Posted on 01/24/2008 7:38:14 AM PST by shrinkermd
...Way back in April, four months into the November 2008 presidential campaign, the Washington Post announced, "There are things in politics that money can't buy, and chief among them is the quality of authenticity." The subject was Mitt Romney, and ever since, this campaign has had a thing for authenticity. If John McCain is the beaming victor the evening of Nov. 4, he should thank Mr. Romney.
Political authenticity isn't easy to define. Some would say the words are mutually exclusive. Others say that authenticity is a matter of whether a politician operates out of something real inside or is making his politics up as he goes along. Perhaps the easiest test for authenticity in an electorate of more than one million voters is the one Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart applied to hard-core pornography: "I know it when I see it."
Authenticity is a high bar for most politicians. Americans consider the trait so rare that once found, they carve the hero's face into the side of a mountain or name national holidays after them. It is a measure of Barack Obama's high aspirations that this past Sunday, the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he delivered a homily at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Most voters think of themselves as real people. So they press the template of their own authenticity against the candidates, who then try to campaign as "real" people when their career choice has made them mercurial and inconstant. No one objects to the phrase, "political chameleon."
One almost feels sorry for the 13 or 14 pols who've been running for the presidency this year. Keeping the authenticity balloon afloat is hard work. For starters, the press is obsessed with the phenomenon...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
One of the hardest things to do is to make contact via TV or radio. It is the first, and often the only thing, people judge you on.
When you speak to another your gaze, persona and effort is first focused on making contact and determining whether that person is listening and responding to you with all their senses.
When it comes to TV the person wanting to make contact must look at the audience, focus on a particular (imagined) person and speak slowly and distinctly but with some passion or feeling in the voice and manner.
This is different than giving a stump speech, although I note the real masters of stump speeches use about the same technique.
Like it or not Bill Clinton makes contact with the audiences and Mitt Romney does not. If I were a Mitt helper I would insist he focus on a particular person, and especially slow down his speech, let it inflect and have him respond naturally in his ordinary manner.
Part of life is learning you cannot script or control some things. All you can do is throw the ball to them. Once they see the ball they will make the correct move to catch it. Similarly, if you can get Mitt to slow down, make contact and directly relate to the audience the issue of "authenticity" will fade into background from its present foreground.
“The press’s tuning forks revered the senator’s maverick authenticity until he got too close to George Bush’s unpopular war. That put his campaign into a tailspin last year.”
So Henninger admits that the left-leaning press is responsible for how well a candidate does? I’ll give him a clue, however. It wasn’t McCain’s closeness to “President Bush’s war” that derailed his campaign last year.
Authenticity is not a trait defined simply by whether or not you act or look like you care. It is also based on past deeds.
However, I will agree with you that Romney does need to slow his speech down. He sounds like he has memorized everything and that gives us a sense of a lack of true conviction.
Well, I guess that's one way to pull off that whole "authentic" thing.
Well, let’s see. He changed his hair, now applies lip gloss, and even tried speaking off the back of a truck. What’s next? Tee shirt and jeans?
If you can fake authenticity, you’ve got it made.
Romney will never pass that test any more than Rooty will.
He was so uncomfortable is was embarrassing.
Saying stupid things like ‘who let the dogs out’ and ‘bling-bling’ to black people.
He must think all blacks rap and like bling bling!
It was pathetic.
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