Authenticity - the Obama advantage

There is a myth that George Bush beat Al Gore in 2000 because he was the guy voters would most like to have a beer with. The real reason Bush won, of course, is that the Supreme Court stopped the vote in Florida; nonetheless, enough voters were drawn to what they saw as the "real" Dubya to make the vote close enough to let the Court to usurp the national vote. In time, the authentic Bush became clear, and Americans by the tens of millions regret that vote, but all the evidence needed to know he'd be a horrendous president was there in 2000. Al Gore simply failed to match his superior competence with a sufficiently authentic public persona.

Hillary Clinton has failed in exactly the same way. At this point in her career we have seen too many Hillaries to have any idea which one we'd be voting for. And while many are still uncertain whether Obama is experienced enough for the White House, there is little doubt about who he is.

Authenticy versus invention. To win an election, you have to be more than a really good lawmaker or policy expert. You have to be able to connect with enough people to convince them to give you their one and only vote. Few voters want to waste that precious commodity, just like they'd rather not waste their money. And just like they try to buy something that they will like and use, they want to vote for someone they like. Someone they can trust. Someone they think is authentic.

Gore and Clinton never managed to make themselves authentic. Bush did, although in his case, the authentic good-buddy personna overlay the kind of professional incompetence that should not have been allowed within a thousand miles of the White House, much less the Oval Office.

Barack Obama is authentic on all levels.

I don't doubt Hillary is an authentic person, as author and counsellor Jean Houston insists in today's LA Times. Yet Houston nails one of her problems right on the head:

Ironically, Clinton's problem today, Houston said, may be that Obama has given better voice to that new pattern of possibility — that he embodies a more female, inclusive approach to problem-solving, while Clinton has become mired in proving herself capable of emulating the male model, which requires combat and the demonization of enemies.

A "male" Hillary Clinton is not the person who, time and again, friends and colleagues insist is the "real" Hillary. Yet in trying to salvage a nomination that less than a year ago was seen by many, including herself, to be but a formality away, she's gotten further and further from the allegedly authentic Hillary Clinton — and further from the nomination.

Obama's genuine self was never re-packaged for the campaign. Starting out, like Howard Dean, a no-hoper, he did the same thing Dean did: remained himself. "What have I got to lose?" seemed to be the organizing thought to both campaigns, so both just hit the campaign trail and let voters see them as they really were. They chose authenticity, which is terribly risky and can backfire, but strangely enough, for both candidates, it worked. Dean gained supporters and money in unprecedented numbers, and, four years later, Obama did the same — and then some.

Authenticity is a huge risk. In Dean's case, it created internal problems in his campaign that made the attacks on him successful. In Obama's case, that authenticity held the campaign together when the forces of distraction tried to destroy it. As he responded to charges regarding Rezko, Wright and all the rest, he never shifted from being the same person he had always been. Whereas we saw numerous versions of Hillary, tearing-up in New Hampshire and then slugging back whiskey in Pennsylvania, there was ever only one Obama. The punditry never saw it, of course, but voters did. That's why after all the nonsense of April, he overwhelmed Hillary in North Carolina, almost beat her in Indiana, and pretty much wrapped up the nomination.

Authenticity is, of course, not something that can be faked. When you observe a person and wonder who they are, two questions need to be asked. One, do I really know him or her? Lack of authenticity may actually be a failure to get to know someone. The voters in 2000 did not get to know either Bush or Gore, and they voted for, and against, inauthentic caricatures. In 2008, voters in the Democratic primary are seeing an authentic Obama. Doubts about his authenticity are being erased, not because he is saying the right words, but because the words he is saying remain consistent. They don't see him reinventing himself or being other than he's always been. For Obama, this is easy enough to do. It's easy for anyone who chooses authenticity over utility.

The real Obama has always been there to see. Unfortunately, perhaps the same can be said about Hillary.