Krugman - "Look Beyond The Candidates' 'authenticity' to motives & interests served-- LINK

Paul Krugman cuts right to the heart of the issue. Will we be persuaded to look for 'faux authenticity', or will we look at the candidate's policy proposals and ask whose interests would the candidate serve if elected?

Appearance matters most to voters when it comes to selecting a candidate, ...until there is a crisis, which requires a candidate with substance.

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http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=76a390f4-fdab-4ac9-9cdf-7f88a522e28c

Look Beyond The Candidates' 'authenticity' The point is that questions about a candidate shouldn't be whether he or she is 'authentic.' They should be about motives: whose interest would the candidate serve if elected?
by Paul Krugman

Rich liberals who claim they'll help America's less fortunate are phonies. Let me give you one example — a Democrat who said he'd work on behalf of workers and the poor. He even said he'd take on Big Business. But the truth is that while he was saying those things, he was living in a big house and had a pretty lavish summer home, too. His favorite recreation, sailing, was incredibly elitist. And he didn't talk like a regular guy. Clearly, this politician wasn't authentic. His name? Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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For example, the case of FDR shows that there's nothing inauthentic, in the normal sense of the word, about calling for higher taxes on the rich while being rich yourself. If anything, it's to your credit if you advocate policies that will hurt your own financial position. But the news media seems to find it deeply disturbing that John Edwards talks about fighting poverty while living in a big house.

<snip>

Talk of authenticity, it seems, lets commentators and journalists put down politicians they don't like or praise politicians they like, with no relationship to what the politicians actually say or do. Here's a suggestion: Why not evaluate candidates' policy proposals, rather than their authenticity? And if there are reasons to doubt a candidate's sincerity, spell them out.

<snip>

The point is that questions about a candidate shouldn't be whether he or she is “authentic.” They should be about motives: whose interests would the candidate serve if elected? And think how much better shape the nation would be in if enough people had asked that question seven years ago. "

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I find Krugman's analysis to be not only accurate but persuasive, which do not often appear in the same writings of other columnists.

that society works better when everyone has a fighting chance.

Maybe we are so conditioned (burnt) from 8 years of Reagan, 4 years of HW Bush, 4 years of the Gingrinch Congress, and 6 years of W that we can't imagine a wealthy politician of any depth -- with anything else in mind other than their own enrichment.

I'm 41 this year. I was brought up by FDR and Kennedy Democrats and came to working age during the Reagan administration. It was my upbringing to expect principled leadership. Most of my adult life has been spent being disappointed by nearly every leader I've encountered with the exception of one employer in East Tennessee and Al Gore.

I believe that the dog-eat-dog style of leadership that I've encountered in my professional life trickled down from the template of our larger culture where value is given to personal enrichment at the expense of everything else.

Even though unenlightened self-interest has been the guiding principle of my entire adult life, I STILL hold out the possibility that a true leader will one way pull that damn sword out of the rock.

And yet today we have so many who have rejected the anti-wealth, anti-materialism, and anti-war sentiment(and for the most part are Republicans).

Hopefully there will be a new generation which will focus not on 'me' but on 'we' as a country.

they seem to be the ones coming out to protests large and small -- it's younger people I'm not seeing. it's great b/c it gives gravitas to the movement when Grandmas for Peace and the Grey Panthers are out in front.

i'm seeing a lot more involvement of boomers for issues now (as they retire) than during the 80s when boomers were still chained to the workforce. this is probably why we don't see the numbers of younger people that we would like.

all this leads back to the original post -- economic security determines the degree to which people can contribute to society. a true democratic society requires a measure of economic fairness in order to sustain the involvement of the rank and file.

would never have stood a chance in modern politics--aside from being long dead, he was long-winded (no snappy sound bites), homely, had a nutty wife (isn't that what they called Teresa Heinz-Kerry?), once lived with a male "roommate", suffered from depression, etc. etc. But he was the right man at the right time, and we benefit still today from his legacy. I often wonder, which potential leaders like that, the right man/woman for our times, are we overlooking today in favor of starshine and image?

Jerks.

But of course he's right on the money. Our idiotic press corps likes writing about authenticity because it's easy and they are lazy.

Bryant
CHeck it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

"Here's a suggestion: Why not evaluate candidates' policy proposals, rather than their authenticity? And if there are reasons to doubt a candidate's sincerity, spell them out."

Amen.

A person in many ways cannot decide whether to be rich or poor - they are who they are, and often their decision as far as being wealthy can seem out of their hands.

This isn't to say that there aren't poor people who together with the correct decisions made and a bit of luck became rich.

And likewise rich people who with the wrong decisions made became much poorer.

But all in all, especially as the gap between the classes increase, it seems more fated than not.

But values are another matter.

We learn them from the influences around us as we grow up - our parents and friends, teachers and of course the media.

I have lived in rich neighborhoods and poor ones.

In the poor neighborhoods it was obvious that only a tiny minority made the streets unsafe.
People's values are always astonishing to me - I remember one sunny June day about ten years ago when this extremely well-dressed woman and her three daughters all streamed across a busy city intersection and then they seemed to just stand there stopping traffic. For what purpose? thinks I as I watch the Easter-style hats bobbing in the breeze.

but when I finally got to the spot where these three ladies were on parade, it became clear why: they were using their bodies as a human shield to help a very pokey Lady Duck escort her ducklings across that intersection. At some cost to them should someone have gone barrelling through, oblivious only to their own need to commute home quickspeed while chatting on cellphone.

Happy to say Duck and babies made it across and the four women took off without further fanfare.

Say, "I am not like you, but I will bring you justice."