What’s the most important attribute for a successful politician?
It’s obviously not intelligence.
Many people of distinctly limited brain power get elected again and again, regardless of their undeniable and frequently embarrassing stupidity. Patty Murray, Senior Senator from the State of Washington is, for example, as dumb as rock. Remember her praise for Osama bin Laden for building non-existent day care centers? In 2004, Murray won her third term in a landslide. Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy (even when his faculties haven’t been impaired by, um, good fellowship), not to mention his shockingly un-clever (and drug addicted) son, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, wouldn’t win any prizes for mental acuity. Of course, Democrats insist that President Bush also counts as an intellectually impaired dunce but his academic record (he never got expelled for cheating on a Spanish test, as did Teddy) and political successes (along with the failures) should prove them wrong.
If intelligence isn’t required of a successful candidate, is it character that the politico requires? The absurdity of that contention ought to be blindingly obvious: countless politicians from both parties with no decency, substance or stature of any kind currently hold office and raise hundreds of millions of dollars for their inevitable re-elections. Those who believe that character represents a crucial asset in electoral warfare need only consider the most gifted and successful politician of his generation: William Jefferson Clinton. Whatever his supporters loved about the 42nd President, it wasn’t moral fiber or integrity.
While candidates can soar to victory without smarts or character, the one essential ingredient for any serious contender is, finally, energy: a level of intensity, drive, enthusiasm, vigor, force, that demands that voters pay attention. Every consistently successful politician in recent American history has possessed this indispensable quality --- and that’s a major problem for Fred Thompson’s current Presidential campaign.
I like and respect Senator Thompson, a good man with an impressive record of serving his country. I’ve said on many occasions that I’d be proud to support him if he wins the Republican nomination – just as I’d be proud to back Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, or Mitt Romney. But Thompson stands little chance of grabbing that nomination, or even winning major primaries, because of his shockingly listless personality on the campaign trail.
On Wednesday, Senator Thompson spent a half hour answering friendly questions on my radio show. If you read a transcript of his remarks, they’ll look perfectly credible, articulate and astute. But if you listen to the tape of the actual interview, it’s startling to note how disengaged, bored, flaccid and tired the Senator sounds. Instead of relishing the opportunity to connect with several million listeners, Thompson came across like a guy forced to complete a necessary but onerous chore. No presidential candidate in recent history has ever succeeded with this low an energy level.
I wish I could say that my show on Wednesday represented an exception in an otherwise exciting campaign. Unfortunately, the tapes of other media appearances, rallies in Iowa or South Carolina, and the last GOP debate in Dearborn, Michigan, further highlight Thompson’s energy crisis. If he hopes to re-energize his struggling campaign, the tall Tennessean must first re-energize himself.
The contrast with his chief rivals for the nomination works powerfully to Thompson’s detriment. John McCain may be six years older than Thompson, but campaigns as if he qualified as a full generation younger. The Arizona Senator enjoys meeting people, goofing with the press, surprising audiences with his impertinent little jokes (remember the furor over “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb/Bomb Bomb Iran”?) and conveys an edgy, electric, sometimes even explosive energy. Rudy Giuliani similarly comes across like a passionate, operatic tough guy who, only with difficulty, manages to keep his seething emotions under control. Mitt Romney always projects a superhuman image of health, vigor and slick (sometimes too slick) self assurance, while Mike Huckabee’s learned to transmit the earthy, open-collared energy of a regular guy who’s thrilled to be part of history beyond the confines of Little Rock.
No one’s won the nomination of either party in recent years without conveying this sense of excitement and edge to the crowds who come to see him or the reporters who try to interview him. President Bush, in person or on TV, may not look like the sharpest crayon in the box, but his passion and determination almost always come across: his public presentations may seem edgy and uncertain, but he seldom seems bored or exhausted. Even in their seventies, Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole communicated intensity—sunny and joyous (for the 40th President) and dark and brooding (for the defeated candidate).
On the Democratic side, there’s obviously no energy shortage: both Obama and Edwards deploy charm, charisma, and kinetic presence to infect adoring crowds with their own excitement. Hillary Clinton certainly can’t match the sizzling, tireless, seductive energy of her husband, but she’s recently proven herself vastly more adept at conveying joy, bemusement, and even friendliness through the process of campaigning, and her relentless, bulldog determination always suggested a formidable focus.
In conversation with apologists for Fred Thompson’s lackadaisical campaigning so far, they insist that the right comparison for the former Senator isn’t the charismatic, naturally gregarious Reagan, but rather the shy, soft-spoken, common sense “ordinary guy’ Dwight Eisenhower. After all, he never dazzled the American people with his oratory or his fiery passions and, like Fred, he ran for the nation’s highest office as an aging, unapologetic baldy (Thompson would be our first follically challenged chief executive since Eisenhower—but also our tallest president, with a full two inches on Honest Abe). Nevertheless, Ike carried with him an aura of destiny and larger-than-life heroism due to his military exploits in World War II—an aura that excited crowds, even with lackluster speeches. Moreover, in Michael Korda’s admiring new biography of Eisenhower, he makes the point that the tightly controlled “chairman of the board” who led the Allied crusade to liberate Europe actually showed himself behind-the-scenes a twitchy, frequently nervous, explosive-tempered chain smoker when he stepped away from the public eye. Like other great generals in history, Ike communicated a sense of formidable, even devastating power, purpose and focus behind the mask of bland, Midwestern geniality.
Obviously, any man who has achieved as much as Fred Dalton Thompson can’t be written off as an easy-going slob, or a sleepy-eyed, mellow good ‘ol boy. From the humblest blue-collar background, he won a scholarship to a classy law school (Vanderbilt) and went on to a legendary legal career even before his two landslide wins for the US Senate. However relaxed and disinterest the Tennesseean may appear, no one follows that career trajectory without drive, ambition and great inner strength. Moreover, Thompson’s achieved considerable success as an actor, and in his movie and TV roles he easily projects the sort of energy and intensity he painfully lacks in the campaign.
His friends and aides must therefore insist that Senator Thompson approach his interviews and speeches and fund-raising meetings as if he were playing a part in the next Hollywood blockbuster. A good director would tell the candidate that he must now personify a hungry, driven, exciting politician with all-but-limitless ambition--- the kind of guy who, like Clinton, means to seduce every warm body in the room, male as well as female. Over the last few months, Fred’s asked supporters to indicate that they passionately want him to run; now he must display similar passion, or his campaign will inevitably fizzle.
A viable Thompson candidacy will strengthen the GOP and make the competition for the nomination vastly more exciting. The recent change in the primary-caucus schedule – with Iowa caucuses now set for January 3rd, right after the holidays –makes it more urgent than ever for the Senator to reignite the race by reigniting his own public persona. The old saying suggests “you only get one chance to make a first impression,” but in Thompson’s case he needs to seize additional chances. Most Americans retain only a vague sense of the shape of the campaign to date, but in the next few weeks they’ll pay far more attention. When they do, Fred ought to try a few triple espressos, or shots of Jack Daniels, or campaigning alongside his beautiful wife, or whatever makes him seem more eager, youthful and energetic. It’s time, in short, for a wake up call: be yourself by all means but find the passion to recharge the batteries. For the sake of the country and the Thompson campaign, he’s better Fred than dead.