electric mist

why kerry lost -- a writer's analysis...

... or flawed characters and why they win.

[It is very long. Very. Non-partisan, and no bashing and strictly using a writer's analysis, but it is long.]

[I'm breaking from the short fun posts or story posts for one day because I have an analysis that I haven't seen anywhere else which, I think, starts addressing the "why" of this election outcome. There will be funny back here tomorrow.]

For a moment, I'm setting issues aside. I don't think this election was won or lost on issues, anyway. I think it was won and lost on how much or little people identified with a candidate. You may wholly disagree, and that's fine. There is no one finite explanation which, posted on a blog, would encompass all of the vast variety that is the American political process. This is simply a different way to look at the problem, one I haven't seen analyzed quite like this.

Whenever a writer develops a character for a story, they often (even after years of experience), want to make that character an "every man" or "every woman" so that anyone who happened to read it could identify with that character. You see this especially when they're writing an archetypal hero who does everything right and nothing wrong except maybe by accident.

It almost never works.

What ends up happening is that the author doesn't fully commit to any peculiarities or questionable qualities because they're afraid of offending this group or that group and what they end up with is mostly bland and basic (at best) and generally vague and confusing and theoretical (at worst). Readers won't follow a character like that through a story. They can't identify with anything in the character, and so their attention wanders and they feel disconnected.

Disconnection with the character is generally a sign that the story won't sell.

For a character to feel real and wholly three dimensional, the author has to find a way to do two things: make the character unique and yet make the character appeal to (hopefully) a large audience. Writers who know their craft well enough know the secret: it's all in the flaws.

Everybody has flaws. What happens when we read about a character's flaws is an interesting phenomenon, because while we might be really put off that person in real life, (because we are on the outside looking in to the repercussions), when we read (or watch a movie), we see what the character is going through, what they're faced with, and we empathize. And through that process, we recognize ourselves and our own flaws. It's a reciprocal process, and it's hard to say exactly which comes first -- recognizing the flaws in others and their struggle and then empathizing because we have the same sort of struggle, just maybe a slightly different problem... or realizing we have problems with certain things and seek out characters who walk down similar paths because we can identify with them.

Here's the irony: even if someone is seriously flawed, even if we really abhor their actions because they create difficulties for the people around them or have extreme negative consequences for innocent bystanders, if we have already identified with them, we keep identifying with them, because most of us have been through rough times, most of us have made at least one bone-headed choice or done something which was so patently stupid, they should sing songs about it, and we generally did that thing either through simply being oblivious or believing in it, however misguided that may be.

Think about what "identifying with" a character means... seeing oneself as that person or seeing something of that person in oneself. It's hard to make people turn against "themselves" once they see themselves in the character.

The same is true of politics.

There will be a raging debate as to what all went wrong with this election for the Democrats; CNN just had a discussion about how the Democrats have moved away from the hard-core liberals which give its party its focus, so to speak, because they were trying to court the center / moderates of both parties, and that's probably true. Laura over at 11D posted this entry about what went wrong, and she mentions a piece in the Times by Kristof who quotes Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, "What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that."

Earlier in his piece, Kristof quotes Thomas Frank, author of the best political book of the year, "What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," when he says:

"There is a very upper-middle-class flavor to liberalism, and that's just bound to rub average people the wrong way," Mr. Frank said. He notes that Republicans have used "culturally powerful but content-free issues" to connect to ordinary voters."

I think this misses the mark. It's a specious argument, to be certain, and there is some truth in it, but it misses the fundamental problem with the election, and that was that a huge portion of America didn't really understand who Kerry was or how what he was going to do was going to help them. They didn't feel like they knew him or understood him or, worst offense of all, could identify with him. (Before your head blows up, just allow me a moment here...)

Bush is flawed. He is all kinds of flawed. Attacking those flaws seemed to be the fundamental strategy of the Kerry campaign from the beginning. The problem with that strategy is that a lot of ordinary Americans perceive themselves as having those same flaws. So let's look at a couple just as an example:

Bush can't pronounce words well. Do you know how many Americans suffer from dylexia, ADD, Autism, Asperger's, or other learning disabilities and don't pronounce words well? Clear and articulate annunciation is not a sign of someone's intelligence, yet it was clear from blog entries all over the internet that people thought Bush was stupid. (I'm not saying he isn't; I'm saying the use of annunciation as a benchmark was a bad choice.) Because what happens is that there are millions of Americans for whom college (some, all or grad school) is not an option, whether through finances or simply because that's not what they excel in. If there is wholesale ridicule of a flaw that many Americans can identify with... where do you think that's going to put that group of Americans? On the side of the person being ridiculed, because they can identify with him.

