As "Mayor Pete" Shows, Some Democrats Just Keep Looking For JFK

[brooklynite]

Honest Graft (blog)

Kennedyesque politicians are youthful, personable, and confident. They compensate for their relative inexperience with well-hyped intellectual credentials: Ivy League diplomas, pet policy passions, authorship of "serious" books, public displays of erudition. Their bouts of earnestness are balanced by expressions of humor and self-awareness. They are masters of the rhetoric of idealistic generalities, leading audiences to find them charismatic or even inspirational, but they don't insist on doctrinal purity when it comes to the details. Indeed, the hope they offer—and "hope" is often what they explicitly promise—is that electing them will allow the nation to shed its messy ideological and partisan conflicts, progressing unencumbered into a new, brighter era of reason, civility, and mutual understanding. (One of the reasons why the Kennedy style doesn't have the same appeal within the Republican Party is that in the Republican version of utopia, political enemies are simply defeated, not converted.)

For decades, Democratic politicians with the capacity to do so have adapted themselves to the Kennedy model. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both found considerable success in Democratic presidential primaries by emulating Kennedy's approach, and even losing candidates like Gary Hart (1984) and John Edwards (2004) rode elements of the Kennedy persona to advance further in the nomination process than their other political virtues would likely have carried them. The fact that Clinton and Obama are the only post-JFK Democrats to be elected twice to the presidency reinforces the perception among electability-minded partisans that the Kennedy style can offer a strategic advantage that persists after the primaries are over.

There are other recurrent archetypes in Democratic politics: the scrappy pugilist (Harry Truman, Howard Dean, Bernie Sanders); the just-the-facts technocrat (Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, Paul Tsongas); the political veteran who can work the levers of power (Lyndon Johnson, Walter Mondale, Hillary Clinton). But it's hard to imagine any of these other profiles being sufficient to launch a midwestern mayor into presidential contention against a raft of better-situated opponents. Buttigieg's electoral chances will depend on his ability to keep this precious persona intact as he weathers the added scrutiny that will inevitably follow his recent bump in the polls.

[leftofcool]

1. Guilty

The qualities of JFK are the exact ones I look for in any candidate.

[yaesu]

2. I don't look for past presidents in candidates, just doesn't matter to me, everyones different

unique so I don't compare, just go on what their policies are & if they can dance to the Footloose soundtrack,
jk about the dancing part

[applegrove]

3. You could call Pete Teddy Roosevelt Esque, not afraid of rethinking things

Last edited Thu Apr 25, 2019, 05:50 PM - Edit history (3)

Damned those in power and the torpedoes.

[PatSeg]

4. I've been guilty of that a few times,

but then I realized there was only one FDR or JFK or RFK. We don't need "another" anything. Each leader is unique to their own time and place. It is okay to hope for another inspiring or transformation leader, but we have to be careful not to idolize our leaders and overlook their individual strengths and experiences. We could easily end up with a weak imitation, while overlooking some really competent and capable leaders.

A dynamic communicator on the stump might not necessarily have the qualities necessary for the complex job of President of the United States. Germany's Angela Merkel has been called the most powerful woman in the world and the de facto leader of the European Union. She has been Chancellor of Germany since 2005, yet I cannot imagine her being elected president in the U.S., because American voters tend to value personality and charisma over competence and experience. I suppose it is not surprising that we ended up with a reality TV star in the White House.

[Yavin4]

5. THE biggest flaw in this approach is that it doesn't translate to other Dem candidates

In off year elections, it's hard for other Dems running for office to run on the charisma of the president.

[Amimnoch]

6. I love Buttigieg, but at the end of the day, all that matters to me:

Making enough red go blue to hit 270.