{"id":642,"date":"2012-11-14T20:59:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T01:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=642"},"modified":"2012-11-14T20:59:28","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T01:59:28","slug":"living-narratives-not-lifeless-facts-the-power-of-story-in-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/living-narratives-not-lifeless-facts-the-power-of-story-in-politics.html","title":{"rendered":"Living Narratives, not Lifeless “Facts”: The Power of Story in Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Admittedly, I thought that Mitt Romney\u2019s chances of defeating Barack Obama were greater than not, a point for which I argued on more than one occasion during the election season.\u00a0 However, I also contended that Romney\u2019s chances would be considerably weakened if he and the Republicans insisted upon limiting their campaign\u2019s focus to the economy\u2014i.e. Obama\u2019s policies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well before Romney was the GOP nominee, Republican commentators derided those among the rank and file of their party who wanted to attack the President on a more personal basis.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need to do that, the pundits assured the rest of us; we need only center our attention on Obama\u2019s policies in order to sail to victory.<\/p>\n

All too predictably, this is the approach that Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, decided to take.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It failed.<\/p>\n

As I argued not all that long ago, while the economy may be voters\u2019 top concern, the endless litany of abstract zeroes with which they have been bombarded by their candidates were not likely to resonate with them.\u00a0 Romney and Ryan undoubtedly know their numbers, but how can the average American be expected to identify with billions and trillions in debts and deficits?\u00a0 Hell, how can the average voter relate to talk of millions<\/em>?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I also had observed at various times that Romney\u2019s business experience was most definitely not <\/em>the asset for the presidency that his supporters were making it out to be.\u00a0 Corporate executive officers manage <\/em>the corporations over which they preside.\u00a0 The president of a free people, on the other hand, far from being a manager, is supposed to be a governor.\u00a0 <\/em>And he (or she) is supposed to govern in accordance with law.<\/p>\n

Yet now we know that there is another respect in which Romney\u2019s success as a businessman may have been a political liability.\u00a0 As a businessman, Romney was consumed with the bottom line.\u00a0 He was, well, \u201call business,\u201d as they say.\u00a0 In politics, though, being well versed in dollars and cents isn\u2019t going to connect a candidate with voters, for numbers don\u2019t generally warm the heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fairness to Romney, whether it was Obama\u2019s economic or other <\/em>policies, as long as he, like John McCain before him, was resolved to speak to their opponent\u2019s politics<\/em> while ignoring his person<\/em>, Romney made life more difficult for himself.<\/p>\n

Neither the voter nor the country lives by policy alone.\u00a0 As a community organizer, Obama recognizes this for the axiom that it is.<\/p>\n

Obama realizes that, when it comes to politics, at any rate, reason exerts little influence over the decision-making of most people.\u00a0 His time as a community organizer has also taught him that while it is imagination that moves the average person, in most this faculty is not too terribly sophisticated.\u00a0 Thus, community organizers\u2014think Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, etc.\u2014are extraordinarily adept at weaving moral melodramas.\u00a0 Every issue they cast in terms of an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil: black versus white, rich versus poor, men versus women, gays versus straights, etc.<\/p>\n

Republicans, then, were sorely mistaken when they explained away Obama\u2019s \u201cKill Romney\u201d strategy as a pathetic attempt on the President\u2019s part to run from his record.\u00a0 Obama knew then what he has always known: to win people over to your side you must convince them that you are on the side of the angels.\u00a0 This, in turn, requires nothing less than the depiction of your opponent as the embodiment of villainy.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

But the lionizing of oneself and the demonization of one\u2019s rivals can occur only within the context of a story.\u00a0 It is only within a narrative that each party can be personalized.<\/p>\n

In other words, Republicans\u2019 obsessive preoccupation with their opponents\u2019 policies and equally pathological neglect of their characters is proving to be a losing strategy. Had Romney situated<\/em> Obama\u2019s policies within the context of the President\u2019s long standing alliances with a variety of countercultural, anti-Americans\u2014had he \u201cgone negative\u201d or, what amounts to the same thing, \u201cgone truthful\u201d\u2014the evening of November 6th<\/sup> just may have ended differently.<\/p>\n

We will never know for certain.\u00a0 We can only hope that in future campaigns Republicans will prefer living narratives to lifeless facts as they spend at least as much time defining their opponents\u2019 characters as they do their policies.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Admittedly, I thought that Mitt Romney\u2019s chances of defeating Barack Obama were greater than not, a point for which I argued on more than one occasion during the election season.\u00a0 However, I also contended that Romney\u2019s chances would be considerably weakened if he and the Republicans insisted upon limiting their campaign\u2019s focus to the economy\u2014i.e.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLiving Narratives, not Lifeless "Facts": The Power of Story in Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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