Bush is a "right wing nutjob." Some of this criticism is due to his politics, some to his religion, most to his insistence on dragging his religion into the nation's politics, and all of it probably justified. Here's the problem: Kristof states that:

"One-third of Americans are evangelical Christians, and many of them perceive Democrats as often contemptuous of their faith. And, frankly, they're often right. Some evangelicals take revenge by smiting Democratic candidates."

I agree with most of what he says except the "take revenge" part. I think what it really boils down to is feeling defensive... feeling attacked themselves. They may not share much of Bush's religious philosophy, but they shared some of it, and when the vitriol spewed against everything remotely religious, they, too, felt persecuted.

You generally don't vote for the side you feel is making fun of you or persecuting you or thinks that, if you have certain values, you're stupid.

And so on and so forth... more and more flaws. But as much as many people who voted for him did not like many of his policies, they felt like he was someone they at least knew or understood. Is that a manufactured perception? Probably so. (What in politics isn't manufactured?)

Right now, the so called exit polls are saying that "morality" is what so many people picked out of four possible reasons when asked what made them choose the person they chose. But let's look at that for a minute. If I asked you, "Would you rather step in dog poop, or would you rather wade across this sewage canal?" you might say, "Er, the dog poop, I guess," and that answer could be interpreted as, "People want to step in dog poop." The number of questions which are asked and the way they're asked and whether there are any other choices that remotely come close to what a voter's really feeling would all affect those exit polls, but those polls aren't designed for that sort of detailed introspection. A lot of those "moral" people probably only agreed with one angle of Bush's thought, or maybe they were just afraid of Kerry, or maybe they felt like so many of the Democrats think they're stupid, they with the religious affiliation, that they'll be run roughshod over if Kerry gets in, and who could blame them? Or maybe they really just hated both men, and didn't know who to choose, and chose the devil they knew and when asked, just answered something that sounded the least specific.

When Kerry came on board, I doubt most of the nation knew him or understood him, other than his wealth and a little bit about his voting background. Most of the undecideds did know something though -- that the Democrats weren't terribly enthusiastic about Kerry per se, but just as someone who was an alternative, which isn't enough. That, by itself, isn't a message. And whatever Kerry's message was, it was never clear-cut enough.

Let's look at that a moment. (Yes, this will all tie in later.)

1. It's not the economy.

Case in point -- Ohio. Has lost more jobs under Bush's reign than ever, but still went for Bush in the end. Why? Because most people do not understand the way the economy works, most people aren't able to tell which candidates' promises are going to help them in the long run. Hell, for every expert economist certain their theory of what will work you show me, we could probably find another equally qualified person who believes the exact opposite. Secondly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, a country does not stop on a dime and turn around and race off, 0 to 60 in just a couple of months. It can take a couple of years or more for good or bad things to work down through to the general public. How do I know that? 22 years of business experience.

We run a business and we happen to work for several clients that end up being what I call "leading indicators" of what the economy is going to be doing. If things are good for us -- lots of work, good prices -- then the country is going to be following in about a year to a year-and-a-half. If they're bad for us -- scrounging for work, having to lower our prices because there's just not enough work to go around -- we'll start seeing big layoffs and a bad economy in general about a year after it affected us. The last of the Clinton years were terrible for us (though the country was doing pretty well). The country started following behind us about the time Bush got into office. After that, though, things were improving for us -- quite a lot, actually, and if 9/11 had not happened, I think the economy would have kept growing at that point. But it did happen, and things got extremely tight for us -- finding work, getting it for the right price, etc. -- very difficult. And of course, the rest of the country followed pretty rapidly, due to the nature of the event. However, things picked up for us about a year ago with a sudden force. Seriously, Februrary, 2003, sucked pretty much, but all of a sudden in March, it picked up. Lots of things to bid, getting better prices... and it has steadily grown. And grown and grown. We now have more work than we can do, we've raised our prices nicely to a very comfortable level and our only real downside is that we can't find enough qualified people to fill the jobs we have. The country is following, and within a year or so, I believe it's going to be booming, barring another large terroist action.

