Polls. Intellectuals. Be Wary

This pre-election time is all academic. All the talk is academic. These campaigns are all “academic”, and “academic” is the same as “intellectual”. (The proof is in the pudding and the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.) Academics are intellectuals and see the world as more complex than the less intellectual.

Note that we have one candidate recognized for his intellect and touted for his intellectual edge, with especial note taken of his language and a more elevated diction. In my opinion, the “intellectual” label has been the kiss of death for such candidates (Adlai Stevenson against Eisenhower), and the electorate has usually preferred the anti-intellectual (Bush against Gore and Kerry). I know, I know, one case does not prove the generalization. But there’s probably a book on the topic.

I would never sell academics short. I was one. Academic works must yield conclusions that have been tested and verified to a high degree of significance. This campaign has not had its ultimate verification (“tasting”) in the test of the election (the “pudding”), which will tell us much about the candidates (the President-elect) as well as about the electorate (his or her people). More academic studies and books will be written by academics.

Polls are academic exercises, like campaigns. All we ever know about the polls are the results. We may get a “margin of error”—what’s that!?. We do not ever get the operations that produced the results, the sampling technique and other controls. The deliberative mind would like to know those operations. They say the devil is in the details, but who has time for that, as they must think.

Too much of this campaign proccess is in the hands of the journalists who rely on the polls to make their stories about the election campaign. They do read the works of the intellectuals (historians, political scientists, sociologists); however, the difference is, the journalists are called to recycle the academic stuff as panelists on the television roundtables, and the original sources are much ignored, or overlayed with reporter bias.

The Coming Tragedy for Our Society

What is the most “earth-shaking “ problem we face? Whatever that issue is should determine (mandate) the choice we make for our “head” man. That issue would be foremost in the President’s interest in policy-making, or very prominent in his/her background. As John Kerry said in a talking heads show last Sunday, the most compelling issue of our time is global warming. With my periscopic view from the trenches of the present, I can see the effects of our putting off any whole-hearted attention to that issue bringing more harm to the entire population of Earth than any other problem we can name because any solution requires the cooperation of the entire population of Earth. If that is so, then the candidate who should win the next election for President is the impeccably credentialed Al Gore. Who better to lead us in coming to grips with that issue?

I have re-viewed his speech of January 21, 2007, on C-SPAN, at the DAR Constitution Hall. I put it on a DVD. He is incredibly strong, articulate, knowledgeable, with the big, c lear, resonant, fluent voice and a magnificent presence. If the citizenry cannot see that ‒ how tragic for our world! Nobel Peace Prize? Academy Award? Besides global warming, that speech covered all the complex, thorny problems that toture us. It was a major statement by a leader of the highest order. A man for our time. A well internalized message and sense of mission with no hesitancies, no script, no prompter. Mastery of historical allusions, language, delivery and passion. Most presidential. Sense of democracy, liberties, law, ethics and the functions of government to set policies for the future. Masterful! Powerful! Futuristic! Passionate! Eloquent! THE complete package.

One problem. I’m in a bit of a bind here. I’ve heard such qualities elsewhere. In a greener form. More youthful, but still advanced for his age. I’ve heard many of the others. Only this one compares to Gore. The others are much more conventional. Your everyday presentation. Good, ordinary people with traditional and conventional authority they are, but who pale in comparison — excepting that extraordinarily charismatic one.

Where does that one’s charisma come from? Many of the same qualities I admire in Gore also adhere to that one person now in the race for the highest office. Charisma is a form of authority that should not be followed blindly, as many do. This one’s authority has been earned, emanating from ethos and masterful performance, just as Gore’s. I am troubled to be deciding between them.

My great hope is that I will not have to live out the rest of my life under the presidency of a Republican Bush-look-alike, especially knowing that there is greater, untapped talent out there that could have been.

I hope those lesser lights sense the greater good and defer to their betters. That’s tough. I can see and feel and understand their ambition. They can be the touchstones that tests the mettle of the two prominences. I do not think the others can compete with Gore and his double counterpoint.

I do not use the word tragedy carelessly. An accident on a roadway is not a tragedy, as our ‘naive’ tv reporters are wont to say. It can be a catastrophe, or misfortune, etc. A tragedy is a fatal flaw. Modern tragedy transposes the flaw into the circumstances of our society: we are all fatally flawed in what we permit collectively and the sorrow will be widely experienced. Let’s preserve that word for meaningful usage.

It is in that sense I believe that Al Gore should be the next President. Or, still I in the bind, Vice-President.