The Invisible Primary Part 2: An Authentic Voice

In first post of this series I voiced my concern that the new Primary Schedule could allow the weakest of candidates to dominate. The nomination might go to a person who can't connect with a true majority of the American people. Today we have a media driven event,  'The Invisible Primary', already in play.

Look at the recent results of early primary determination of the nominee:

Vice President Al Gore was a great VP. He has been an outstanding advocate for the environment. Yet on the campaign trail there was an obvious disconnect between what we were told was his private self and his public self. We were told that in private he was funny, had no problem converting others to his point of view and was generally a great guy to be around.

None of that consistently translated to the campaign. We saw glimpses of that 'authentic' self but they were fleeting. Even with that handicap we Democrats know Al Gore really did win that election only to have it taken away.

Today, since he has renounced any Presidential ambitions, I believe we see the real Al Gore. He is impassioned, eloquent and funny. This is the man that should have been on the campaign trail. Think of how many votes might have been shifted if the Self we see today had been on the Campaign Trail.

John Kerry had similar problems. His communication problems were more based around an upper class upbringing and a natural inclination towards concilation rather than confrontation. Again in private he was, and is, funny, empathetic.  According to friends of mine who know the Senator very well, in private he is a great guy.

As soon as he made up his mind to renounce his presidential ambitions he gave one of the most eloquent speeches in recent memory on the Senate floor. His  Public and Private Selves seemed to be reconciled and he spoke with power of an Authentic Voice. Other Senators were moved to emotional responses.

This was the John Kerry we needed on the campaign trail to dethrone The Decider.

The people we see today, the Real Al Gore and the Real John Kerry, were the candidates we needed in 2000 and 2004. There can be no question about that reality. These people would have won decisively.

Were either of them bad choices? No. They each came close to the White House. But in any campaign second place means nothing.

Remember, politics is a zero sum game. our second place finishes have resulted in a country screwed to the wall.

Politics is an adult game with potentially horrific consequencees. Today we need the most Authentic nominee to give us the leadership, planning and execution necessary to overcome problem after national problem.

So what would have happened if we had the time to truly see in 2000 and 2004 their Authentic Self, or lack of it, in a longer primary? Would we have discovered their apparent inability to reconcil their private and public selves? Is it possible that we would have made another choice?

One dictionary defines 'reconcile' as : to make consistent or congruous   <reconcile an idea with reality>

The PEW foundation released a survey this weekend that shows the majority of Americans wanted 'honesty' above all else.  I don't think that survey was worded very well and 'honesty', an  abiguous term at best, was one of few choices.

I would say that the people want Authenticity. Authenticity will generate a Candidate Voice that has reconciled internal, external, public and private selves...or show that the Political Self is a result of a shallow 'created' self and that there is no Authentic Self visible.

Either outcome is equally valuable in making a Candidate choice.

[As an aside:To be effective I also believe this Candidate Voice, this Authentic Voice, has to be backed with experience and well-defined plans for the issues of the day. Rhetoric will not win the day in 2008!]

It's easy to fake honesty if you are on camera for a few moments each day. This is the current situation. Each candidate makes appearances to small crowds and a few seconds of a 16 hour campaign day make it to the Evening News.

It's nearly impossible to hide your true self if you are on camera, with the public freely able to view it, for hours and hours. The longer a candidate is on camera the more that camera will begin to tell the truth of that candidate. A truism that is that the camera will reveal the real person if they are on camera enough.

How can we see that persons real self if the The Invisible Primary limits the outcome to a couple months in 2008 as a result of Free Media and dominance of the national network news shows?

Answer: We can't.

For example, today we see Senator Clinton and Senator Obama with fleeting glimpses of John Edwards.  Clinton and Obama are sucking up the Media Oxygen and leaving the rest of the field to struggle for any national media time. This results in the remaining candidates struggling to appear on the Sunday morning news shows and other media outlets.

If a candidate isn't regularly visible on a national scale can they raise large sums of money? How does that candidate, who is being  drowned out by the media's choice of subjects, break through? How do they become effective combatants in The Invisible Primary?

What would happen if the situation were different? Could the candidate could communicate nationally without the editors, producers and reporters taking a few fleeting seconds, a sentence or two, to air? What if a candidate could create their own National News Channel?

Can a candidate break through The Invisible Primary using conventional techniques? What else could be done in that campaign?

That's the next part of this series.