Leadership

Once upon a time we had a president that knew how to lead. Admittedly, he sometimes accomplished it by dragging congressmen by their nose.

Next we had a paranoid psychotic who thought he was a leader. Strangely, the public largely bought into his delusion.

Come the presidential election of 1976 and the people were weary of strong ‘leaders,’ the war, the economy, et al. The parties measured the mood of the public. That election cycle both parties offered non-leaders as candidates.

Four years later, the people decided they really did want a leader. Instead, they elected St. Ronny. He was a good enough actor to play the part of leader.

There is no explanation for George H.W. Bush. Perhaps people thought it was his turn. He certainly wasn’t a leader. The silver spoon in his mouth would look out of place in the mouth of a receptionist but it’s difficult to justify putting him in charge of other people.

Clinton was hardly a leader but he had consummate political skills aside from leadership. He depended on being the ultimate wonk combined with a charm offensive rare in today’s political world.

Then came The Decider. It was a delicate weaving together of the humiliation of being Cheney’s puppet with a lifelong mastery of the art of being a spoiled brat. Somehow that was perceived as leadership by an embarrassing number of Americans.

Though I still question the legitimacy of the count in 2004, the fact remains that at least a large percentage bought W’s claims of being a leader. Likely it was a matter of too many people having formed their concept of leadership based on television westerns. If it swaggered, you followed it.

The 2004 election appeared to make no sense. The polls showed the majority of the public disagreed with Bush on every significant issue. Then why would they vote for him? He claimed to be a leader and bulled on through with his positions. If the public can accept a psychotic, an actor and a wannabe cowboy as embodying leadership, it should be obvious that they have not set the bar too high.

The voters thought, or hoped, Obama would lead them to change. However, everyone has since learned that he hasn’t the temperament of a leader. His preferred milieu is the conference table, not at the vanguard of the insurgents.

He might be very effective as a negotiator if only he had someone willing to sit down and negotiate. We’ll never know.

A leader has to have a specific destination, a definite goal in mind. Negotiators work to see what they can get. And never the twain shall meet.

Surveys show that the people generally like Obama. They don’t, however, see him dealing with the problems successfully. His base is disheartened. They have lost their motivation. With extremely rare exceptions, no one leads everyone. Though the present threat to the nation is in the same range of magnitude as WWII, no one has convinced the public.

It is folly to expect to lead everyone. A leader selects those he wants to lead and gives them direction, motivation. He divides to conquer. You tell your base that their goals are sacred and tell the opposition to go to hell, or more genteelly, that they are inconsequential.

You gin up the emotion of your troops. You motivate them to get off their asses and work to get all of their allies to the polls. A motivated minority can easily outvote an unmotivated majority.

Can Obama transmute into a leader? There is no reason to expect so. He seems unaware that his present course leads only to failure. If he prevails in November of 2012 he will still not be able to accomplish the goals he holds dear.

If one looks at the presidency from an historical standpoint, successful second terms are very much a rarity, indeed, an oddity. Were it not for ego and delusions, presidents would not be inclined to seek second terms. More especially, they would not expect to accomplish in that second term what they failed to achieve in their first.

That last point is such a truism that it goes beyond the allotted two terms. In blue-skying various possibilities, it was suggested that Obama might step down for Hillary to run. The next question was whether she would be successful in getting a rational health care reform. The answer has to be that she would not even broach the subject.

She is considered to have been partially involved in its loss in the early nineties. She would not in another term, even though her own, be able to resuscitate that dead issue. Someone else can do it, but it will not be Obama or Hillary.

Obama, given another term, would be unable to get further significant changes in health care, another stimulus or anything else of consequence. The only foreseeable value of a second Obama term would be to preclude the dangers inherent in the election of any of his present potential opponents.

For some reason, as each day passes, I become more and more convinced that I am Cassandra’s biological brother.

As a special treat, I have added a presentation from former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on what to expect from downgrades in the nation’s credit rating to various levels.

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