I’m amused that The Hill decided to grapple with the ‘wimp factor’ as it applies to Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty. People might think this is a hyped issue, but I think it is extremely important to understanding how voters will behave.
Republican presidential candidates have long enjoyed an advantage among white male voters. There is no single reason for this. But the GOP’s success at portraying its candidates as more assertive, decisive and outright macho than their opponents is clearly part of the mix.
Those who don’t fit the template, like Bush Sr., can often pay a political price.
Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, worked on Bush’s 1988 campaign. But even he admits the candidate had problems with projecting a robust image.
“As vice president, he came across as servile,” Pitney acknowledged. “And his whole package of mannerisms just didn’t come across as being those of an alpha male.”
America is not a tribal society. In some ways it is affirmatively anti-tribal in its values and culture. But we’re still a pack of human beings who come together every four years to choose our leader. And any time human beings select a leader, they are going to select an alpha dog. Beta dogs may do fairly well in elections for lower office, but they do not do well when running to be commander in chief.
Most Democrats seem kind of blind to this, letting their idealism or their interest in policy cloud their judgment about which candidates are likely to appeal to the general public. For example, a lot of Democrats thought Bill Clinton was finished after his infidelities were revealed during the 1992 primaries. What they didn’t realize is that Clinton’s carousing nature had an alpha dog appeal that Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown couldn’t match. It helped him win the primaries and it helped him project as a more plausible leader than Poppy Bush (the original wimp) or H. Ross Perot.
People aren’t looking for an unfaithful man. That’s not what I’m saying. But they are looking for someone who is a natural leader, and that means that they exude confidence, make friends easily, seem trustworthy…have charisma. These type of leaders make you want to follow them. You feel safe in following them.
If you lack these characteristics, like, say, Michael Dukakis, you are going to have a hard time winning a presidential election based on your superior argument on the issues or your advertising or your debate performance. How did George W. Bush do so well in the polls after his debates with Al Gore? It wasn’t related to anything that was actually said in the debates. It wasn’t, as is often said, about who people wanted to have a beer with. It isn’t a likability thing. It’s an alpha dog thing.
People pick natural leaders to lead them.
So how does Obama stack up as an alpha dog? Does killing an unarmed terrorist leader in cold blood rather than capturing him qualify him?
Barack Obama is a Black Man who was ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
That anyone doubts that he’s an Alpha among Alphas boggles my mind.
Win.
Saw a movie last week about Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill (movie was mostly conversation-negotiation) leading up to de Gaulle’s June 17 1940 departure from France and “Appeal of 18 June” to the French via the BBC. Pretty amazing. Both set a standard. Barack Obama is the only US figure in my lifetime I’d put in that league.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle
Obama stacked up as an alpha dog from day 1. That is why the GOP campaign against him has been so persistent, racist, and unrelenting. The GOP is still scared of him politically; that’s why they’ve adopted a scorched earth policy and are constantly taking hostage Democratic interests. That’s why they couldn’t conduct a knock-down, drag-out primary campaign debate either in South Carolina or New Hampshire. They have become fixated on getting rid of Obama. National policy doesn’t even enter into it; it’s personal. So having painted themselves into a corner by jerking to the extreme right, Congressional Republicans are now trying to attack Obama from his left flank.
And your question about the death of Osama bin Laden is just a cheap shot. You are making a supposition that might not be true. Folks likely will know in forty years or when the records are declassified.
My comment related primarily to the poll bounce Obama got when Osama was killed. There seemed to be more than a whiff of vengeance in the air. Totally understandable, of course, but vengeance nevertheless.
Would Obama have gotten the same bounce if Osama had been captured and put on trial, particularly if he gave prolonged testimony about the ways in which the CIA had set him up in the terrorist business and the reasons for his switching sides?
If you are going to talk about characters like John Wayne being the archetypal alpha dogs, then that also comes with connotations that summary justice being meted out by the Alpha male is preferable to lawyers arguing over technicalities and drawing out the whole business. I got the sense that people didn’t want to hear the other side of the story: They wanted summary justice and revenge and giving Osama a day in court wasn’t part of the plan.
I don’t think that politics entered into either the timing or the content of the operational orders that were given. As someone mentioned below, the likely orders were to give the Seal team itself discretion over whether capture represented a such a risk as to necessitate killing him.
