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National Review praises Sarah Palin:

“During an episode of her reality show, the once (and future?) candidate cooked up a mess of hot s’mores and a side of even hotter politics, declaring: ‘This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.’

Palin was being over-generous in her paraphrase. What Mrs. Obama in fact said was considerably more worrisome: ‘We can’t just leave it up the parents’…. If her vision leaves any room for limitation on government interference in family affairs, it is impossible to detect it. Palin… later expanded on her views: ‘Instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us, according to some politician’s — or politician’s wife’s — priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us, as individuals, to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions.'”

National Review and Palin appear to have not realized that if your kids are in school, then they will be fed by the school. You can maybe send a lunch in with them, but some children–not that I suppose NR really cares about this–come from families who are too poor to do so. (Besides which, if the lunch is paid for by taxes, most people will probably wish to take advantage of it.) Therefore, unless you are actually opposed to the concept of school lunches, you must ask: do you want the school to feed them healthy food or unhealthy food?

If they were Libertarians, they might make the argument that we ought to abolish school lunches–and, for that matter, government schools–altogether. But they won’t make this argument here, because to do so makes them look, frankly, like unfeeling jerks to many people. So, they take the easy way out: griping about the system without actually putting forward an alternative system which might address the alleged problems.

(I should mention: although I am not a Libertarian, I was one in the past. And, perhaps out of a sentimental sympathy for some of their beliefs, I feel a need to make it clear that the Republicans of today are not really Libertarians; they just act like it sometimes to get what they want. This is not to say the Libertarians are right–which I obviously don’t believe–but rather in the interest of clarity in discourse.)

But I digress.

Now, if a parent wants to have this degree of control over their children, then they should not send the children to school. But, since many parents cannot (or in some cases, will not) actually educate, feed and care for their own children all day every day, they do send them off to school. And that carries with it certain costs and benefits. But essentially, what the National Review crowd wants is all the benefits of parental control with none of the costs.

But then, as they ought to know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

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Interesting article by Maureen Callahan in the New York Post about Sarah Palin’s media strategy, as well as a brief (if oblique) history of the power of charisma for Presidential candidates. It pretty neatly sums up what I’ve been trying to say on this blog for a while now.

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As a follow-up to this post, I realized that I neglected to mention another President who made use of appearing on entertainment television, or at least was not hurt by it: Ronald Reagan.

Sarah Palin herself made note of this fact, arguing against those who say it’s not Presidential to star in a reality show by noting that Reagan had been an actor, and had appeared in some not-especially-Presidential films.

Fair point, I suppose. And Reagan, like Palin and unlike Nixon, had charisma, which made it seem acceptable. (I have a theory that all actors, even lousy ones, have high levels of charisma compared to the general population.) There is, it seems, little which charisma cannot overcome.

On the other hand, Reagan quit working as an actor in 1965, 15 years before he became President. As Peggy Noonan writes as a rebuke to Palin:

“Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.”

These qualifications do seem rather more than Palin’s. (As an aside, it’s hard to imagine any artists-turned-union-leaders running for the Republicans nowadays.)

In the end, though, it goes back to the idea that our standards that have changed with time. Reagan was considered an intellectual lightweight in his day and age, as Palin is in the present day. Call me a pessimist if you like, but I believe this is due to a decline in what we expect of our politicians. If someone with Palin’s credentials had tried to run in Reagan’s time, imagine the reaction. P M Prescott‘s comment here says it very well: “The electorate is getting more and more into voting as fans of someone famous, even if it’s famous for being famous.”

And if Reagan’s charisma and celebrity overcame his relative lack of real policy credentials, then what is there to stop Palin’s charisma and celebrity from overcoming hers?


P.S. Incidentally, having read Noonan’s argument that Reagan’s time as SAG President helped him as a politician, I find that I cannot resist quoting these rather prescient lines of Ernest’s song “Were I a King” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Grand Duke:

“Oh, the man who can rule a theatrical crew,
Each member a genius (and some of them two),
And manage to humour them, little and great,
Can govern this tuppenny State!”

