The Charisma Mandate: Charisma, or "cult of personality," in our history

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Follow Me
The Charisma Mandate
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: February 17, 2008


(Estate of Garry Winogrand/Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)
HE HAD IT John F. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 1960.

....On March 4, Roosevelt gave his now famous inaugural address, promising that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Within days he had secured legislation guaranteeing the banks, and on March 12, he took to the radio for the first of his fireside chats....People put money back in, so much that on the first day after the chat, deposits outweighed withdrawals by $10 million. It was the legislation, but mostly, (Biographer Robert) Caro writes: “Their confidence was restored by his confidence. When he smiled on the crisis, it seemed to vanish.” Would we call this a cult of personality?

Today that term is all around Barack Obama — perhaps because there seems so little other way to explain how a first-term senator has managed to dazzle his way to front-runner in the race for the presidency, how he walks on water for so many supporters, and how the mere suggestion that he is, say, mortal, risks vehement objection, or at least exposing the skeptic as deeply uncool. It’s far too soon to know what role Mr. Obama will play in history, let alone whether he can be compared to F.D.R., or, as he is most commonly, to John F. Kennedy. But it is perhaps time to look more closely at this label that attaches to him, and how it has been applied in the past.

The “cult of personality” is used in the pejorative. But recast as a different name — call it charisma — and, as Roosevelt and other examples show, it can be a critical element of politics and its practical cousin, governance. It just can’t be the only element. “Today, attacks on the cult of personality seem really to mean attacks on the ability to make speeches that inspire,” Mr. Caro said in an interview. “But you only have to look at crucial moments in the history of our time to see how crucial it was to have a leader who could inspire, who could rally a nation to a standard, who could infuse a country with confidence, to remind people of the justice of a cause.”

Still, Mr. Caro adds a caveat: “That doesn’t always translate into a great presidency.”...

***

By any definition, the charismatic leader emerges at a time of crisis or national yearning, and perhaps a vacuum in that nation’s institutions....That might well describe the climate Obama supporters feel now. Alan Wolfe, the director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Political Life at Boston College, says Mr. Obama is simply — understandably — making an emotional appeal to those yearnings. “Politics is about policy, but it’s also about giving people some kind of sense of participating in a common venture with their fellow citizens,” Mr. Wolfe said. Philosophers call it “civil religion,” using the language of religion and elevation to talk about your country. A classic example is Ronald Reagan’s summoning of the “city on a hill.” That, Professor Wolfe said, was the parallel Mr. Obama was hinting at when he talked about Reagan as a transformative leader. “A soft civil religion is something our country desperately needs at a time of deep partisanship,” Mr. Wolfe said. “He wants to go back to the Reagan years as a Democrat, with Democratic policies.”

But others see in this same language a more cynical cult of personality....

***

Whether and how charisma translates into legislative action is the critical question. It remained unclear when Kennedy died whether he would have been able to get through the civil rights legislation forced through by Johnson, who inherited Kennedy’s office but never his cool....Ideally, (Doris Kearns) Goodwin said, you’d have the combination of experience and charisma, “if you could mush Clinton and Obama together as one person.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/weekinreview/17zernike.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

[cbayer]

1. Just finished reading this in the paper.

What a great piece. Thanks to you for reprinting it. Charisma can be such a powerful force, both for good and evil. Or it can just be squandered.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. And that's a wise statement of your own, cbayer. nt

[babylonsister]

3. Rec'd with thanks! Think how far that charisma might get Obama

when dealing with foreign countries, or even rethugs. You get more bees with honey, my sainted mother always told me.

[zabet]

4. The kool aid drinking cult meme was started by

Obama's campaign....in 2004!!!

The Obama Juice
By Ted McClelland
June 4, 2004

BARACK OBAMA'S POLITICAL director calls it "drinking the juice." Once campaign volunteers "start drinking the Obama juice," Dan Shoman told the New Yorker, "you can't find enough for them to do."

Political writers are drinking the Obama juice, too, and they've gotten so drunk on the Senate candidate they're shouting over each other to offer the most obsequious toast. No Chicago pol has heard this kind of flattery since an alderman compared Richard J. Daley to Jesus Christ.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/040604/