James Carville: Daddy, tell me, what exactly is a derivative?

[babylonsister]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f21ae14-198a-11de-9d34-0000779fd2ac.html

Daddy, tell me, what exactly is a derivative?

By James Carville

Published: March 25 2009 22:39 | Last updated: March 25 2009 22:39


If nature abhors a vacuum, politics abhors complexity. There has been much discussion and some angst in the press lately about President Barack Obama’s supposed communication breakdown during the financial crisis. The breathless reports convey the impression that he has lost his communication skills altogether. One headline admonished: “Obama struggles as communicator.”

Watching the staple Sunday-morning television shows, you would have thought that the assembled pontificators had a sense of nostalgia for the days of the campaign, when they admitted to feeling “shivers” up their legs when they listened to him, or soaked up the crowds of 50,000 swaying happily to his moving speeches about change we can believe in.

Last week, for example, the Politico wrote: “To Obama’s dismay, he is learning that successful presidential communications is only in part — often a fairly small part — about personal eloquence. It requires harnessing his words to a consistent strategy of public education.” Well, yes. But has Mr Obama really lost some of his skill as a communicator? I think not. He is every bit the master communicator he was in his heyday of early 2008.

The essential problem is not how good a communicator he is but the complexity of what he has to communicate. We can argue, ad nauseam, about which forum Mr Obama should use to level with the American people. Should it be on 60 Minutes or Jay Leno? Should he do fireside chats at the White House or predictions for the college sports season on ESPN? But that does not change what he has to communicate.

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To be fair, I thought Mr Obama did a good job on Jay Leno explaining the AIG situation until he used the word “leverage” (translation for laymen: financial shovel that people use to dig themselves into a deeper hole), a term that escapes 97 per cent of the public. It is not that Mr Obama is not communicating as well; it is that what he is communicating is too complex to reduce to simple words, especially when in the last 40 years, the length of a TV soundbite has dropped by 40 seconds. That being said, try this experiment. Contact an engineer and ask him what a bridge is. Or contact a doctor and ask what surgery is. Then walk into your local bank and ask your friendly banker what a derivative is.

Good luck, Mr President.