Most people don't work in the kind of field we do, and don't have that kind of perception. So trying to get them to vote for or against a candidate based on the economy isn't always going to work.

2. It's not Iraq, or Terrorism.

Because while most of the country, including a large share of Republicans who voted for Bush, do not believe we should have gone into Iraq, the problem is, we're there. Someone's got to finish what got started.

Is it confusing about whether or not we should have been there? Even Kerry voted to go in based on the information he had at the time. Was it wrong. Yes. Fallible? Yes. Bush's fault? Possibly. But here's the thing that ties back to the flawed character aspect: I don't think the majority of Americans believe that any human being can be without flaw, even one that is the President. I'm pretty sure they know that Presidents in the past have made huge mistakes. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. The part that most people forget is that people tend to forgive others (characters) if they think they understand the motives. The people who had already been supportive of Bush going into the war didn't want to backtrack on that support wholly. This is a crticial thing to understand. They had identified with him, that President who was flawed but who appeared to be rising to the occasion. That identification process means that they have to also rethink themselves in order to separate from their support of Bush.

Notice I'm not commenting on the right or wrong of that... that is just human nature. If the Dems want to sway human nature, sway that group of people who may have been having doubts, then calling them all stupid for supporting Bush isn't the way to do that. In fact, they pretty much guaranteed the antagonism from a bunch of moderate Republicans who probably would have switched over, because nobody likes being called an idiot and most people aren't going to say, "Well, you're totally right, you know, what on earth was I thinking? Of course I'm an idiot, let me let you lead me now that you've shown me the error of my ways." Doesn't exactly work like that.

3. It's not "morality."

I don't think the Republicans have a corner on "moral" and I'm pretty sure most of them don't think so, either. I think that particular exit poll answer just summed up their fears, because the Democrats have worked hard in the last few years to divorce any sense of spirituality from their politics. In spite of the fact that many are quite spiritual. And they will fight to the death for everyone's right to choose or to not choose to worship. Which is a very important spiritual aspect that the majority of Christians can respect.

And here's the thing, and I swear, this is the one thing that really ticks me off. Not everyone who voted Republican is a right-wing Christian nutjob. Seriously, there were quite of lot of sites which pretty much assumed that for anyone to be Christian meant they were radical right-wingers, foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalists who had been brainwashed and, can we say it all together... stupid.

Most Christians that I know abhor that subset of people. They don't believe in those radical right-wing things, they're way way more moderate than the general public would understand, but also? They're human. If there is one party which ridicules them (and they read the web) and there is one party which embraces them... which are they going to choose?

And the second thing about that? I could never in my life imagine a dedicated Democrat spewing the same kind of vile abusive statements towards other religions (Jewish, etc.). Making it okay to completely ridicule millions of people with a generalization doesn't win more people to a cause -- it risks making the generalizing side look narrow-minded and uneducated... because if you're dealing in generalizations, you've already missed the point as well as alienated millions of people who already weren't happy being associated with the radical right, but who don't feel that being completely condescended against is a better choice, particularly if you're not understanding what is important to them and looking for ways to find common ground.

4. Kerry's message, whatever it was, was too confusing.

Yes, he definitely contradicted himself. Several times. You might think Bush's positions and statements were utter nonsense or dangerous to the country, but they were clear-cut and on target and simple. A lot of people might try to take the time to research the different positions, but mostly they base it on the character of the person running and does that man's character have some aspects to it that they can identify with. In Kerry's case, I don't think he won people over on the basis of who he was as a person or as a candidate. I think a huge majority of Kerry supporters believed in the issues that are fundamental to the Democratic party and knew they had to support Kerry to try to get a Democrat in office, but I never saw a groundswell of enthusiasm for the man or his past. And without that, and without a clear-cut message, there was nothing "there" to convince the undecideds or the moderate Repbulicans to cross the aisle.

And to win, the Dems need them to cross.