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Rob Reiner compares the Tea Party to the Nazis, and brings up the possibility of them having a charismatic leader. He says:

“My fear is that the tea party gets a charismatic leader… Because all they’re selling is fear and anger. And that’s all Hitler sold. ‘I’m angry and I’m frightened and you should hate that guy over there.’ And that’s what they’re doing.” 

Our Nazi-comparison-based political discourse and the importance of charisma are two of my favorite topics. So, with that in mind, I have to say first of all that Reiner is very wrong to make this comparison. The Tea Party is many things, all of which I believe to be wrong, but I really don’t think they want to commit genocide. The Nazi comparisons are uncalled for and foolish, in my opinion.

Now, as to the possibility of the Tea Party getting a charismatic leader: they already have at least one, possibly two. For a long time, I’ve thought that Sarah Palin is charismatic. And, more recently, it seems like Glenn Beck has emerged as their leader; and if you can think of some reason for that other than charisma, you’ve got me beat.

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I have to admit: when I first heard about Christine O’Donnell, she seemed okay to me. So she was unemployed and spent all her time running for senate. “Good for her,” I thought, “lots of people are unemployed; it doesn’t make you a second-class citizen.”

Then the witch thing was pretty weird, but again; one could argue that at least it shows a sort of open-mindedness which most liberal-leaning people tend not to expect from Republicans. Even in light of all her strange quotes, she still seems like a nice person to me, if a bit odd.

The thing is, (assuming I lived in Delaware, which I don’t) I wouldn’t vote for her based on the fact that she seems like a nice person. Yet, I have to assume that this is why her supporters are voting for her, in the absence of any actual track record.

And then this “I’m you” ad comes out, which I find very interesting indeed. Not because of what she says so much as the design of the ad; it’s not about policy but rather about emphasizing O’Donnell’s “likeability”. (Robert Stacy McCain, a conservative blogger and supporter of O’Donnell, has a good analysis that more or less agrees with mine.)

While it is true that representatives are indeed supposed to represent my interests, I do not believe that they need to be exactly like me to do so. I personally would prefer someone who explained why they were better at certain things than me.

That said, since this is much the same rhetoric used by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and other “Tea Party” leaders, I’m forced to conclude that it appeals to a lot of people.

This all goes back, I think, to the fundamental shift in American politics which I discussed in this post (and which was described much better than I could do by an Anonymous commenter on same post) and this post. People now seem to judge politicians more on their personality, appearance and affability than on their education, philosophy and policies.

I wouldn’t actually go so far as to say that Christine O’Donnell is a remarkably charismatic person (yet), but she is at least the result of the same phenomenon that drives the increasing power of charisma in the political system–it is not anything which she has specifically done that excites people, but rather her very personality.

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Interesting piece by Charles Oakland at Conservatives4Palin about Sarah Palin’s charisma. More specifically, it’s an examination of just what charisma is and why Palin appears to have it. I am, of course, delighted to see other people discussing the phenomenon of charisma, as I have done so myself very often on this blog.

It’s piece worth reading, in my opinion, regardless of your views on either Sarah Palin or Mr. Oakland.* Putting the political aspects of the thing aside, it is a very interesting read, and touches on many of the same points I have in my ongoing blogging about charisma.

Having said all that, I have to confess that I’m shocked that one could write such a long article on the nature of charisma and not mention the work of Max Weber, who is probably the primary reason we have the word charisma today. But quite apart from that, Weber’s writings are indispensable for understanding the concept of charisma. As he described it, charisma is:

“…a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which one is “set apart” from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These as such are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as divine in origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.” 

No question, the religious origins of the word are indeed important, and Oakland is surely right to discuss it. But Weber has studied the implications of charisma with particular regard to politics, and therefore it is surely worth mentioning his efforts in an examination of a political figure’s charisma.

*For those readers who really don’t enjoy reading words of extreme adoration for Sarah Palin, you only have to read the article from the passage beginning: “As some readers know, my interests also include languages and biblical studies….”

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Charles Oakland has posted an interesting piece over at Conservatives4Palin about leadership and the ability to inspire loyalty. He puts particular focus, naturally, on Sarah Palin and how, by virtue of everything she has achieved in her career, she has earned the loyalty of those she leads. It’s well-written, though it is slightly longer than War and Peace. (I kid, I kid. Read it, it’s worth your while.)

