Lorie Byrd invited me and other local bloggers to a gubernatorial campaign event for Fred Smith. We bloggers got free admission to this fundraiser and were treated like bigwigs. In fact, real bigwigs were locked out of Senator Smith's home while he talked to us bloggers. It was a real treat.
By now you know that I usually feel like a kid at the grown-ups' table when it comes to these blog events. I'm just happy to be taken seriously at all, especially since my blog has basically devolved into talking about knitted octopi and...um...other uninteresting crap. I like using my blog to talk about my opinions and values as much as the next person, but I am not so in touch with the actual implementation of policy, especially at the local level. I am rather a dunce at that sort of thing. Plus, with moving around every year or so, I've never really participated in local politics. So Wednesday when I was surrounded by bloggers asking Sen. Smith good questions about his campaign, I sure felt like I didn't belong. But I did what I think one should do in such situations: shut the hell up and let the smart people talk.
After I listened to Sen. Smith talk about his ideas and experience, my mind couldn't help but wander to what a strange thing politics is. I have never met a politician before, so I couldn't help but analyze the situation. Sen. Smith probably can't ever just have a normal conversation with people. He must constantly expect questions about policies and projects. He has to carefully think about every single thing he says. I can look like an inexperienced jackass in his home, but he sure can't. The whole idea seems so weird to me. He's supposed to be prepared and infallible, seven days a week.
And yet, he doesn't have that Bill Clinton vibe. That's what I normally think of when I imagine the archetypical politician, the selling-ice-to-an-Eskimo type of guy. Fred Smith didn't have a toothy grin and a golly-shucks attitude. I personally thought he was intimidating. I didn't feel at ease on that sofa in his living room, and I wondered why I was feeling so stupid sitting there. And then I remembered something: I usually feel stupid in the company of great men.
Likeability is a big factor in politics. As I sat there with Fred Smith, I realized it shouldn't be. Whether or not you like someone has no bearing on how effective he'd be as governor. He doesn't have to be dripping with honey if his ideas are sound. It's better to have a no-nonsense man in charge than a used car salesman type. I'd rather have him have a plan for the state than be able to effectively kiss a baby. And most of his ideas and the vision he lays out on his website seem pretty sound. I like his stuff. I like that he said that the government should be "good stewards of my money." I like that he said he wants to run for office as a businessman, as if he's marketing a product. More things in government should be run like a business, in my opinion, where results count more than intentions do.
I'm looking forward to hearing more about Fred Smith.
Sen. Smith's guest of honor for the evening was Lee Greenwood. I got to meet him and talk to him a little about my husband's service. (More evidence that people still think I'm a teenager: when he heard I was a military family, Lee Greenwood asked me how long my father has been in.) I got to tell him about how we wanted to perform a rendition of his "God Bless the USA" in a talent show when I studied in France but the school wouldn't let us because they said it was jingoistic. Stupid France. Mr. Greenwood was super nice in person and a lot of fun in the concert he gave after the meet and greet. He even made a mention of my husband and me during his concert, which was such a nice thing to do. When he says he supports the troops, he darn sure means it.
It was so nice to be invited to this campaign event. I'm always excited to be surrounded by fellow right-wingers! And I think it's really cool that Sen. Smith reached out to bloggers and gave us the royal treatment. I look forward to following his campaign.
More recaps of the night from the other bloggers:
Inner Banks Eagle covers the Blogger Conference, the reception in Fred Smith's home (complete with photo of me and Mrs. Smith!) and the Lee Greenwood concert
Red Clay Citizen
Spinning the World in the Right Direction
Election Projection
What you said here was SO true, Sarah, and something I think we keep forgetting:
"I didn't feel at ease on that sofa in his living room, and I wondered why I was feeling so stupid sitting there. And then I remembered something: I usually feel stupid in the company of great men. Likeability is a big factor in politics. As I sat there with Fred Smith, I realized it shouldn't be."
This is not a popularity contest - or at least, it shouldn't be. At the same time, though, for myself I would pay attention to feelings of not liking a candidate, if only to figure out why. The answer to THAT question can be painfully enlightening, as well. . . .
So cool you got the chance to sit in on something like that - I certainly appreciate the - for me - important insight. I think I'm going to remember that.
Posted by: prophet at September 28, 2007 09:59 AMIt really had nothing to do with Fred Smith why I felt uncomfortable. I was unprepared to really delve into policy questions. And he was in Politician Mode, ready to answer tough questions from bloggers just like he does from other media. Later when he was just mingling and talking to folks, he seemed nice and approachable. But really, so what if he's not. You don't have to be approachable to have the right answers.
Posted by: Sarah at September 28, 2007 12:01 PM"You don't have to be approachable to have the right answers."
True. But approachability helps to propagate the right answer. And unfortunately, some people equate what they perceive as "aloofness" with "not having anything worth sharing" (i.e., not having the right answer).
(None of this is a comment on Fred Smith, about whom I know nothing.)
Posted by: Amritas at September 28, 2007 02:35 PMI was at the blogger conference both this year and last and Sarah is right about Fred being all business when taking questions from the media and talking about policy. I was a little intimidated myself last year when listening to some of the other bloggers asking questions about local politics, which I did not follow closely then.
She is also right about him being friendly and approachable when not in that press conference setting though. I would encourage anyone in NC to go to one of his BBQs when he gets to your county. He does not leave until he has spoken to everyone who wants to talk to him (which is typically everyone in attendance) and signed every book. Both in the book and from county to county in what will amount to over 100 BBQs, he is putting himself out there and inviting people to decide whether or not he is what they want in a governor. Everyone I have talked to has liked what they have seen.
