PLANK SEPTEMBER 5, 2012
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CHARLOTTE—For me, who had never been to a convention until I arrived in Charlotte Monday night, and who had never been a straight political journalist until I felt compelled to act like one because I was suddenly surrounded by them, the problem of watching a speech from the convention floor, is the problem of the convention generally: With so much manufactured spectacle right up in your face, and so much interpretative press machinery grinding away loudly on every side, you don’t know where to look, or how to look, or even if you’re actually there at all. In some sense the real action of the convention is taking place elsewhere, in media echo-land, in real-time on Twitter (which one begins to check before the speech has even run five minutes), and in the future on tomorrow’s panel shows, whose reactions you’re already trying to anticipate even as you strain to watch the speaker.
But which speaker should you be watching? They’re all so different. The tiny, human one down there on the stage who’s visible only as a node or focal point for the synchronized waving of long foam wands? The big one looming on the Jumbotron, her features so large that they seem slightly monstrous? The TV-proportioned one on the small screens perched on the desks of the reporters in front of you, whose comments on the speech as it plays out deform your experience of the speech itself, tugging you toward a consensus-based response while you’re still in process of forming a private one? Or should you pay attention to the crowd as it cheers and applauds and falls silent and then cheers louder, its reactions in no way reflective of the country’s, but rather of the cultivated microcosm contained in the stadium in which you stand. And where, exactly, in this stadium are you standing? Somewhere up high and way off to the side, laboring to grasp the multi-factorial spectacle that only those who haven’t seen such things from the press level of a stadium-based convention would ever dare to call a “speech.”
“I think it’s lousy,” I whisper during Michelle Obama’s appearance Tuesday night to a colleague who’s sitting rapt before his monitor obviously thinking just the opposite. When I get no response, I elaborate, expand. “She’s overacting. Two gestures for every word. I don’t like all the family nostalgia either: the ‘we were so poor and in debt’ stuff. It’s corny. Patronizing. She’s trying to do some hypnotic regression thing, too, where we all fall in love with the old ‘08 Obama again and block out everything that’s happened since.”
“Well, I think she’s killing it,” the reporter says. “And she’s doing exactly what she has to do: She’s energizing the base.”
I lapse into silence, feeling shamed and ignorant. It’s important, I’m learning, when watching a convention speech to know who it’s aimed at beside the general public—to understand its specific tactical goals—but I’m not wired to think that narrowly. I’m also not wired in such a way that I can ignore the massive teleprompter that Michelle Obama is staring at even as her face up on the Jumbotron appears to be seized with spontaneous emotions that always well up right on cue, and sometimes a micro-second before the cue.
But I’m in the minority on this. What strikes me as melodramatic posturing strikes those around me, judging by their comments, as either immaculate political showmanship or genuine passion, which I find preposterous. Still, they predict with assurance that the speech will be deemed a success, and I guess they ought to know because they’re the ones who will start the deeming process. Which, in fact, has already begun. And which, in fact, turns out just the way they said it would, which I learn when I finally get back to my room and turn on cable TV. What I thought I was seeing clearly, through my own eyes—a wandering, vaporous, contrived display of middle-brow sentimentality and word-goo—I entirely misinterpreted, apparently. Or everyone else misinterpreted it, perhaps, which comes to the same thing.
To disagree with the conventional wisdom even as it’s being born around you—and even as you’re trying with all your might to anticipate and even shape it—is a profoundly disorienting experience. It makes you wonder if you were there at all, or if there even exists a there to be at. Ideally, a convention would be a ground zero of factuality, an objective reality in a shifting universe of spin and opinion and second-order commentary. But the further you get inside one, I’m discovering, the more deliriously lost you feel, particularly to the self that you came in with. How does one both enter the group mind and stay inside one’s own mind? It’s a challenge.
It’s not just a journalistic challenge, either. It’s the challenge we all face as modern political animals, caught in the feedback loops and logic mazes that come of trying to know the truth, our own truth—the truth worth casting our one and only vote for—when we don’t even know where to look, or through whose eyes.
