The campaign for real campaigns

Andrew was rather down when he called me Wednesday evening. Even though he isn't up for re-election this year, the whole campaign business was clearly getting to him.

"I don't think I've ever been as unexcited by a campaign as I have by this one," he said. "It's all too calculated, to manipulative and . . . and there's something else that I can't quite put my finger on."

This was going to be a long one, so I pulled the stopper from the bottle of Armagnac, poured a good measure, sat down and put my feet up. If I smoked, this would be a good time for a cigar, too. Cigars help measure the amount of time that passes on these occasions.

"Both candidates have good plans. Neither is what anyone could call a loser, but - hell, it's dull!"

"I thought this was a real cliff-hanger," I said.

"Oh, the result is going to be close, but it's hardly going make much of a difference who gets in," Andrew said. "Remember when Goldwater wanted to bomb the hell out of the North Vietnamese and was labeled a reactionary. A year later, what did Johnson do?"

"I remember."

Boy did I remember. Andrew did too. Conversations about Vietnam dominated our high school and college years, as well as the several years we spent in the military after that.

The line went quiet for a while. Sometimes Andrew would just think on the Washington-Paris phone line. Well, he was paying for this one.

"Andrew," I began, "I've thought of a way that you can differentiate your presidential campaign once you get to it. It's nearly fail-safe and will put a real gulf between you and whomever you run against."

"Not now," he said plaintively.

"Yes, now, Andrew," I said. Sometimes he, like all politicians, just needed to be told.

There was a whimper of acquiescence.

"I think what might be at the root of your uneasiness about this campaign is that no one is selling dreams," I began.

"What?" he asked, rallying.

"No one is selling dreams," I repeated. "All they're selling is fear and security. No one is selling a wonderful, bright, affluent future with better health, education, prosperity or any of that stuff."

"But no one believes that stuff any more," he protested, engaging with the idea.

"That doesn't matter. Who were the most inspiring presidents since World War II?" I challenged.

Andrew didn't think long.

"Kennedy and Reagan."

"Why?"

"They both looked as they enjoyed being president. They looked born to the job. They inspired confidence. They had impossible dreams."

"Yeah, like a man on the moon and the fall of the Soviet Union," he said, his voice coming alive.

"And what are we being offered now?"

"Greater surveillance, less mobility, more inconvenience, higher prices to pay for it all," he said.

"That's the way it looks from this side of the Atlantic," I said. "No one's got anything positive to get behind. There's not a single idea that's inspiring or exciting."

"Keep talking," he said, finally sounding like his normal self.

"The man on the moon was the perfect project. He knew that even with full backing, it wouldn't happen in his presidency, even if he went the full eight years. The dream would live on, even if a later administration cancelled it. It was good for jobs, too. If it worked, it was Kennedy's baby; if it was cancelled, it was Kennedy's visionary 'what might have been.'"

"You've got it, on both counts," Andrew said enthusiastically. "We're being offered nothing this time around. Just like you said, just fear and inconvenience."

"There's another thread here, too, Andrew," I interrupted. "Politicians are great at coming up with new ideas. The trouble is that most of them are "solutions" for things that aren't problems. Just talk fodder giving them something to say. What a real campaign needs are solutions to things that are actually problems."

"That and a dream," Andrew said.

"You've got it."