RSS

Contact us

Saturday 19 July 2008

British politicians should learn from the American primaries: authenticity wins votes

James Forsyth on the key quality which may determine the result of both the US Presidential election and the next general election

But this will not stop either Brown or Cameron trying desperately to draw lessons from America. Brownites will take a Hillary victory as evidence that however much voters flirt with a charismatic ‘change candidate’, what they really want is a hardened politician in charge in these troubled times. If Obama’s rhetoric of change sweeps Hillary away, the Cameron-inclined will see it as proof that the torch has passed to a new generation.

But these are not the lessons that either party should draw from the results in Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact the four winners in the two early contests all had one thing in common: in the crucial final 72 hours of the campaign they appeared the most authentic. On the eve of Iowa, Obama was not the rockstar candidate but an exhausted idealist with a broken voice, appealing for voters to stand up for change. Huckabee was a preacher appealing to his flock to put their vote where their values were. In New Hampshire, Hillary recovered because she let down her guard, displayed her emotional side and let her inner wonk run wild (her closing stump speech was 45 minutes long and stuffed with typically small-bore Clintonite measures such as a government blogging team) and because Obama with his huge crowds seemed distant and a touch too confident for voters’s tastes. On the stump in New Hampshire, McCain exuded authenticity — particularly in comparison with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who seemed to have a different set of sincerely held convictions every day. Romney, the long-time front-runner, only recovered in Michigan because he ran as who he truly is: a favourite son and problem-solver.

This demand for authenticity reflects the fact that voters now see through spin faster than ever before. Romney far outspent his Republican opponents in both Iowa and New Hampshire but even a barrage of TV advertising couldn’t shift, and perhaps reinforced, the electorate’s sense that it was being played. As test match batsmen become able to read a bowler as a series goes on, so voters have now endured enough spin-infused campaigns to begin to see through them.

Technology makes it harder for politicians to be chameleons. Those who try to reinvent themselves or shift their positions are almost instantly confronted with a video of them taking the opposite view. New Labour would have struggled if every hard-left statement by Blair, Brown, Blunkett, Straw and Cook had been readily available on YouTube.

More articles from: James Forsyth | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comments (3)

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved