Dean scream, Gore sigh, and Dukakis calm

[yurbud]

I just read an article that derisively mentioned Al Gore's sigh over a Bush comment during the 2000 debate, and was struck again at how even sympathetic columnists buy into the right wing framing of the presentation of democratic candidates.

Consider a range of candidates' emotional presentation.

When Michael Dukakis was asked during a debate how he would respond if his wife was raped and killed by a furloughed convict, he responded on a policy level instead of saying he would go vigilante on the guy and put his head on a stick. The right called him cold-blooded and inhuman.

Howard Dean would frown and get visibly frustrated during the primary debates, and this was turned into a reputation for being angry the made it easy to sell the "Dean Scream" as maniacal, out of control anger when they media played that clip on a continuous loop.

Al Gore's far more restrained presentation during the 2000 debates was characterized as pushy, school marmish, and judgemental. Hmmm... he's disagreeing with the other guy, who clearly has his facts wrong. What is the right tone to take there?

What's worse, is Democrats actually believe the GOP talking points about how they appear.

This led to the very odd performance of John Kerry in the 2004 debates. While he often got good information in he was polite and deferential to Bush to the point of being effeminate--hardly the way to win over rednecks who might not like the moral scolding of the religious right, but believe the talk radio shtick about Democrats being wimps.

Other pols, like Hillary Clinton are careful to modulate their tone and message, and are characterized by the right as "slick" and insincere.

Which ever tack they take, they will be criticized, so why not just act like a human being?

This is still relevant because once the primaries are over, whoever the Democratic candidate is, they are probably going to be tempted to hire the same consultants, who give the same self-defeating advice that can turn personable politicians into robots spewing Hallmark platitudes to face down another trust fund baby pretending to be Andy Griffith.

I have heard every one of the pols I mentioned above interviewed when they WEREN'T running for president, and with the exception of Howard Dean, I was shocked that they actually sounded like real people with real opinions and emotions--and Dukakis even sounded tough and fiesty.

Democratic candidates do have a real problem with their message--they are trying to serve two masters, the American people and corporate donors. This is not a problem for the GOP because their voter base pays very little attention to issues where their interests conflict with corporations--they are too busy worrying about posting the Ten Commandments in 7-11s, and which cartoons will make their kids gay. Democrat voters do tend to pay attention to those economic issues, but if pols pay too much attention to the voters, they will be shut out by the media and demonized by the Democratic party as well as the GOP. If they are too obviously corporate friendly too soon, they won't get votes, which is why a lot of Democratic candidates are populist during the primaries then shit on their base before the general election: they have to convince the corporations that they will be compliant.

That probably makes elections closer than they otherwise would be. Republicans are free to energize their base while Democrats are busy shitting on them, which throws cold water on the people most likely to be foot soldiers to get out the vote and do the person to person evangelizing for candidates.