Garling Gauge

Hillary Clinton Keynote: Presidential Pantsuit Politics?

The pantsuit coloring of American politics

This is what U.S. politics is truly all about. From ABC News:

Glamour magazine salutes Clinton this month with a photo spread featuring her wearing a rainbow of pantsuits from fire-engine red to light lilac. The headline reads: “Hillary, we loved your pantsuits!”

If you’ve ever wondered why politicians and political parties can’t simply discuss issues and policy in a civilized format and allow Americans to vote based on those arguments, this is part of the problem.

Writing this two hours before Sen. Hillary Clinton delivers her Democratic Convention speech, the media is aflutter with nervous excitement and anticipation, guessing and pontificating on what Goliath will say in support of David, bested by his ‘change’ sling.

Politics is so much more than the issues. It is about personality and stagecraft, about emotion and energy just as much as cold calculation and logic. It is also about the exciting anticipation of what will happen next. Like children eager to tear open a carefully wrapped present, pundits are bouncing off the walls, wondering and prognosticating on what will happen next in this presidential election. Once the present is open, the focus will quickly move on to the next ‘what next?’.

Sen. Joe Biden got so little media coverage compared to the anticipation and guessing game of whom Obama would pick for the veep spot. Americans seem to have short memories, and we crave the ‘what’s next?’.

What’s next tonight is perhaps the most anticipated speech of the election. Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Goliath of American politics, will most likely attempt to cast off doubts of her support for Sen. Barack Obama. Will it work? What exactly will she say? The Obama people haven’t vetted the speech yet?… Oh no! Will we believe her? Does she really want Obama to lose? What if she…

Sigh.

Forget the speech and the message it is trying to convey, the real action will be the analysis of Clinton’s stage presence, what outfit she’ll be wearing, and the penetrating looks of wrapped listeners scrutinizing every facial expression, searching for that indescribable look of honesty and forthrightness on her face, and perked ears critiquing the words she had hoped she would never have to deliver.

Why are American politics broken? Why are negative ads so effective? Why can’t we have a civil debate? Because of our inescapable interpersonal nature. People are interested in people. What is interesting about policy is not the pros, cons, process, and statistics of each issue, but the effects those policies have on people.

Politics is more about people than policy. And political theater plays to that. Presidential politics in particular appears much more about personality than any other type of election. I know more about the presidential candidates than I’ll ever know about my local mayor. Think about what people who don’t like Hillary Clinton say. In my experience, most of what they say have to do with her personality, ambition, or link back to the President Clinton’s affair. Feelings for her are visceral, personal, and often have little to do with her stance on, say, education.

If you want America to be different and your vote to be meaningful, vote for the party’s platform that best aligns with your vision of what is right, rationale, and forward looking. Cause if personality trumps policy on your voting quest, you’re lost in the game of pantsuit politics.

Images: http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5656295, http://www.drudgereport.com/

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