39 comments
Depraved and decadent, right. But Tampa's got strippers, and Republicans are the best tippers. Let me tell you, if YOU don't know where the truth is, just because Michelle is being emotional, then we're in deep trouble. I don't expect the Republicans to know, or even care, what the REAL truth is -- they have their own distorted dogma truth and they're running with it. Quite frankly, if the Big Tent of the Democratic party confuses you, I'd appreciate it if you didn't blame the Democrats for that. "The fault, dear Horatio, is in ourselves".
- AllanL5
September 5, 2012 at 7:52pm
Oh for pete's sake. OK that's the second time I have said that in the last 50 seconds or so, the previous time being in response to the question about the weather, did the Democrats REALLY cancel the outdoor stadium in response thereto? Goodness. I am surprised by the coverage of this convention. It rocks from where I sit, which admittedly isn't in Charlotte, but on Cspan and MSNBC, etc. The speeches are terrific, they link together the personal with the political, and Michelle Obama was beyond fabulous, I am baffled frankly. What do you guys want?
- Sophia
September 5, 2012 at 9:26pm
PS AllanL5 is totally correct. If the sight and sound of diversity, women, nuns, old people, young people, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, black people, Southern people, guys from Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, etc, bothers y'all, if sincere emotion bothers you - please feel free to join another party. SOMEHOW we will survive without you. Sheese.
- Sophia
September 5, 2012 at 9:29pm
"A convention should be a ground zero of factuality, an objective reality in a shifting universe of spin and opinion and second-order commentary . . ." Yes, of course! After all, that's exactly what party conventions have been ever since the earliest days of the United States's political system. Now that you mention it, I remember one last week that was just like that.
- ironyroad
September 5, 2012 at 10:06pm
"But I’m in the minority on this. What strikes me as melodramatic posturing strikes those around me, judging by their comments, as either immaculate political showmanship or genuine passion, which I find preposterous." Exactly. So why don't you quietly embrace your minority status and STFU? That is, if you care about the outcome of this election and want the Democratic Party candidate to win. So the convention is artificial. No shit, Sherlock. You got your "scoop." Yay. By all means, hang out at the convention. Poke your nose into every corner you can get into. Take copious notes. And on November 7 sit down and bang out a wry little volume on the multi-layered phoniness of contemporary American politics, but if you care anything about things like maintaining a progressive tax structure in this country or ensuring that even the poorest, dumbest, least lovable Americans have access to benefits such as food, shelter and basic medical care or in general seeing to it that the RSA--Republic of South Africa--changes to look more like the USA and not the other way around, you'll lay off giving us any more such expression of faux naif bewilderment until after Barrack Obama ensures his seat in the Oval Office for another four years.
- AaronW
September 5, 2012 at 10:53pm
I am with everyone else on this, what the eff is this navel gazing piece of garbage? I would say the same thing if Kirn were at the Republican convention. Maybe being a gay black woman at the Republican convention might be very alienating, but I doubt Kirn is that. Dude, it is a show, if you don't like big shows don't go. The only way this article makes a lick of sense is if the author got really high and really paranoid before going to the convention. Otherwise it is interesting to know that TNR is hiring 15 year old angst ridden teenagers now.
- blackton
September 6, 2012 at 12:24am
I caught an ever-so-slight whiff of overacting. She had a tendency to repeat the first word of a phrase in order to convey heartfelt emphasis, as in, "I, I, believe...." She did that maybe a few too many times. My point is, I guess I see what Kirn is reacting to. But, I totally disagree with the conclusion. Someone who thinks that was a "lousy" speech don't know from speeches, or maybe just doesn't like any of them. Corny? Sure, but honest and not at all patronizing. An emotional, button-pushing appeal can be honest. Was she trying to make us fall in love again? Yes. (Mission accomplished.) Was she trying to make us forget about the last four years? Hardly. It was an affirmation of Democratic values -- my favorite line: success isn't about how much money you make, but about the difference you make in people's lives. It's a deliberate contrast with Romney, who says that he doesn't have to apologize for his "success." His success at what? Secreting Benjamins? Yes, some Republicans can tell a "we had it rough and came from humble beginnings" story too. (Certainly not Romney.) But, what lessons do you draw from that? I got mine, so get off the couch, you lazy bum, and get a job? And if the response is, well, it's obviously more complicated than that, I think the answer is, not so much.
