The Power of That 'Charisma Machine'

Noemie Emery writes in Weekly Standard that there are some problems with the media-fueled frenzy that claims that Barack Obama and the "Charisma Machine" are going to roll to victory over John McCain in November.

"Anything can happen, in the Belmont Stakes and in politics," Emery writes, so it may be correct that "McCain underestimates Obama's pizzazz, and the desire of the press to promote it."

But Emery goes on to assert that there are some "warning signs" the media seem to have missed.

1. "The enthusiasm Obama arouses is surely amazing, but it is also contained and confined," Emery says.
   
   Emery cites political expert Michael Barone, a co-author of the biennially published "Almanac of American Politics" since 1972.
   
   Barone may be the nation's foremost authority on voting trends in every state and every district. He studied the numbers from this year's primaries and concluded that Obama carried the white vote in only two places -- "state capitals and university towns."
   
   Obama's support in university towns, Emery notes, included "huge followings among students, teachers, and employees of the government, most of whom (a) tend to lean left; (b) live in a world of words and abstractions; and (c) due to tenure, unions, and parental support, find themselves outside of the world of the marketplace."
   
   These voters, Emery writes, "are pushovers for ego-massaging and vacuous maunderings. They tend not to notice that his frame of reference is always himself and his feelings, and that his appeals to racial healing, bipartisanship, government reform and sweet reason do not connect to his acts in real life."


2. There's that age thing. "McCain does look old, and this is a problem," admits Emery.
   
   "On the other hand, he looks like a rock, or an oak tree, while Obama looks more like a reed or a sapling, if not like a twig. He looks attractive, but not too substantial, not someone to look to in trouble."
   
   I guess that's in the way you look at it.


3. "Perhaps Obama will 'forcefully move to the center,'" Emery says, "but it's not very clear what he (or the media) believe the word 'center' implies."
   
   And, in an interesting point about the impression Obama makes in seemingly innocuous situations, Emery says, "[h]e also seems prone to let his wits lapse when unscripted, such as claiming that Illinois is farther away from Kentucky than Arkansas, and that the union mysteriously has annexed seven new states.
   
   "In a similar lapse, Gerald Ford prematurely freed Poland, and the results were not pretty."
   
   Well, that may be true, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to blame Ford's loss in the 1976 election on his debate faux pas on eastern Europe.


4. Finally, Emery writes, "there's the matter of media power, or lack thereof."
   
   Emery points out that, the more frequently the media insisted that Hillary Clinton should end her campaign, the more the voters insisted on supporting her.
   
   Obama eventually claimed the majority in delegates, says Emery, securing the nomination, but the Obama campaign was "saved by the delegates he piled up in caucuses and in small states when no one was looking, before the press had the chance to weigh in with its magic."
   
   I'm not sure if that is more a criticism of the media in this country or the people who are easily persuaded by its party line.
   
   But, Emery says, "The press may love itself -- and Obama -- just a little too much."

Perhaps we have our answer.

Seems to me that both candidates have their work cut out for them between now and November.