Good observation in this LA Times article:
John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood
Just for a start, industry types say the ad is wrong: In the Hollywood lexicon, Obama is not a celebrity. He’s a rock star. (Note to McCain strategists: That’s the difference between Jessica Simpson and Bono.)
Okay, hallmark of the Rove tactics is to turn a strength against an opponent.
But seeing the crowds around Obama and deciding that he is famous for being famous is a fundamental misunderstanding. These people are turning out to see the performance he has turned in time and time again. The civic guitar solo.
HRC poo-pooed this showmanship as mere words. But oratory has been a core political skill since Ancient Greece precisely because of what lies behind those words. Oratory as a craft, as Obama employes it, persuades because it uses reason, emotion, and the evocation of a civic wisdom dormant in all of us.
Persuasion is the ideal process of democractic action. It is earning the consent of the governed. People will respond to more authoritarian tactics. Scare them, they will hand over freedoms for protection. Bribe them, they will put people in power who will abuse the commons to benefit their constituency. But win them by reason, by emotion, and by appealing to their idealism and they will fill the ampitheaters and pavillions just to be a part of it.
That foundation of this oratory is compelling because it is in the genetic code of American government. It re-awakens that pride and idealism Americans felt in elementary school when they first learned what their country was intended to be. Before they did the unit on slavery, native americans, the gilded age…
And after the last eight years, Americans are weary of leaders who aim low and fall short. They want to reach for more. They want leaders who remind us we are not descended from small ambitious men. Men who tell us to be afraid and then exploit the fear they breed. They want to be part of something larger and more noble than their own self-interest.
The difference between a rock star and a celebrity is that on stage, the celebrity can only wave, the rockstar performs.