- JakeH
September 6, 2012 at 1:11am
"It’s important, I’m learning, when watching a convention speech to know who it’s aimed at beside the general public—to understand its specific tactical goals—but I’m not wired to think that narrowly." Correction, Walter: You're not wired to think that broadly. Conventions and convention speeches operate on various levels for various purposes and audiences. If that's beyond your grasp, don't bother us with this very weak attempt at political reporting. There were aspects of Michelle's speech that didn't wow me either. But on balance it was very effective at making some very important points. You might try to analyze those rather than doing whatever it is this piece pretends to be doing.
- Thunderroad
September 6, 2012 at 3:06am
Personally I find Kirn's take refreshing. There's no more conforming a bunch of herd animals on the planet than political reporters. At least he's trying to get a different angle.
- Robert Powell
September 6, 2012 at 5:49am
He (?) is not allowed to have or express an opinion that is not at all points favourable to the chosen candidate. What a depressing lineup of nodding heads with a semi-catatonic look on their faces. But that's the nature of political partisanship. As Disraeli said it much more honestly: "Damn your principles! Stick to your party."
- noga1
September 6, 2012 at 7:02am
"Walter Kirn," huh? I think I recognize the voice of Holden Caulfield when I hear it. Get back to Pencey Prep, you goddamn phony.
- AlanVann
September 6, 2012 at 8:21am
This is epic foolishness, a variant on Brooks and Galston admonishing Democrats about how they must, in the course of an election campaign, initiate a substantive debate and what they take to be Political campaigns are performance art, nothing more, nothing less, as Ronnie and his ouiji board should long since have taught everyone. It is either effective stagecraft or not. That is ALL that matters. Perhaps, someday, we will have an educated electorate that wants to listen to the modern equivalent of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. We don't. In the meantime, any politician who does not play to the electorate we have, rather than the electorate we (especially wonkish Democrats) wish for, is a fool. And so are people who advocate that the Democrats fail to take care of the business of politics using the tools that work, whether we like them or not.
- roidubouloi
September 6, 2012 at 8:33am
"This is epic foolishness, a variant on Brooks and Galston admonishing Democrats about how they must, in the course of an election campaign, initiate a substantive debate on what they take to be the critical issues of the day." The phone rings, I lose my place. Sheesh.
- roidubouloi
September 6, 2012 at 8:41am
Roi. Agreed. Except I suspect that the crowd listening to the Lincoln Douglas debates was probably very similar to that portayed by The Life Of Brian at the Sermon on the Mount.
- drofnats1
September 6, 2012 at 8:42am
"I lapse into silence, feeling shamed and ignorant." (ahem).
- Tristan
September 6, 2012 at 8:48am
noga, sorry, but as roi pointed out this is theater, to expect otherwise is foolish. As I said myself I would have the same reaction if he went to the Republican convention. I don't like country music so I never go to any shows but I have the good sense and decency that if I were to go I would not begrudge the fans there from having a good time, I wouldn't condescend to them and find their feelings preposterous. This article is childish cynicism.
- blackton
September 6, 2012 at 9:35am
Forgive me. As a former longtime TNR subscriber who finally let my subscription lapse when I couldn't stomach the thought of Martin Peretz anymore, and who has recently re-subscribed because I miss the great writing in the magazine, I'm unfamiliar with Walter Kirn. Is he, like, eighteen years old or something? "To disagree with the conventional wisdom even as it’s being born around you—and even as you’re trying with all your might to anticipate and even shape it—is a profoundly disorienting experience." He sounds a like high school valedictorian...
- jongould1
September 6, 2012 at 10:17am
That was a great "Emperor's New Clothes"-type comment. But, how could he have been so lost in the woodwork to expect anything different? The very fact that a spouse is speaking is absurd, though now a tradition. But, alienation should be partial, with nausea not getting the better of righteous passion. Our fantasy of the ideal convention is now a seamless melding of the William Jennings Bryan and Oprah in us all...