I don’t blame Obama for the response of Americans who have been whipped up about terrorism for ten years.
There is going to be a similar debate about how to deal with Ayman al Zawahiri, now that he’s the symbolic head of al Quaeda.
I’m not sure that Obama is the archetypal alpha dog. I think that’s what’s driving the GOP over the edge.
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In a lawless country, terrorists sometimes meet their fate unexpectedly. It was not Obama’s call, the individuals taking part in the raid made a split-second decision. Even a civilian death can be suspect in a DEA raid. It’s an ugly world, best to leave the Pakistanis and Indians sort things out themselves. Let Karzai and the Taliban return to their Medieval Times.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Was Bush Junior really an Alpha Dog though? Or just seemed one in comparison to Gore/Kerry?
Just look at how Gore is made fun of in media and pop-culture. Especially South Park; their parody is how a lot of the US sees Al Gore.
Kerry is just seen as an elitist intellectual. Also, too, “weak on terror”.
Timmy Paw is a bitchass.
Mittens is a piece of shyt born between 3rd base and home, and actually thinks he did it all on his own.
Maybe I’m the exception, but I never sensed any alpha dog characteristics in George Bush. In fact, it seemed just the opposite to me. But the media had been in hyper-drive for a long, long time to solidify the ridiculous narrative that Bush was some kind of John Wayne for the new millennium; while simultaneously repeating lies and silly caricatures about Al Gore. Bush didn’t have to do or say anything of substance during the debate and he would still have been declared the winner.
I don’t know how anyone could look at George Bush as a “natural leader”. It was all a facade. But it was repeated and reinforced enough that people believed it.
Is there such a thing as a “gamma dog”? Because the news media — particularly the visual media — chase after both the beta and the alpha dogs as long as they get a few scraps.
The media are upsilon dogs.
Bush the Younger knew his Dad had a wimp problem and overcompensated with his swagger and tough talk. But all you need to know about Gore being a Beta Dog is that wet sloppy kiss he planted on Tipper at the Convention. He was overcompensating in the biggest way imaginable. Gore was never a natural leader and he faked it worse than his opponent.
Yep, it often made me cringe when it was so obvious he was trying hard to be something that he wasn’t. I felt embarrassed for him at times.
Yes, alpha dogs are appealing unless you have to be led by one that is insecure by nature. Alpha dogs are also likely to be tyrants as leaders.
The problem is that a lot of the media think that bombast is the sign of an alpha dog. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.
The other problem about this in politics is that campaigning has become more and more the art of deception, in which beta dogs try to position themselves as alpha dogs. Given the complicity of the media in current campaigns, I would judge Bush as one of these. And really Cheney as well. The Senate cannot get anything done because of the difficulty of getting agreement among alpha dogs. So what holds the Senate GOP together? Is Mitch McConnell an alpha dog?
Frankly, I think that this idea is pop psychology at its worst. It ranks up there with the red state-blue state mythology.
Well, it can certainly be taken too far or too seriously.
Yet, it is a real factor in how people vote. And, yes, it comes with a lot of problems.
First of all, one characteristic of alpha males is that they tend to do very well with the ladies. Since alpha males make the best politicians, we tend to have a lot more infidelity in our politicians than you’d see in a more accurate cross-section of the people.
Alpha males can also be unusually manipulative and self-centered.
But, hey, life isn’t fair, as any number of ‘nice’ guys can tell you.
Alpha males also rise to lead corporations, even when they are incompetent. Which is the serious problem that we have with the economy right now.
I would not assume that alpha male predation among politicians is exclusively heterosexual. The language of office politics, after all, contains many words referencing male rape.
But the phenomenon is not rational; I suspect that it is a part of the lizard brain that the posturing and advertising is appealing to in order suppress rational decisionmaking. That would be what “manipulative” would mean, wouldn’t it?
Where does Jimmy Carter fit in this description?
Carter was an alpha dog. If you saw him in operation in Georgia, you would understand that. Behind that affable Southern exterior is one strong politician. That’s what folks voted for in 1976. They were tired of bombast.
Not all alpha dogs bark loud. Without the Reagan campaign’s violations of the Logan Act, Carter would likely have won. People realize that; that’s why Carter is still influential in a way that Bill Clinton has not achieved.