That’s Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye,” sizing up the crowd during intermission, but it might just as well be the American public, sizing up politicians. The voters think that politics is full of bull, but they want to step out to the lobby and hear some of it for themselves. This judgment is not just about honesty-is he telling the truth? It’s about authenticity–is he putting on an act? Is this the real him?
Anybody who has been through high school recognizes Bill Clinton immediately. He’s the guy who’s always running for class president-smart but too eager to prove it. Fake City, right? Nobody could possibly enjoy campaigning and discussing the details of earned-income tax credits. The unusual thing about Clinton is that he has never pretended to be anything but a politician -never faked being a normal, self-conscious person. He is who he seems to be: the bionic candidate, working the angles, combining self-advancement with idealism. If he tried to be unpolitical, that would be phony. So far, the most authentic thing about Clinton is the letter about the draft he wrote at 23. It had a thoughtful yet raw quality that the 45-year-old often varnishes over.
Clinton’s endless lava of programs and statistics suggest he is substantive. But they don’t enhance his authenticity–the hard choices are too often buried under a mountain of verbiage. If the debates are any indication, all of the Democrats use more jargon than they should. It’s not just careless and presumptuous, but artificial-a barrier between the speaker and what he really means. Even well-informed voters can’t follow all of the references to “health providers” and “consumption budgets.”
The characters in the Walker Percy novels that Bob Kerrey reads on the campaign trail certainly don’t talk that way. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Kerrey. He may think like an existentialist but he speaks like an irritated bureaucrat, trapped in foggy abstractions. His speeches are littered with phrases like “tax-based premium system,” “under color of law” and “cutting the link between employment and eligibility.” Zzzzzz… And while no one who knows Kerrey would accuse him of being a phony, his singsong, contrived “passion” can make him sound like one.
Tom Harkin, Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas represent variations on a shared authenticity theme: they’re too genuine. Harkin comes across as exactly the crotchety New Deal liberal he really is. Authentic, all right, but unappetizing. Brown seems actually to believe his powerful anti-incumbency message, which is weird considering that until recently he was art of the big-money politics he now castigates. Tsongas makes a fetish of authenticity-and he speaks in plain yet compelling language that isn’t Greek. But the detail and humor necessary to make it seem real may not translate well into seven seconds on the airport tarmac.
For all of his rock-solid principles, Pat Buchanan has a few authenticity problems of his own, starting with the Mercedes in his garage. Of course, portions of his opinionizing have an authentic flavor -authentically racist and anti-Semitic. Yes, he should renounce some of those columns and statements, but if he did he wouldn’t be true to the real Pat.
The candidate with the biggest authenticity handicap is obviously George Bush. A preppy droppin’ his g’s to be one of the guys? Shoppin’ at Penney’s? Munchin’ pork rinds? (it turned out that was fake. He prefers popcorn.) When he’s comfortable, on foreign policy, he speaks in incomplete sentences. When he’s uncomfortable, on domestic policy, he murders the mother tongue. In that sense, he’s a bad faker. The problem with his attitude-which is, essentially, “Hey, it’s only politics”–is that its inherent contempt for the public eventually leaks through. Deep down, Bush believes the government has no real role in fixing the economy. But he has to pretend otherwise. Deep down, he will never be a true conservative. But he has to pretend otherwise. At some point, the voters may pick up on Holden’s attitude:
Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His name was George something-I don’t even remember-and he went to Andover. Big, big, deal You should’ve seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was the kind of phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody’s question.