- jacob111
September 6, 2012 at 10:39am
"Forgive me. As a former longtime TNR subscriber who finally let my subscription lapse when I couldn't stomach the thought of Martin Peretz anymore, and who has recently re-subscribed because I miss the great writing in the magazine, I'm unfamiliar with Walter Kirn. Is he, like, eighteen years old or something?" Exactly where I am. Except that I get the sense Kirn is a liberal arts - sociology, I should imagine - prof in a second rate upstate NY college. If not that, then a drama coach/theatre critic. "Ideally, a convention would be a ground zero of factuality," Whose ideal, and why? A party political convention that is struck to select the party's nominee for a presidential election should, of course, not be based on lies, but "ground zero of factuality"? Really? It's supposed to be a three-day infomercial/revival rally, and if you can't get that, you should not be doing political reporting. Any way, out of curiosity, what the hell does "ground zero of factuality" mean? I mean, "ground zero", in technical parlance, was the point directly under the impact of a nuclear weapon (which typically explodes a few thousand feet above ground). After 9/11, it was used to describe the scene of death and destruction at the heart of the terrorist attack and collapse of the two towers. "Ground zero of factuality" is, thus, the point at which facts go to get obliterated? The point five thousand below where a nuclear weapon of factuality explodes? Holy nonsensical metaphor. "But the further you get inside one, I’m discovering, the more deliriously lost you feel, particularly to the self that you came in with." Hmmm. Must have been some convention, then. As part revival rally, that is exactly how you are supposed to be feeling. Mind, it does depend on the self that you came in with - some of the selfs I know are self-assured enough not to be lost in a political rally, even one being conduted by Bill Clinton; other selfs I know - the political ones - go to conventions *to get lost* - kind of an extended E-trip without the E. The one time I attended one, it was principally to get laid, so the point was to get out of the convention with a different self than the one I came with. I have yet to come across a self who gets lost in a convention and then complains about it afterwards.
- icarus-r
September 6, 2012 at 12:27pm
I take away two things from this article. The first is that I've experienced a refreshing take on a modern political convention. The other is that Walter Kirn is truly, monumentally, bad at his job. Walter, I think your only chance at this gig is a Hunter Thompson-type alternative reality take on modern politics. I rarely recommend this, but I think you need to stock up on guns and drugs. (Or perhaps that's "more drugs", if I read between some of the lines in your piece correctly.)
- floydsm8
September 6, 2012 at 12:42pm
ICARUS!! YOU'RE BACK!!!!! :) missed ya buddy
- Tristan
September 6, 2012 at 12:53pm
I'm with Noga1 and Robert Powell not in thinking badly of Mi.O.'s speech, which I thought good for what it was, but in thinking relatively well of Kirn's piece, which, in fact, I also find a refreshing take, but primarily, in, where it exists on this thread, and it's not infrequent, the vitriol leveled at Kirn. It doesn't surprise me but it saddens me and depresses me not least because it doesn't surprise me. And for the one guy who wants scatalogically to enlist Kirn as amongst the enemy threatening to undermine the great D cause and risk the amelioration of world peace and hunger and suffering, why this is a species of self inflating, self regarding silliness, to say the least, and to be not too unkind about it.
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 6:20pm
I'm with Noga1 and Robert Powell not in thinking badly of Mi.O.'s speech, which I thought good for what it was, but in thinking relatively well of Kirn's piece, which, in fact, I also find a refreshing take, but primarily, in, where it exists on this thread, and it's not infrequent, the vitriol leveled at Kirn. It doesn't surprise me but it saddens me and depresses me not least because it doesn't surprise me. And for the one guy who wants scatalogically to enlist Kirn as amongst the enemy threatening to undermine the great D cause and risk the amelioration of world peace and hunger and suffering, why this is a species of self inflating, self regarding silliness, to say the least, and to be not too unkind about it.
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 6:21pm
Keep doing that. Sorry.
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 6:22pm
Icarus r, btw, welcome back too. Place is better for your return. On a personal note, my kid's leaving Ottawa end of this month for Toronto. Too bad you never met her. She's a great kid and a considerably nicer person than I (even if her politics are more progressive than mine.)
