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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Bush and the GOP are trying to paint Kerry as a Euro-wimp and girlie man. But the Dems have a chance to show America that it's Bush who's the real 97-lb. weakling.
Aug 7, 2004 | This year's presidential election is, once again, a contest between personalities as much as ideologies. The key battleground is over masculinity. Who has more? And who gets to define it?
The one aspect of John Kerry's performance at the Democratic Convention that everybody would agree on is that he wanted to come off like a man. The war-buddy reunion, the documentary mini-epic, the talk of lessons learned patrolling the Mekong Delta on a gunboat -- all were part of an ongoing effort to boost Kerry's macho credentials. Whether shooting pheasants or clay pigeons, playing hockey in the winter, or riding a race bike in the summer, Kerry has taken every possible opportunity to paint himself as warrior, hunter, athlete, and overall man's man. This eagerness is a response to the Republican Party's relentless attempt to undermine Kerry's masculinity and score points for Bush on a highly symbolic, highly valuable plane.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent "girlie men" remark (he hurled the epithet at Democratic lawmakers) was the most flagrant example of the GOP's classic strategy of sexualizing political discourse, both by pushing sexual issues to the fore and by framing other issues along sexually defined lines. The "war on terrorism" has provided Bush the ideal stage upon which to strut his administration's political machismo and to contrast it with the Democrats' supposed wimpiness. The GOP's painting of John Kerry as indecisive and soft, and John Edwards as an inexperienced pretty boy, is an essential part of this strategy, which culminates in the use of gay marriage as a wedge issue intended to polarize the country, revealing Democrats as at best weak and unmanly, at worst as depraved and deviant.
It's a natural strategy for the Republicans, one that relies on the traditional cultural and moral standards they have claimed as their own. A similar strategy paid off handsomely against President Clinton in the days of Monica Lewinsky. At that time, of course, Republican venom was directed at infidelity and libertine sexual behavior. Now it is directed against "girlie," "French-looking," "flip-flopping" men, as well as gays and lesbians who dare to demand that their mutual commitment be treated the same as straight people's. Either way, Republicans reaffirm patriarchal order and religious values, and claim for themselves the appealing role of manly men, loyal to their wedded wives. Never mind that Schwarzenegger's history of randy behavior makes Clinton look like a choirboy, or that plenty of Republicans cheat and divorce. What matters here are the proclamations and the posturing, however hypocritical, which allow them to stake symbolic territory.
This strategy reflects a keen GOP awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of their candidate. George W. Bush is not an articulate president by any stretch of the imagination. He's not an empathetic president. He's not a visionary president. He is, first and foremost, a posturing president. He is most comfortable and, in fact, most effectively communicative, when wearing jeans, cowboy boots and bomber jacket. He smirks, he squints, he nods, he points and shoots, he displays an easy grasp of male-bonding shorthand.
By contrast, the Bush campaign points at Kerry's suspiciously cultured airs, his more overtly patrician demeanor, his unseemly displays of affection for the youthful and ever-smiling Edwards, as expressions of an overall decadence, the exposure to exotic and possibly un-American influences -- in one word, a "Frenchiness." And whenever Kerry strikes a manly pose, Republicans sneer at his put-on ruggedness, belied by the droopy slope of the shoulders or the dorky bike helmet. They even go so far as to dispute his military record, suggesting Kerry may be guilty of reckless tactical decisions or may have exaggerated his own wounds. While there's more than a hint of desperation in this particular diatribe, as a whole the Republican attempt to paint the contest in terms of good old-fashioned manliness versus the more effete, Euro-influenced, self-doubting kind represented by Kerry, has been as transparent as it has been effective.
Teresa Heinz also provides easy fodder for this ploy. A clearly intelligent, worldly woman with her own wealth and a strong personality, she's likely to bring out the worst in the Republican constituency -- a mixture of misogyny, xenophobia and distrust of the "cultured elites." To the average Republican, she is Hillary with money and an accent (it was telling that Chris Wallace on Fox News, which faithfully echoes the GOP's world view, compared her to Eva Peron after her convention speech), and her powerful aura suggests that Kerry might not be the commander in chief of his own household. The unofficial contest between potential first ladies, as well as the two very different sets of daughters (both scheduled to appear in Vogue magazine features) will be an interesting facet of this election.
The great gay marriage debate is the linchpin of the whole strategy. The very argument against it, when boiled down to its essence, is about protecting traditional definitions of sexual roles.
Most arguments against gay marriage are, in fact, easily countered. It's not what we have been used to? Neither was interracial marriage. It may have unwanted consequences on children? Not when adoption by gay couples is legal anyway. It threatens the "sacredness" of the institution? Not when so many marriages already end in divorce, when popular culture obsesses on fat, obnoxious fiancés and on who wants to marry some cheesy millionaire, when Britney's instantly disposable wedding and Anna Nicole Smith's nuptial countdown to death are so obviously representative of the attitudes of many modern spouses.
