It Looks Like a President Only Smaller by Joel Achenbach

Author:Joel Achenbach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

room, pivoting, twirling, flashing tail feathers. He was apparently coached by a body linguist, or perhaps by an anthropologist who specializes in primate display rituals. Never before in a presidential campaign have we seen so much monkey behavior. This was “Candidates in the Mist.”

Bush snickered and smirked but occasionally seemed ready to flee. He was trapped in a cage with a chest-beating gorilla. His only possible survival tactic was the Rope-a-Dope, letting Gore punch himself into exhaustion. Gore combined his physical intimidation with SuperNerd zingers, such as, “What about the Dingell-Norwood bill?”

Gore smiled as he asked the question. He knows so much more about the Dingell-Norwood bill than Bush. Gore is going to adopt this question as his battle cry. WHAT ABOUT DINGELL-NORWOOD? Catchy, and totally eviscerating.

No doubt millions of people held their breath in that nerve-wracking moment when Alpha Gore invaded Bush’s physical space. This wasn’t some spontaneous, inadvertent maneuver. Gore clearly had decided, before the debate, that he would be a Space Invader. Bush whirled and nodded curtly, slightly alarmed. For a second you didn’t know what would happen. Would Gore actually hit Bush? Is it possible we’ve come to that?

We’ve seen some embarrassing moments in American politics of late—a general loss of dignity, a White House sex scandal, an unsavory impeachment drama, the constant groveling by our leaders for campaign contributions—and there’s a general sense that things have changed, that the system has been debased. I think we would not be that shocked if one candidate popped another with a quick jab to the face.

This debate was unlike anything we’ve seen before. Most debates since 1960 have been essentially talking head events, the candidates securely affixed to a podium. The “town hall” format arrived only in 1992, but there were three candidates on stage (Bill Clinton, Bush the Elder, and Ross Perot), and it didn’t have that gladiator feel. This time we kept expecting Bush and Gore to take turns saying, “I am Spartacus.”

Once again we wait to see how the debate will play in the public at large. I thought Gore dominated Bush quite effectively, though some viewers might have been repulsed by the Godzilla routine.

Last night’s debate was good television, and maybe it was a good forum for assessing leadership qualities. But you wonder where this is all going. There was a time when candidates were just names and faces, serving as fronts for political parties. The entire campaign lasted a matter of weeks. Over time, the process has mutated and evolved into a two-year clash of titans, heavy on theater and posturing. It’s all so personal. It’s even more personal on our end, the voters’ side. We have little loyalty to party. We’re a nation of wimpy individualists wondering what we’re going to get from our government.

The American presidency has become a cult of personality that Stalin would envy. We know more about Bill Clinton than we want to know; his most embarrassing transgressions are documented, with footnotes. It takes a certain kind of garrulous, shameless, exhibitionist personality to fill the job.

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