Did you know that Kerry had a lot to do with bringing down the banking entity that financed a lot of Noreiga's (sp?) infrastructure? ( Here's one link.) I had been researching Kerry and didn't learn that until the BBC had a radio program and a friend told me about it. After the election. There are a lot of positive things Kerry did that didn't get across to the voters, and there are no excuses from the Dems for that. They spent upwards of $300 million to get their message across, but they didn't have a clear-cut message. Just mostly "not Bush" which is like sticking your tongue out at the bully in the playground. It shows you don't like him but doesn't really show what you're made of.

Tieing this all back in...

Now in writing, if you're going to have two characters compete and give them equal chance to win the reader over, you have to do more than make one "not" the other character. There has to be more than hurled accusations. The second character has to step out so uniquely that the reader can say, "Oh, I get it. He likes X. Or he really hates Y. Just like me." And start the identification process. I don't think Kerry pulled that off -- witness his last minute attempts to lure the blue-collar workers in middle America by going goose hunting. (First of all, the blue collar / hunter types may not have a college education, but they can tell when they're being pandered to and they can spot condescension a mile away. Kerry going goose hunting was the equivalent of an author giving a character a funny "quirk" in the hopes of convincing readers the character was really "funny"... when they've only delivered flat lines up to that point. It's a band-aid approach and superficial and ends up turning off the very people targeted.)

What it said to me, though, right there at the end of the campaign, was that Kerry understood (too late) that he had failed to get the voters to identify with him as a person. He had been arguing theories (for every campaign promise is simply an unproven theory based on a lot of conjecture), and he had been arguing for "anti" anything Bush (wherein a lot of people felt attacked) and he hadn't quite found a way for people to feel like they knew him and feel enthusiasm for him. Around the blogosphere, there was a lot of tepid endorsements for Kerry, particularly after the charismatic Dean lost the nomination... it wasn't that the general Democratic contingent wanted Kerry... it was that they just didn't want Bush. And in a nation where the polls were showing a 50/50 split up until the last minute, that notion of just "not" the other guy isn't enough to sway a voter because they haven't identified with the "other" choice.

It's why Clinton was so popular. He made it about him, the Comeback Kid, with the smile and easy-going nature and every-man personality and while he understood the nature of the national problems we had to face and had the education to confront them (whatever you feel about his politics, you would agree he was well-educated and intelligent)... he still came off to the voting public as someone unique, flawed but approachable. Kerry lacked that.

Four years ago when Gore lost, I postulated that the rising popularity of The West Wing influenced that race way more than the Democrats would want to admit. In The West Wing, the President, Jed Bartlett is a liberal who's constantly pulled toward the center by his chief of staff, and he's flawed, and ornery and quirky and very smart, but he's big on family, he's unapologetic about his religion, about his values and his own flaws. And it's a hugely popular show. He comes across as funny and charismatic and someone who can identify with the blue collar workers as much as with an Ivy League graduate.

Of course, he's fictional, but he's contributed to the gestalt of what most people want in a president. Worse for the Dems? Bartlett is the "ideal" Democratic candidate, one that Gore (very stiff)... and later, Kerry, didn't measure up to. Of course, in a fictional world, the writers have time to talk about issues and show the pros and cons of their side and to hammer out compromises that a candidate doesn't have the air time to do. Still, the issues of character (where I started this long and winding journey) are the primary issue, the ones that pull both Republicans and Democrats alike into the audience.

There's a lesson there for the real candidates. Yes, issues are critical. They are, honestly, far more important than whether someone is as charismatic or down-to-earth than the other person. But to get to the message of issues and choices and consequences? The voters have to not feel attacked, they have to not feel disenfranchised by an entire political party if they don't have a college degree, and they need to feel like they know the candidate -- and can identify with him. It's the only way they're going to start hearing the messages on the issues.

Now, you may think I'm totally baked. That's okay. Before you send me all sorts of comments on Bush or Kerry's evils, I've probably already seen them. I wanted to do this sort of in-depth analysis as much for myself as it was for the fact that I haven't seen any sort of analysis like this (yet).

Oh. And if you made it this far? You should get bonus points. I kept meaning to get back here and edit it down to something more succinct, but I haven't had the time in the last couple of days. Sorry about the long-winded-ness.

Posted by toni at November 6, 2004 01:46 PM