NY Times on "The Cult of Personality"

[kpete]

NY Times on "The Cult of Personality"
By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Sun Feb 17, 2008 at 01:13:16 AM EST

The Times constrasts "the cult of personality" with charisma. It's a long article. Here are the quotes I took from it:

I'll give the first round to the challenger, Barack Obama:

"From the day Mr. Obama announced his candidacy, he has billed it as a movement, and himself as the agent of generational change. He has mocked his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for accusing him of raising “false hopes.” “We don’t need leaders who are telling us what we cannot do,” he said in New Hampshire. “We need a president who can tell us what we can do! What we can accomplish! Where we can take this country!”

Next round goes to Sean Willnetz, a Princeton Historian and friend of Hillary's, who says:

"What is troubling about the campaign is that it’s gone beyond hope and change to redemption,” said Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton (and a longtime friend of the Clintons). “It’s posing as a figure who is the one person who will redeem our politics. And what I fear is, that ends up promising more from politics than politics can deliver.”

“

...........................

According to Doris Kearns,

Ideally, Ms. Goodwin said, you’d have the combination of experience and charisma, “if you could mush Clinton and Obama together as one person.”

more at:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/2/17/21316/3316
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/weekinreview/17zernike.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=us

[Angela Shelley]

1. The citizens must deliver, and they need "hope" to do so!

[rug]

2. Yes, clearly we can do nothing unless we are inspired.

[boston bean]

3. I trudge off to work every single morning, not totally inspired, but it does get results. nt

[rug]

4. Precisely.

[dailykoff]

5. I can't wait for President Obama to yank this rag off the gravy train

ditto CNN and all the other mockingbirds.

[kurth]

6. "Volunteers are urged to avoid talking about policy to potential voters,

and instead tell of how they “came” to Mr. Obama."

[joeybee12]

7. Sean Willetz nails it...

...the nature of politics is the nature of politics...Obama-ites think the world is gonna change overnight...ain't gonna happen...I'm not saying change doesn't happen...but throughout history it has happened at a slow pace...that's the way it's always gonna be...to think the political process will be redeemed by BO is sheer lunacy, not hope.

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. I'm sorry, but being boring does not equal being experienced

and I'm tired of people saying 'if we could only combine Clinton and Obama because he's so charismatic and she's so experienced.'

No, no she isn't.

She's got a whopping FOUR years on him in the senate, and much much less overall legislative experience and campaigning experience.

Obama has experience and charisma and vision.

Clinton has a wedding ring, a name, and a machine behind her.

[ProSense]

9. NYT title: The Charisma Mandate

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.”

A "critical element," and Obama has got it and much more: “Don’t be fooled by this talk about speeches versus solutions.”