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 6:29pm
But basman, how is the piece "refreshing"? Just because it tries to provoke? I guess you could make that case. I mean, speaking just for myself here, I wasn't refreshed but rather baffled and irritated simultanously. What refreshed me was the beer I got from the refrigerator as a way of giving myself a break from irritated bafflement.
- ironyroad
September 6, 2012 at 8:02pm
“What refreshed me was the beer I got from the refrigerator as a way of giving myself a break from irritated bafflement.” That was a beauty, Irony. It should be comforting, Icarus, that the quality of thoughtful / witty / insightful posts remains at a high standard.
- OkiSaru
September 6, 2012 at 8:43pm
Michelle has not broken new ground as a first lady. She has fulfilled a typical role as the one who works on relatively uncontroversial causes in a non-political capacity. So, we don't expect her to give a policy speech or even an ordinary political speech, but rather a mainly personal speech meant to convey what a great guy her husband is. If we wanted or expected something much different than that, I suppose we would have been disappointed, but I'm not sure why we should have. And, the thing is, even though this category of speech could generally be described as insipid, corny, or banal, Michelle did such a good job with it, and she's such an appealing personality, that it overcame the eye-rolling impulse that ordinarily kicks in when you hear the phrase, "When I was growing up...," and, for me anyway, triggered the sort of emotional response I guess I'm supposed to be embarrassed by and that Kirn is evidently immune to. Not that there's anything wrong with poor Kirn. I know the feeling of seeming to be the only one who sees things in a certain way, but, in this case, I'm with the mob.
- JakeH
September 6, 2012 at 8:45pm
The very thing you took exception to: ...Ideally, a convention would be a ground zero of factuality, an objective reality in a shifting universe of spin and opinion and second-order commentary. But the further you get inside one, I’m discovering, the more deliriously lost you feel, particularly to the self that you came in with. How does one both enter the group mind and stay inside one’s own mind?... The naïf sees no clothes in his naïveté, sees the nakedness of scripted melodrama, calculated lines meant to hit metaphoric knees so they jerk the metaphoric legs, which is to say the reflexivity of these affairs, sees no substance, no facts, but rather talking points dressed up in narrative and heart tugging testimonials and so on. I like this lense even while understanding what political conventions are and are supposed to accomplish. I found his emperor- has-no-clothes posture illuminating in its way, that illumination not the least diminished by Rs being equal opportunity offenders by Kirn's criteria.
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 8:56pm
Kirn's not alone. Here's a smidge from Canada's Andrew Coyne (whose sister btw bore Trudeau's child) and no naïf: ...Andrew Coyne, Postmedia News · Sept. 6, 2012 | Last Updated: Sept. 6, 2012 3:02 AM ET Every time you think politics cannot get any more ghastly, it outghasts all previous records. A case in point: the now obligatory enlisting of the candidates' wives to "soften" or "humanize" their men, by any means necessary: from treacly anecdotes about their love life to the details of their most intimate personal tragedies (maybe you've heard about Ann Romney's battle with multiple sclerosis, but did you know about her several miscarriages?) it's all part of the pathological exhibitionism that today is required not only of politicians, but those close to them. Once, candidates were expected to speak for themselves: to set out their views on the great challenges before the country, and how they intended to tackle them. Now it's all just one big episode of Big Brother out there. Only no one takes Big Brother seriously. By contrast, squadrons of pundits are now assigned to ponder the historic significance of the convention speeches by the two wives - whether the holes in the door of the car a young Barack Obama used to take Michelle on dates was an image better calculated to warm the hearts of the boobs watching at home than the ironing board a young Mr. and Mrs. Romney used as a dining table, or who could more convincingly gush of the love she still bore for that man she first fell for "all those years ago." I gather the consensus choice is Michelle. Sail on, O Ship of State! In the circumstances, the personal attacks that took up the remainder of the Democrats' first night came as something of a relief. "Mitt Romney just doesn't get it," sneered the convention's keynote speaker, San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, in a typical moment. The candidate's career with Bain Capital was invoked repeatedly, as it has been throughout the campaign. If Romney were Santa Claus, said the former governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, "he'd fire the reindeer and outsource the elves." The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, continued to insist, as he has before, that Romney's unwillingness to disclose more than two years of back tax returns was evidence of something embarrassing. "We can only imagine what new secrets would be revealed" if he did, he said. Yes. We can only imagine...