Posted by: Lorie at September 28, 2007 06:38 PMI guess the part I find interesting is just how important we feel the approachability - 'likeability' - quotient is in our elected officials. It's a delicate balance, isn't it? On the one hand, our elected representative ought to be approachable by us - the electers. But on another level, he ought not to be concerned with popularity polls or with trying to curry public favor, because pubic "opinion" is as changeable as the wind.
Abraham Lincoln comes to mind: he was eminently approachable, yet unswerving as straight steel.
The fact of the matter is that the President of the United States will likely not be our close personal friend. It's a physical - and real - impossibility to be close friends with every American citizen. Anything that leads us to believe he is - or will be - our "friend" is show-bis. (and if I try to spell that with a zee, it rejects this comment for "questionable content"?)
Anyway: Why do we ask that of our prospective President?
Posted by: prophet at September 30, 2007 12:42 PMprophet,
"he ought not to be concerned with popularity polls or with trying to curry public favor"
I agree. I would add another reason: Popularity has no inherent value. The majority can be right or wrong. A leader is supposed to do what's right. (Yes, I realize that the definition of 'right' is up for grabs ...)
"unswerving as straight steel"
I also see this quality as lacking inherent value. Being unswerving is not a virtue if you insist on driving straight off a cliff. :) I see the ideal leader as adaptable, which isn't the same as wishy-washy.
Why do we demand 'likability' from our leaders? Good question. I think it's because we've evolved to deal with people on a personal level.
Until very recently in human history (i.e., the last few millennia), there was no concept of VIPs far, far away from you. In caveman times, the chief of your tribe was somebody you saw every day. Until *extremely* recently, distant VIPs were just vague notions in people's heads. The only people anyone ever saw were the people in their immediate village. The king was Some Guy Far, Far Away. People probably never even saw a painting of the guy. There were no newspapers, no photography, no video, no YouTube.
But now the mass media allow us to indulge in the illusion of 'knowing' people. Although the celebs have no idea we exist, we not only know that they exist, but can see and hear every detail of their public lives (and receive reports alleging what they do in private). We're wired to react to people we 'know', and we feel we 'know' those strangers. And we want these 'familiar' strangers to be 'likable'.
Posted by: Amritas at October 1, 2007 12:31 AMGranted, Amritas, foolish inflexibility in the name of integrity would not be a virtue to aspire to. And I don't think you implied that I did. . . It's funny though, because I think that we are VERY FAR indeed away from the danger of foolishly sticking to a course of action. If we are in danger of heading off a cliff, it may very well be because we DON'T stick to anything! We don't do anything long enough to see what good it does. We are swayed from one extreme to the other, at the whiff of the slightest change in "public opinion".
C.S. Lewis put it well in Screwtape Letters
The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all runing about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiam at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm
We're like a bunch of foolish chickens, running about aimlessly.
Perhaps "unswerving straight steel" may indeed be seen as a virtue if we're talking about tracks to run on. It is not so good an image if we're talking about how we conduct our relationships. I think that what I was trying to convey was a sense of personal integrity - something that holds and does not change at a whim - even as it takes people and circumstances into account. I guess it's the old 'ends' versus 'means' debate, eh?
Posted by: prophet at October 1, 2007 01:56 PMSarah, it's very cool that you were invited to this event. Yay for you! Who knows where this will next lead you? You've been in a book, you've attended a getting-to-know-you event, what's next? Lovely picture of you, by the way :)
Kate
prophet,
No argument from me at all. It looks like we want the same things from our leaders. I was using the term "wishy-washy" to refer to what you were criticizing in your most recent post: fluctuating by following fashion.
Of course, the point at which changing one's mind becomes "adaptable" (what you describe as "people and circumstances into account") as opposed to "wishy-washy" (what you describe as "running about aimlessly") is open to debate. Everyone wants "integrity" but not everyone *perceives* "integrity" in the same person.
Suppose I change my mind about issue X: my view is now A instead of B. And it turns out that 51% of the public believe in B instead of A.
If you are my ally, you will say that I mean it when I claim I considered the evidence and came to the right conclusion.
If you are my foe, you will brand me as an appeaser - a panderer.
Without more details, what conclusion can you rightfully draw from the correlation between my new view and the public view? None, I'd say. These beliefs about me say more about others' tribal loyalties than they say about my integrity.
But add context. Suppose it turns out I have a long history of jumping on bandwagons. Then a pattern becomes clear: I'm a follower, not a leader.
Followers are dangerous, because reality is not a democracy. If the majority believes something that is not true, or that is outright dangerous, and a 'leader' follows this just to get votes, that person not only has no integrity, but is also doing the public a disservice. If everyone in a theater believes the theater isn't on fire, and a 'leader' goes along with this instead of shouting, "Let's get outta here!" he's won the election, but he'll 'lead' his constituents to their deaths.
Posted by: Amritas at October 1, 2007 10:25 PM"reality is not a democracy."
By this I meant to say that majority belief does not make something true. A leader should pursue truth and convince others to join him in that pursuit.
Posted by: Amritas at October 1, 2007 10:28 PMClarification #2 (sorry, Sarah):
"If everyone in a theater believes the theater isn't on fire, and a 'leader' goes along with this instead of shouting, 'Let's get outta here!' he's won the election, but he'll 'lead' his constituents to their deaths."
This should read, "If everyone in a burning theater believes the theater isn't on fire ..."