Posted by
Andrews on Monday, April 21, 2008 8:54:02 PM
Back when I was writing fiction on a more regular basis, I came up with a simile that was just too interesting not to use. "I felt like a leper at a Mary Kay convention." Whenever I mentioned it to anyone it would get at least a small chuckle, and my writing friends all agreed it had a nice ring to it. There was just one problem, not one of us had any idea what it meant. It sounded good, and it obviously implied some sort of discomfort, but beyond that it really didn't mean anything.
I think that is the secret to the entire Obama campaign. He has a lot of phrases that sound good, and convey a general impression of what he means, but leave so much up to the listener, that they can read into it anything they want. Of course, I am not saying anything new. I have written before that Obama is a mirror upon which other project their wishes. What is new here is the realization that I have figured out his precise method.
In the past I argued that he was saying completely empty statements and allowing others to read into them what they would, but that is not entirely true. If he were completely without content, he would not have had the success he did. Instead, he was doing what I did with my writing, painting a very vivid image that still means very little, a set of words that sounded like they meant much more than they really did.
A perfect example would be his old refrain of "change". By repeating it over and over, he endowed change with almost mystical significance, yet he managed to refrain from stating what specifically would change. Instead, he let the listeners see in his words whatever change they desired. He spoke in a way that made clear that "change" was very powerful and very desirable, but still did not provide any particulars.
Of course, now that he is in crisis mode, Obama is more and more often falling back on particulars, and also falling back on tried and true tactics of the left, such as appeals to racial grievances, and with those changes he is losing his cult of personality. But it is interesting to finally see exactly how he once managed to form a mass movement, full of enthusiastic supporters, yet completely devoid of even the most nebulous platform.