A Thousand Times No

In his blog at Psychology Today, psychiatrist Peter Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac and several other books, muses on how the American electorate seems to hold Democrats and Republicans to different standards of emotional intelligence. A self-professed northeastern liberal, Kramer writes of the GOP:

That party has a different response to stiffness and insincerity in candidates—the presence of those traits seems to ‘energize the base.’ Better perhaps to say: while awkwardness is never an asset, at the presidential level it’s death for Democrats in a way that it’s not for Republicans.

Since Kramer’s books have been filled with astute, compassionate explorations of how we as a society choose to approach questions of mind and psyche, it’s tempting to take this observation as an invitation to plumb whatever lurks in the hidden hearts of Democrats. But I think the underpinnings of this phenomenon lie elsewhere — in fact, I don’t think the explanation lies with people who identify strongly as Democrats at all. To paraphrase political strategist James Carville, “It’s the swing voters, stupid.”

Dyed-in-the-wool Democrats will pull the lever for their party’s chosen candidate, come rain or come shine. But those party loyalists do not constitute a clear majority of the American electorate. For a Democratic presidential candidate to be voted into office, he or she must to sway enough of the undecided center to capture the White House.

Okay, take a step back and look at what every Democrat is standing on during the general election — the party platform. For generations now, the Democratic platform has been about helping the less fortunate and providing access and opportunity to people who very well may not look like you, live like you, or live anywhere near you. Energizing the swing vote means that you need to persuade people to act against their own short-term and immediate self-interests, to delay gratification in support of generational gains, and to work on behalf of the needs of others.

Selling the Democratic platform straight down the middle is selling self-sacrifice. Period.

If a Democratic candidate hasn’t got charm, charisma, and enough human warmth to make a camera lens melt, that’s going to go over like a lead balloon. It’s no coincidence that the most iconic Democrats (FDR, JFK) have not only been personable, but have also managed to combine being patrician and populist at the same time. The American electorate has a history of electing, then later pillorying, Democrats who don’t possess that patrician veneer — LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. But the patricians get boulevards and stadiums named in their honor, here and abroad.

Why? Knocking a home run out of the park with the Democratic agenda demands that the candidate embody a very American form of noblesse oblige: measuring our richness in life not by the accumulation of material possessions, but by how much we can give of ourselves to other people. A Democratic president cannot hope to successfully promote an agenda that requires altruistic sacrifices from the citizenry unless he or she appears to be free from, and well above, self-promotion and striving for personal gain.

When the most fortunate among us — those blessed with the greatest wealth, station, or talent at birth — choose to throw in their lot with everyone else at the expense of their own personal comfort, it seems petty, self-serving, and déclassé for the rest of us to do otherwise. The British royal family knew this by heart during the Blitz in WWII, and the Democrats would do well to remember it in this election year.

Charisma is not a dirty word: when you’re a Democrat, it’s a job requirement. Don’t leave home, or try to reframe public discourse, without it.