GOP Debate, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama & the Power of Integrity

Last night I switched on CNN before the Republican ‘debate’ and listened to Anderson Cooper and a couple of other CNN bods discussing the GOP candidates as if they were expecting a real, live, politically authentic debate to happen. I felt a sense of unreality cloud my vision and my mental processes. Lethargy enveloped my body.

After a couple of minutes I switched channels. I had intended to watch the debate but I couldn’t stomach it. This morning, reading the NYT account of it, I’m glad I didn’t. As it happens, The Good Wife had more political heft to it than the GOP reality show.

A good antidote to the circus that would be entertaining if it wasn’t so scary is to read or listen to somebody who actually is engaged intelligently in the political process. Like Bernie Sanders. I still don’t like that he teamed up with Cornell West, or that he said he wouldn’t make the big mistake Obama made, but he’s a good courageous man and his words are such a relief in a world where so many manipulate to get an angle, to grab a bit—or a lot—of power.

I think he’ll win the Presidency, because he’s galvanizing the middle class, just as Barack Obama did. But whether he can continue to galvanize them once he’s in, and especially when everybody realizes that they need to be consistently galvanized, especially for the mid-terms, is anybody’s guess.

I hope he can. But that’s a long way ahead. For now what’s true and clear about him is that at age 74 he’s found his voice; he’s got a lot to say and all of it relevant and that’s the only reason he’s doing so well. Nothing got handed to him on a silver platter. He’s not a billionaire, he doesn’t lust after money. He hasn’t been elevated by anything that’s plastic in this world. He hasn’t pushed other people out the way to get ahead, hasn’t been a bully, has refused to insult other candidates. Hasn’t had clever PR agents with degrees in psychology and mass manipulation paving the way for him.

It’s funny, how easily we fall for the plastic stuff and for what glitters but isn’t gold. But when the real thing comes along we can still recognize it. It makes me think of when I worked for the city orchestra. I used to go to all the concerts, and they always brought in international soloists and conductors whose standard was always brilliant. Sometimes the soloists played note perfect; made no mistakes at all. That in itself was mind boggling and delicious to hear and watch. They’d always get standing ovations.

But one night the soloist was a violinist. I don’t remember his name but the conductor was Victor Yampolsky. Russian, I believe. I also don’t remember what concerto they played but I still remember my heart catching fire.

The music wasn’t note perfect. But it was enthralling, heart-stopping. And the audience leaped to their feet, exploding in applause. I realized kind of viscerally that people can recognize technical brilliance when they see it but aren’t always conscious of how much they crave the pure heart stuff.  But when they get it they respond to it, without everybody necessarily even understanding what has moved them.

It feels like that’s how it is with Bernie Sanders. As a soloist he’s not note-perfect. His appearance isn’t plasticized, he’s not rehearsed or polished in the way he speaks. But he’s getting a standing ovation that is straight from the heart. And people are definitely very consciously responding to the content of his message so I’m not saying there’s no conscious appreciation of that.

But I think there’s something more, something less easily definable. He defies the terrifying culture that is driven by the idea that the better you can con people the more likely you are to be successful. Not to mention the idea that by the time you’re 74 your life is over, Jack, and you’ll have to just roll on down the hill towards a quality of life that’s less and less rewarding, becoming more disempowered and increasingly inarticulate until you fade into sad oblivion.

Bernie Sanders has gained a lot of wisdom in his life and now is exactly the right time and the right age for him to be sharing it. Mazel tov to you Mr. Sanders.

I still feel sad that right in our midst is another man of the same kind of towering integrity, who has laid the foundation for much of what Sanders might be able to achieve as President, whose message is and always has been the same, and who has achieved a huge amount for Americans but who isn’t getting the recognition I think he deserves. 

He's also up against something more sinister than Bernie Sanders will ever have to deal with. 

The overt racism is awful enough but the stuff that flows under the surface is still a very powerful river. It's sinister, it's ugly, it's soul destroying. Yet Obama, and Michelle, have not just remained intact but they've grown in every way despite it. Or because of it. They've remained committed and clear in their hearts, minds and souls. Obama has achieved great things as a President in spite of it. That takes remarkable strength of character. 

But that’s no reason why Sanders shouldn’t get his.

Democrats Getting Their Ducks In A Row For The Mid-Terms With Quality Ads

George Clooney said some time ago that he speaks his mind and if what he says resonates with people he stays. If it doesn’t he moves on. Doesn’t waste time trying to persuade them. Smart guy, I thought. 

But what do you do if you’re a Democrat running for the House or Senate, passionate about your work and your ideals? Strong in your belief that the Democrat way is the better way to govern and that if the whole Congress lands in the hands of the GOP America will be in big trouble. 

You can’t just walk away from all those Republican voters who hate your guts because you’re a Democrat, and who reject you the minute you open your mouth, not willing to listen to anything you have to say. Even if what you have to say can be helpful to them if only they’d open their minds.
It’s hopeless preaching to them or unleashing your passion on them. That’s as good as pressing the remote control yourself for the mile high reinforced steel gates that come clanging round their minds to shut you out. Forget about facts, they don’t want to know. Ditto logic. 

So you tell it with pictures. We can resist the full frontal assault of words relatively easily but it’s much harder to shut out an image that appeals to something in you even if it comes from somebody you hate. Images go straight to the heart, and our capacity to be logical and clever can’t touch that part of us because the heart rules, that’s the truth; we often think the mind does but we’re wrong.  

