Sunday, April 06, 2008
Hillary's Character Problem
We all know how dominant character is for press reporting in the general election. Character trait--as giving an insight into the behavior of the future president--became central after James David Barber's seminal publication "Presidential Character" correctly predicted Nixon's malevolence. Barber argued that if you can correctly identify what type of character traits the candidate has, you can uncover governing tendencies once that person wins office. Thus reporters, attempting to uncover those traits by probing all aspects of a candidate's life--what sort of student he or she was like, what publications or speeches he or she has written or given, etc--in an effort to predict the next Nixon. But Barber was right just once. What personal experiences the candidate has had does not always translate into the type of president he or she may be. But from a journalist's standpoint, talking about background or rowdy behavior is much easier than trying to distill the essence of a candidate's position on health care, international relations, or the budget deficit. And for the candidate, it means that it is more important to gloss over your past and stay free of gaffes for fear that the minor slip of the tongue can become a frame to evaluate your slipping chances to be the next president.
This comes to mind in looking at the problem Hillary has created for herself by embellishing her role in events from her past, and how much it parallels a different Democrat who had a similar problem.
Back in 2000, Al Gore was known to misconstrue some events from his past to the point it became a character problem. This was evaluated in Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman's 2002 book, "The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World" (Oxford University Press). They argued that character was the dominant story of both candidates in the 2000 election--for Bush, it was his intellect that was questioned and for Gore, it was a "dishonest schemer who [presented] a false image to the public in order to advance [his] quest for power."
Thus early embellishments such as his role in bringing the Internet to the public and his grandmother singing the "Look for the Union label" song to him when he as a child would work towards the press framing Gore as saying anything to get elected--even if some things that got attributed to him were things he never said. This of course worked for the Bush campaign because they could use the frame against Gore--such as in the debate when Bush challenged Gore's numbers over Medicare, and claimed "fuzzy math" and said:
But what we learned after the fact was the narrative blinded the press to the facts. First, Gore never said he "invented the Internet." He claimed that when he was in Congress, he took the initiative in creating the Internet, which is true. As a Senator, he led the drive to "democratize" the Internet, which at the time was available only to the government and some universities. And yet, as Jamieson and Waldman show, the claim that he "invented" the Internet showed up in 1700 articles between 1999 and November 2000.
Furthermore, the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" both ran stories deflating claims that Gore supposedly made at an event before High School students that he was responsible for discovering and fixing the "Love Canal" environmental disaster in upstate New York. The High School students called a press conference to challenge both newspapers, arguing that Gore said nothing of the kind. And finally, there was consistently stories that Gore supposedly bragged that he and wife Tipper were the proto-types for the two main characters in the Eric Segal novel, "Love Story." This also was untrue as it pertained to Gore. Instead, a newspaper in Tennessee made this claim--not Gore--and Segal came forward and confirmed that the male character in the novel was partially based on Gore, who was a college chum at Harvard.
Because Gore was never able to get ahead of this narrative, it defined his him and his campaign, which should serve as a warning sign to Mrs. Clinton. She has had back to back news stories where she has had to provide a mea culpa over embellishments. The first occurred when she claimed that, as First Lady, she landed in Bosnia and had to depart the airplane running for cover as bullets rained down upon her and her daughter (and comedian Sinbad). Video, which surfaced quickly after, was the total opposite. And now she apparently relayed a story about a woman who was denied hospital treatment because she did not have insurance, which ultimately cost her not just her life but the life of her unborn baby. It seems that the story, while compelling, is not true. A Clinton spokesperson said:
If Mrs. Clinton were to win the nomination, I wouldn't be surprised to see this narrative in full force during the general election, employed by Senator McCain and Republicans outside his campaign. And it is a narrative that once in force is difficult to combat. As Gore found out during the 2000 campaign, the narrative of a "scheming liar" goes to the heart of who you are, and unlike the narrative to describe Bush (dunce), Gore was not likely to grow out of it. Malevolence is embedded in our DNA.
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This comes to mind in looking at the problem Hillary has created for herself by embellishing her role in events from her past, and how much it parallels a different Democrat who had a similar problem.
Back in 2000, Al Gore was known to misconstrue some events from his past to the point it became a character problem. This was evaluated in Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman's 2002 book, "The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World" (Oxford University Press). They argued that character was the dominant story of both candidates in the 2000 election--for Bush, it was his intellect that was questioned and for Gore, it was a "dishonest schemer who [presented] a false image to the public in order to advance [his] quest for power."
Thus early embellishments such as his role in bringing the Internet to the public and his grandmother singing the "Look for the Union label" song to him when he as a child would work towards the press framing Gore as saying anything to get elected--even if some things that got attributed to him were things he never said. This of course worked for the Bush campaign because they could use the frame against Gore--such as in the debate when Bush challenged Gore's numbers over Medicare, and claimed "fuzzy math" and said:
Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator.
But what we learned after the fact was the narrative blinded the press to the facts. First, Gore never said he "invented the Internet." He claimed that when he was in Congress, he took the initiative in creating the Internet, which is true. As a Senator, he led the drive to "democratize" the Internet, which at the time was available only to the government and some universities. And yet, as Jamieson and Waldman show, the claim that he "invented" the Internet showed up in 1700 articles between 1999 and November 2000.
Furthermore, the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" both ran stories deflating claims that Gore supposedly made at an event before High School students that he was responsible for discovering and fixing the "Love Canal" environmental disaster in upstate New York. The High School students called a press conference to challenge both newspapers, arguing that Gore said nothing of the kind. And finally, there was consistently stories that Gore supposedly bragged that he and wife Tipper were the proto-types for the two main characters in the Eric Segal novel, "Love Story." This also was untrue as it pertained to Gore. Instead, a newspaper in Tennessee made this claim--not Gore--and Segal came forward and confirmed that the male character in the novel was partially based on Gore, who was a college chum at Harvard.
Because Gore was never able to get ahead of this narrative, it defined his him and his campaign, which should serve as a warning sign to Mrs. Clinton. She has had back to back news stories where she has had to provide a mea culpa over embellishments. The first occurred when she claimed that, as First Lady, she landed in Bosnia and had to depart the airplane running for cover as bullets rained down upon her and her daughter (and comedian Sinbad). Video, which surfaced quickly after, was the total opposite. And now she apparently relayed a story about a woman who was denied hospital treatment because she did not have insurance, which ultimately cost her not just her life but the life of her unborn baby. It seems that the story, while compelling, is not true. A Clinton spokesperson said:
It's not always possible to fully vet [these stories], but we try. For example, medical records are confidential. In this case, we tried but weren't able to fully vet the story.
If Mrs. Clinton were to win the nomination, I wouldn't be surprised to see this narrative in full force during the general election, employed by Senator McCain and Republicans outside his campaign. And it is a narrative that once in force is difficult to combat. As Gore found out during the 2000 campaign, the narrative of a "scheming liar" goes to the heart of who you are, and unlike the narrative to describe Bush (dunce), Gore was not likely to grow out of it. Malevolence is embedded in our DNA.
