The national conventions this summer broke new ground in the ways of ideological cowardice and political myopia. The Democrats, shamelessly and repetitively exploited their candidate’s decorated Vietnam service, to paint themselves as stronger on defense than their counterparts, the Republicans. Who, night after night sent some of their most moderate party members to the podium during the prime-time slots. One could sense an almost overpowering fear between both parties, terrified of stepping on the toes of those oh-so-unpredictable swing voters. As a result, the bulk of the conventions – varying only slightly in degree among parties – were designed to circumvent the major policy questions of our time (particularly and crucially with regard to the situation in Iraq), instead taking shelter behind petty mockery, the empty rhetoric of “values”, and the red herring of “leadership.”
The first two of these I feel have been, for the most part, received, as they ought to be. However, the particularly excessive focus on leadership during the Republican National Convention appears to have resulted in the word in question being widely accepted as a real and tangible issue, one worthy of major coverage. Particularly alarming to me was a recent Washington Post online poll, found in the wake of that more recent convention, which asked readers which of the two leading candidates they felt best fit the description “strong leader.”
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani best summed up the current Republican attitude toward leadership during the convention. In a speech littered with intermittent usage of the word, or a variant thereof, the former New York mayor proudly proclaimed, “In choosing a president, we really don’t choose just a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or a liberal. We choose a leader. And in times of war and danger, as we’re now in, Americans should put leadership at the core of their decision.”
The incumbent, Giuliani further claimed, possesses, “the courage of his convictions” – a slightly more refined version of the popular view that Bush, love him or hate him, “sticks to his guns” no matter what the odds are and no matter how harsh the criticisms may be.
Leadership itself is a neutral term with no discernable positive or negative connotation. One can be an excellent leader, the greatest in history even, and still end up being a horrible monster, one we would loath to associate ourselves with. Take Hitler or Mussolini, for example. Pick any fascist, any brutally authoritarian dictator from the rogue’s gallery of history, and there you are sure to find some of the most gifted “leaders” ever to walk the earth, “sticking to their guns” and resisting all critics until the very end, often taking millions with them.
Osama bin Laden, to cite a contemporary example, is probably one of the most brilliant leaders of the modern world. Bin Laden too possesses that same stubborn moral clarity championed by Giuliani, guiding his followers on a clear and coherent direction toward a certain and consistent set of goals.
The point here is that absent a desirable policy direction, the word “leadership” is entirely meaningless. For Giuliani and the other RNC speakers to focus so intensely on a personality trait that is dependent on policy to be adequately judged (and thus vacuous on its own) means that the Republicans are confident their audience has already been won over to the rightness of their ideology – that, or John Kerry and John Edwards are right, and the Republicans can’t talk about policy because their policies are all failed ones.
Further, when Giuliani instructs the electorate that their mission in November is to pick a leader, and not a platform, he is assuming that the voters have already concluded there is no substantial difference between the views of the left and the views of the right. While this may be true to a large extent in mainstream discourse, such a blatant attempt to blur the lines between the stark opposites of conservatism and liberalism should be considered a gross insult to the voters’ intellect (not to mention to respective adherents of either persuasion).
As one of his party’s most liberal members, (abortion rights, pro-gun regulation, pro-civil unions for same-sex couples), mayor Giuliani might very well hold the same distorted view of American politics he recently put forth at the RNC. Whether or not this is true, Americans would do well to notice just how scared the two parties are to speak freely of their core views. And should also keep in mind that there are actual ideas beneath the surface that, if admitted to the White House, could and inevitably will yield actual results.
Mike Sances is a Collegian columnist.