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 9:47pm
There seems to be some kind of mute veneration here for a sort of bygone era when political speeches were all warm and frank and from the heart, pure and uncontrived. Unfortunately, that era never existed, with the exception of probably a handful of brilliant flashes which, had we been able to observe them, would have certainly made Mrs. Obama's speech seem pretty maudlin. I thought Mrs. Obama killed it, but i live in today's world.
- jerrol
September 6, 2012 at 10:12pm
In my country Canada, clearly an anachronistic place, politicians' wives don't do this treacly guff. Not even close. But we're stuck here in the 12th year of the 21st century, so, so, long ago.
- basman
September 6, 2012 at 10:41pm
I liked the article, simply because I think it accurately captured the overwhelming sensory experience of being in the middle of an event like this. The lights, sounds, crush, multitude of speeches and layers of commentary; the ideas and agendas at play. I don't think you need to be 18 to be overwhelmed by it. And I think it true and wise to say that its hard to say what the media will make of the stew--what perhaps profound or trivial theme they will latch on to to excite the masses for the next day or so. While I think it is certainly wrong to expect Truth to emerge from the balloons, I do think his take is interesting--certainly not worthy of mob thrashing he's gotten.
- Vogelfam
September 6, 2012 at 10:51pm
A critique of the success or failure of the convention as performance art, political theater, would have been far more interesting, assuming the author were capable of such a thing You find current political theater vapid? Poor baby. Am I to understand that we are supposed to take this for a refreshing insight? It is utterly banal. But to utter this banal truth breathlessly, with a sense of wondrous discovery, does bespeak a juvenile mind.
- roidubouloi
September 6, 2012 at 11:54pm
"In my country Canada, clearly an anachronistic place, politicians' wives don't do this treacly guff. Not even close. But we're stuck here in the 12th year of the 21st century, so, so, long ago." Lucky you. But we're here in the United States, triangulated somewhere between Colonial Williamsburg, high school student government, and The Wire, and if what's needed for a political campaign is a spousal affirmation, then that's what we'll have. Two of 'em. Why the one triggers Kirn's aesthetic gag reaction and the other one didn't remains an enigma between him and his gastric juices.
- ironyroad
September 7, 2012 at 1:43am
Let's see. If someone were to write an article observing that advertising uses sex to sell stuff and opining that "advertisement should be factual ground zero," giving consumers the information they need to make intelligent choices, what would we say? If it were an earnest essay by a 16-year old beginning to discover some of the realities of the adult world, we might applaud. But if written by an adult? We may deplore in various degrees the use of sex to sell stuff, but no one has the slightest idea how this could be changed. They do it because it works. And as long as it works, because we have a culture within which it works, this is not about to change. A learned exploration of what it means for our culture and our future that things are this way might be welcome. But simply observing that sex sells? Come on.
- roidubouloi
September 7, 2012 at 1:58am
I'm having gastric juice for breakfast.
- basman
September 7, 2012 at 9:00am
Lucky me. Perhaps. But the issue is this view of the observed spectacle. How does its necessity, perhaps exemplifying thr ongoing demeaning of your politics as a mugs's game, cut against the criticism in Kirn's piece. A small t.e: substitute mutatis mutandis the R convention in this piece for the D convention and query whether the vitriol here set against Kirn would've appeared?
- basman
September 7, 2012 at 11:05am
Well, basman, mutatis mutandi or not, you can consider me consistent. Every time there is one of these articles breathlessly decrying Republican mendacity and calling for honest political debate, I say the same thing: What do you expect? They have been telling preposterous lies about everything for 30 years? The only important question is, what rhetoric the Democrats should use to defeat them? I don't even give a damn whether it is all lies so long as it is effective, although in response to the Republicans lies are unnecessary as the truth is damning enough. And so, when this boob starts complaining that the Democrats are actually doing that which, like it or not, is politically effective, merely because it offends his tender aesthetic sensibilities, he should be told to bugger off and stop behaving like a an adolescent. That is the very least he deserves.
- roidubouloi
September 8, 2012 at 8:33am