Think about that ad for the Obama campaign in 2012. It’s clean, easy to watch. There’s no in your face arguing or trying to convince you to vote for Obama. You can see it here http://vimeo.com/55861616 The ad was made by Putnam Partners. It’s a thing of beauty. 

Mark Putnam, who founded the company, has had more than twenty years as a political media consultant and campaign strategist. He has helped elect eight governors, eight U.S. senators, dozens of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and an American president – that last being Barack Obama. 

A lot of people bitch and moan about having political ads thrust at them all the time and I can understand that, especially when the camera-work and editing are terrible, the message is just nasty and it’s all about lies anyway. But Mark Putnam’s ads are gripping, gorgeously shot and fabulously edited. In short, they’re classy, and they either entertain or they move you. He doesn’t script downright lies. And he's dynamite at using sub-text.

Alison Lundergan Grimes’ brilliant ad was done by Mark Putnam as well. You can see it here http://vimeo.com/39214177 She’s running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. A lot of people said at first that she didn’t have a hope in hell of winning against him because he has such a huge war chest and he’s known – though not liked – and she isn’t. But she’s managed to raise some serious money and polls have her closing in. Some even give her the edge now.   

Putnam is making ads for quite a few Democrats these mid-terms, which is heartening; they need all the help they can get. And if millions are being spent on political campaigning it’s good to know at least some of those dollars are going to quality ads and truth-telling.

We the People - Working for Democracy

Four days ago somebody called Eric Roth, in a comment to a Paul Krugman article in the NYT, wrote “…While [Presidents, Congress and the Courts] are all are culpable for horrific crimes… none match the toxic quality of deadly damage done by President Obama [who] within a handful of years… has managed to evoke, arouse, and then kill hope itself. That cementing of cynicism will stand as his one extraordinary and abominable accomplishment, for which he will be rightly reviled throughout history…”

From where I’m standing, I see that Mr. Roth's hope is dead and his cynicism cemented but to say that his opinion is what history will reflect is a bit of an over-reach, given the reality. For the record, my hope for America isn’t diminished, it’s alive and burning. And I think history will appreciate Barack Obama for being one of the greatest American presidents. It’s not even hard to find evidence of his achievements. If I can find it so can anybody else.

It's not unusual to blame somebody else for our cynicism and to project our own feelings onto others we’ll never meet, and also to extrapolate that our experience and conclusions are an accurate illustration of how the entire world works. What’s missing from that picture is our own personal responsibility for where we find ourselves, for keeping hope alive and avoiding the death trap of cynicism. And accepting that how we feel has a lot to do with how much real effort and independent thought we put into understanding the complexity of a situation or a person.

Barack Obama is still the same man, with the same core integrity, humanity, intelligence, courage and profound understanding of social and economic issues and how they are interlinked, who stood in front of millions of Americans and said ‘Yes we can’. He said it wouldn’t be easy, and that he couldn’t do it on his own, but that together a lot could be achieved. 

I think many people didn’t hear that part or if they did they didn’t register what it really meant. The operative word in ‘Yes we can’ was ‘we’. 

It’s easy to lose heart when life is difficult, when you have to work too hard at a crappy job for not enough money to do much more than survive if that. It’s understandable that people need somebody to blame and that their first port of call is politicians. They make the laws, they’re in charge; they should know what they’re doing. 

What’s hard to comprehend is when people point their finger at those politicians who haven’t broken their election campaign promises, who work diligently and even effectively against back-breaking obstacles to improve the lives of those they represent. 

The problem America faces right now isn’t Barack Obama. He hasn’t let anybody down. He’s delivered magnificently. He’s part of the solution, which is there for anybody to see if they choose. The other part is everybody actively participating in democracy, rising above difficult circumstances so hope isn’t replaced with cynicism. Searching for the truth, taking responsibility for ourselves as individuals and as part of a whole. Using our minds to discern the lies. Writing to politicians who represent us, calling them, making their lives a nightmare if they aren’t working towards the betterment of the nation as a whole. And voting of course. There’s that.

At some level the easiest thing in the world is destruction, whether of self or somebody else and the easiest society to live in is one where the ruler dictates everything. But at heart we don’t want that, we want our independence and our power. We revere democracy, where the ruler can’t just do what they want, they have to take everybody’s needs into account. 

So why then does everybody expect President Obama to do it all on his own? He can’t order the House to do his bidding. He can’t force Democrats to the polls. He can’t stop Republican ads that are misrepresentative of the truth. He can’t force people to look further than those ads. He can’t magically wipe away the ill-effects of past administrations; all he can do is work incredibly hard at rebuilding America. And he’s doing that. Effectively. He’s pro environment protection, pro renewable energy, pro equality, pro decent wages, pro middle class, pro tolerance. 

Because of him, America didn't dip as badly as European countries in the recession. Because of him America is less at war - and they don't give you a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing. Obama is one of three sitting Presidents who received that prize. The last one was in 1919.

What more do people want? Another historical achievement? Well, they got that too. He's not the first President to try and accomplish universal health coverage, but he's the first to succeed. On its own that's award-winning stuff. Given the obstacles Republicans have put in his way - how many times have they tried to repeal it? 51? - it's verging on the miraculous. Given that Obama is up against conservatives like the Koch brothers, now worth $100 billion who use their money to control Republican politics and to try and destroy Obama and anything he achieved - forget about verging; it is miraculous.

President Obama is definitely doing his bit. But he can’t secure the Senate in the mid-terms.

It's not 'I the President' it's 'We the people'.