Obama And "Substance"--A Bum Rap?

Updated below

Lately I've begun hearing some Hillary supporters complaining that the Obama campaign has "no substance"--that he is just "a pretty face" with a kumbaya message of uplift that the media swoons for. For example, several members of my editorial group made comments to this effect during our last meeting.

Actually, I think this is probably a bit of a bum rap. During their Los Angeles debate, for example, I thought that both candidates responded to questions with equal amounts of "substance," by which I mean policy details that appear well thought out and fact-based. And if you visit the "Issues" pages of the two candidates' websites (Obama's is here, Hillary's here), I think the amount of meaningful content is very comparable.

Of course, you might disagree with one or the other candidate on a specific issue (as Paul Krugman and others have disgreed with Obama on health care), but that is not the same as saying that either candidate has no substance. In fact, if there were no substance, there would be nothing to disagree with, which I don't think is the case with either Obama or Hillary.

It's easy to see why people feel the Obama campaign lacks substance. It's an understandable impression based on TV news soundbites and the candidate's own commercials, which are indeed long on inspirational rhetoric and short on policy details. But I think this is a stylistic and "marketing" choice rather than a reflection of the vapidity of the candidate. Obama and his team believe that most voters respond more to atmospherics than they do to policy details, and so they are trying to sell Obama on that basis.

And is there any evidence they are wrong? Would Obama really be more appealing to a large number of voters if his speeches and ads emphasized lists of ten-point plans and statistical breakdowns rather than uplifting rhetoric? I doubt it. We might prefer it if most voters made their choices based on rational, factual analyses rather than how they feel about the candidates, but it sure doesn't look as if that's true.

The old story about Adlai Stevenson still contains a lot of truth. During one of his presidential campaigns, a fan supposedly told him, "Every thinking American will support you!" Stevenson replied, "That's no good, I need a majority."

Dig a bit, and I think you'll conclude that both Hillary and Obama are candidates of substance. However, Obama is choosing not to lead with substance but instead to lead with atmospherics, believing this is his route to the White House. We'll see whether he is right or wrong. But in the meantime, I think it's a bit unfair for Democrats to accuse him of offering nothing but hot air.

Update

Matt Yglesias offers his own take on this topic from a slightly different angle.

I Pulled The Lever For Obama

Forced by the calendar to make a choice between Hillary and Obama (today of course is primary day here in New York), I broke with certain members of my family whose opinions I deeply respect and cast my ballot for Obama. I would certainly be happy to vote for either Hillary or Obama in November--not just as a superior alternative to any likely Republican, but as a genuinely talented leader with smarts and good instincts that I think would make a fine president.

I voted for Obama partly on the (admittedly weak) grounds that he is probably the underdog in the nominating race. I wouldn't have wanted Hillary to cruise to an easy nomination, which is what many pundits were predicting six months ago; I have enough concerns about her hawkish foreign policy leanings and her apparent accommodation to corporatist interests that I want her to suffer a bit (figuratively speaking) before being nominated. (A vote for Edwards would have been even more effective in lodging this sort of "protest.")

If Obama had a big lead, I would probably have voted for Hillary. I wouldn't want him to cruise to an easy nomination, either.

On a more logical plane, I find that James Fallows does a fine job of summarizing the way I see the pros and cons of both candidates. I'll quote him at some length:

--On domestic and economic and environmental policy, it's a wash. The Clinton and Obama positions are similar to each other and different from any Republican's. Some people think there is a huge difference in their health-care proposals. Having seen administrations come and go, I am absolutely certain that the difference between Clinton's and Obama's stated objectives in 2008 matters much, much less than what either of them will be able to get through the Congress in 2009 and afterward. Thus: an important distinction in domestic policy is which candidate will bring in a larger bloc in Congress to work with.

--On foreign policy, Clinton and Obama actually do differ, and I agree with him more than with her. He (like Al Gore) was against invading Iraq before it happened; she was for it. He (like Jim Webb) opposed the infamous Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which at the time was undeniably an attempt to legitimize military action against Iran; she voted for it. (Obama, to his discredit, failed to show up to cast his No vote, but his position was not in doubt.) He has criticized the current flat-earth idiotic US policy toward Cuba; she has defended it (as Fareed Zakaria has pointed out in a strong recent essay). I understand the argument that Sen. Clinton has to take these positions to maintain her "credibility" and appearance of strength. To me that matters less than that she keeps voting in what I consider the wrong way. Thus: the positions and "mindsets" differ, and and I like his better.

--On style and governing philosophy, she is for incremental policies and incremental politics--"experience" and "competence"--based on the underlying belief that Republican obstructionism makes nothing else possible. Not even for a dreamer like Obama. He obviously is trying for something more--as Bill Clinton was in 1992, when I preferred him to an incomparably more experienced and time-tested President.

--On straight electability, just unknowable. Given that everyone in the country already knows her and a large minority say they don't like her, a narrow victory seems the most that is within Hillary Clinton's grasp. People can argue that Obama would be capable of much more--or, on the contrary, even less, and that not even a narrow win would be possible once the smear machine got through with him. There is simply no way to be sure now, when it's time to vote. Thus: also a wash.

--On diversity and opportunity, a breakthrough either way. But on a deeper level of "diversity," we have the prospect of returning a husband-and-wife team--Bill Clinton's emergence has made this unignorable--already in the White House for eight years, versus fresh blood.

Any vote for anybody is a gamble. Who imagined that the George Bush of 2000, with his "compassionate conservatism" and critiques of "nation building," would become the man we've known in office? We have no idea what surprises will confront a President Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or Romney, or McCain, or how they might respond. We have to place bets--roll the dice, if you will--based on what we do know, which for me is the elements above.

Like Fallows, I think "electability" is a chimera. And like Fallows, I don't place a lot of importance on the details of the candidates' respective health care programs, although here I part company with my aforementioned family members as well as other people I respect, such as Paul Krugman.

Note that, in his column, Fallows never actually tells us whom he would vote for--he just lists these as the main elements he would consider in making a choice. But to me, the combined logic of these points adds up, though narrowly, to a vote for Obama.

"He Just Shrugged"

This was a good post by Paul Krugman, playing off a Glenn Greewald post, which in turn quoted a Peggy Noonan column from 2004 about George Bush (getting multiple regression vertigo yet?). Here is the Noonan quote:

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, "Where's Sally?"

Krugman comments:

What Greenwald doesn't point out is that a year later there really was a fire on the block--or, literally, a flood in New Orleans. And Bush didn't run out and help--in fact, his aides had to make a special DVD of horrifying clips from TV news to get his attention. And what he said when he finally made an appearance wasn't "Where's Sally?"--it was "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Too true. It reminded me that I just stumbled across a classic illustration of the Bush personality, as accurately captured by Krugman, in, of all things, the airline magazine Hemispheres. It appeared in this interview with a Scottish-born celebrity photographer named Harry Benson. The story is brief:

Q: Right after you became a U.S. citizen, you photographed George W. Bush for the first time, when he was running for president. What was that like?

A: I went to the governor's office in Texas, and he was there with a golf club, practicing his swing. I told him that I had just become an American citizen, and he just shrugged. But a moment later, it must have occurred to him because he turned and pointed his golf club at me and said, "That means you can vote, and I am asking for your vote." I said, "Well, let's just see how it goes today, Gov. Bush."

Says it all, doesn't it? Bush couldn't even be bothered to congratulate somone on becoming an American--until Bush realized it meant the guy could do something to benefit him. That's how Bush measures people: purely in terms of their usefulness to George W. Bush. Thank God 2008 will be our last full year of having to see this man leading our country and representing it to the world.