Today many of the contenders are enshrouded in the mists of myth. One is that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a flaming liberal. Would that this were buttressed by the facts. If it were, she might have voted against the Iraq war, and the health-care initiative she oversaw as First Lady would have been a sweeping plan for universal coverage instead of a timid column A/column B effort. It’s laughable to talk about the senator moving toward the middle. She’s been there for years.
Some myths speak to the poisonous atmosphere in which people run for president. A magazine with right-wing affiliations produced an online story saying that Barack Obama attended a school rooted in radical Islam, although even cursory reporting would have revealed that this was false. But it was repeated as fact on the air by various conservative radio and TV hosts, perhaps because the smear went one better: the story suggested, without a scintilla of real evidence, that the Clinton camp had floated the report. None of this says anything about Clinton or Obama, except that they are the front runners and the opposition fears them. But it does illustrate the easy willingness of the right, illuminated in the last election by the Swift Boat smearing of war hero John Kerry, to trade in sleazy innuendo.
Other myths are a function of the fact that all politics are local. In the wake of 9/11 Americans elsewhere may have come to see Rudy Giuliani as the calm voice of reason, but that’s not how many New Yorkers perceive him. Republican power brokers may fret about Rudy’s personal life: the press-conference announcement that he was leaving his second wife, who had not been informed in advance of the event; the mistress who became wife number three. And his liberal views on social issues like abortion and gay rights surely put him at odds with the conservative base. But the real argument against Giuliani’s candidacy is that he was uncommonly divisive and mean-spirited during his time in office, alienating most of the city’s minority communities. When police officers shot and killed an unarmed African immigrant, firing 41 times, Giuliani sneered at protests as a “publicity stunt.” Politicians who have worked with him describe a man who considers those who disagree enemies, not opponents, a divider and not a uniter.
John McCain must grapple with an important part of his persona that may, sadly, morph into myth: the notion of the former POW as a man who fearlessly speaks his mind. While running for president in 2000, McCain almost destroyed that linchpin of his public personality. He first answered a question about the Confederate flag candidly–“a symbol of racism and slavery”–then backed off and came up with the sort of anodyne response that panders to the largest possible number of voters. He wound up with the worst of both worlds–he betrayed his straight-talk rep, and he appeared disgusted with himself for doing so. Whether McCain will have the guts to go up against the myth that a candidate must be all things to all people–and therefore nothing at all–remains to be seen.
As winter turns to summer, Iowa to New Hampshire, candidates to nominees, many myths could be dispelled, or harden into the stuff of conventional wisdom. Clinton could counter the misapprehension that she is chilly and humorless with some serious retail politicking in three or four key states. John Edwards should face down cheap shots about trial lawyers and talk about how sometimes they are the only succor for ordinary citizens seeking redress against big institutions. And then there’s the myth that no one good runs anymore. The current field is crowded with experience and intellectual depth.
The biggest myth, of course, is that the professional opinionators know anything much at this point about what’s to come. Print and broadcast are full of pundits, most rooted deep in the Metroliner nexus of Washington and New York, who are asked to say what it all means. They are absolutely sure about the unknowable. Until they’re not.
Here is what is certain: during this month in 1991, exactly as distant from Inauguration Day as today, magazines, newspapers and television talk shows were predicting that President Bush–the other President Bush–would be difficult to unseat from office as a war in the gulf raged. Gephardt, Tsongas and Nunn were the best-known players; according to NEWSWEEK, dark horse Bill Clinton had “recently auditioned” at the home of a big-money Democrat. As the weeks went by most politicos were hanging on the decision of the Godot who promised salvation, then never arrived. Remember the uncandidacy of Mario Cuomo?
Nothing turned out the way it appeared that January. There are so many layers between today and November 2008. Prescription: between now and then, take a grain of salt every day.