However, I think his overall point is wrong. Palin, whatever her accomplishments, does not inspire such loyalty because of them. Rather, she does so by the sheer force of her personality. Charisma, as I’ve said so many times, is the key to her leadership, as it is to President Obama’s as well.

This is not to deny her accomplishments, or Obama’s. Rather, I am saying that their accomplishments are irrelevant. I believe that the nature of charisma is such that they inspire loyalty because of who they are, not what they do or have done.

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Kathleen Parker has an interesting column discussing politicians’ appeals to “small-town values”, in which she criticizes them–Sarah Palin, in particular–for making it seem as if small towns are superior to cities. She writes: “In the politician’s world, small towns are where “real Americans” live, as opposed to all those other people — the vast majority of Americans — who live in urban areas.”

She then details the feeling of community she experienced living on Olive Street in Washington D.C. She sums up thus: “small-town values have nothing to do with small towns.”

Predictably, the website “Conservatives4Palin” has ridiculed Parker, saying that Palin’s new book has done nothing to criticize those who live in urban areas. The critique of Parker laid out by “Conservatives4Palin” attempts to dodge the real issue; they claim that Parker was merely criticizing Palin’s upcoming book, when in fact she was criticizing Palin’s very worldview. Because Parker was writing not of Palin’s book, but rather of her infamous quote from the 2008 campaign:

If you can’t see the video: Palin said, in part: “We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call ‘the Real America’.”

Does this not imply that small towns are superior? “The best of America” seems to me to leave little up to interpretation. Of course, this sparked a firestorm of outrage from the Left at the time; and Palin “clarified” (retracted) her remarks.

I am reminded, whenever anyone alludes to this incident or to Palin’s “elitist” bashing in general, of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, wherein he draws the distinctions between Culture and Civilization. As the Wikipedia article says:

“He [Spengler] contrasts the “true-type” rural born, with the nomadic, traditionless, irreligious, matter-of-fact, clever, unfruitful, and contemptuous-of-the-countryman city dweller. In the cities he sees only the “mob”, not a people, hostile to the traditions that represent Culture (in Spengler’s view these traditions are: nobility, church, privileges, dynasties, convention in art, and limits on scientific knowledge). City dwellers possess cold intelligence that confounds peasant wisdom, a new-fashioned naturalism in attitudes towards sex which are a return to primitive instincts, and a dying inner religiousness.”

This is no surprise; for Spengler was a Nationalist, albeit a very pessimistic and fatalistic one. The Nationalist always seems to find the people of the countryside preferable to those of the city; and hence it is to be expected that Palin feels the same. She, and the Tea Party, are nationalists through and through, as I have said before.

Parker, on the other hand, is not. Her outlook is rather one of cosmopolitanism, (which is Greek, literally, for “Universal City”) the opposite of Nationalism. And thus Palin’s words hold no meaning for her. Nationalists and Cosmopolitans cannot understand one another even when they speak the same language.

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I know a lot of people are thinking it makes her look foolish, but in my opinion, the way Sarah Palin handles the whole “writing-on-hand” thing is absolutely ingenious. Very much the sort of thing humorous touch Ronald Reagan would have used. It’s easy to see how it must appeal to her base, especially compared with the stiff formality of alleged GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. (Who, I just realized, reminds me disturbingly of Henry Leland from Alpha Protocol.)

The old Karl Rove strategy was to attack your opponent’s perceived strength. The Palin strategy is to turn your own perceived weakness into a strength.

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Says the great British atheist: “She [Sarah Palin] has got no charisma of any kind.”

It is said that women become more attractive the more thoroughly drunk you are. Apparently, this isn’t working for Hitchens.

Kidding aside, you have to be crazy if you think Palin has no charisma. I mean, I can understand maybe not seeing the charisma yourself; after all, I can’t see what was so appealing about Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. But I can clearly see that they had charisma. I mean, you just don’t get that many people that excited about you unless you have charisma.

Likewise, I assume lots of conservatives don’t “get” Obama’s charisma, but no one could reasonably deny that he has it. It’s why he’s President and John Kerry isn’t.