The Difference Between Hill, BO, McCain & Huck
by Jean Carnahan

Hillary is prose, but Obama is poetry, or so suggested the journalist E. J. Dionne. 

Obama floats from stage to stage, inspiring audiences with his style and substance while Hillary points with nostalgia to the closing years of the last century.  In a skillful display of one-upmanship, Obama captures the American spirit, often referring to himself as a “skinny kid with a funny name,” clinging to the “audacity of hope.” 

By contrast, the New York senator is dotting each “i” and crossing each “t”, hoping to turn in a perfect policy paper for the nation to grade.  In an attempt to reinforce her experience, Sen. Clinton uses the word “I” more often than her opponent, who seems to prefer the use of “we.”  Compare the appeal of her declaring forcefully: “I will be ready from day one” with a collective “Yes, we can” reverberating from an audience of 20,000 people. 

But what about McCain and Huckabee?  Using the same analogy, I would say that Huck is sermon while McCain is saga.  Like poetry and prose, they both have the power to arouse.  While McCain spotlights his military and legislative valor, Huck excites his audiences with pithy one liners and religious fervor.  The Baptist minister knows how to trigger emotional buttons and is well-versed in stirring souls both in the pew and the political arena.

Watching candidates recount their qualifications and ability to deliver, I think of what happened to Lyndon Johnson during a whistle stop campaign where he spoke to audiences from the back of a train.  Before arriving in Culpepper, Virginia,  Johnson’s staff briefed him on the many things he had done for the town over the years, which the president happily recounted to his audience.

 Following his lengthy remarks and as the train pulled from the station, one fellow in the audience cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: “Sure, you did all that, but what have you done for Culpepper lately?”

We might think that campaigns are about the past or even the future, but more often they are about the present.  Our political response is a snapshot of our feelings here and now.  For the moment, it seems, America is focused on the “skinny kid with the funny name.”