Gil Troy on “Michelle the belle; Wife of U.S. president-elect has a wardrobe that is colourful and accessible”

Trish Crawford, Toronto Star, November 21, 2008, LIFE; Pg. L01

Every time Michelle Obama wears one of her unusual dress selections on television, the item flies off the shelves.

The famous $148 sundress she wore on The View and the J.Crew yellow suit she wore on Letterman were huge hits with shoppers, while the red dress she wore on her first visit to the White House proclaimed, says Bonnie Fuller in the Huffington Post, “I’m ready to be Page 1.”

Experts say it is she, not her president-elect husband, who will be setting fashion and cultural trends when the couple reaches the White House.

She nixed getting a designer pooch, saying her kids would adopt a rescue dog, and will continue this thrifty, socially conscious pattern throughout the term, predicts marketing guru Alan Middleton, of York University’s Schulich School of Business.

“She’s saying, ‘You don’t get much more down-to-earth that I am,’” says Middleton. He predicts there will be “a number of symbols that say, I am one of you.”

The American-made family car, a Ford Escape hybrid, is a perfect example of this, he points out, as it is both patriotic and environmentally responsible.

“It’s smart and good value,” Middleton says, “and I can see that in everything she does.

“This is the Hollywood side of politics. It’s that old star quality.”

Widespread interest, even adoration, doesn’t necessarily result in copycat behaviour, says political scientist Renan Levine, of the University of Toronto.

Jimmy Carter tried to get Americans to wear sweaters during the energy crisis of the ’70s and, even though he happily sported a cardigan, the style never really took off, Levine says.

On the other hand, he says, Ronald Reagan’s love affair with the colour brown was widely adopted in men’s clothing.

When fashions were adopted, such as Jackie Kennedy’s clothes and J.F.K’s refusal to wear a hat, they were widespread throughout the U.S., regardless of politics, Levine says.

“It has a bipartisan effect. The cultural impact is broad-based.”

He agrees it is Michelle Obama who is setting the style.

“No one has looked like her before. She is establishing a new palette.”

Alice Chu, an expert in fashion and colour at Ryerson University, notes the array of brightly coloured dresses provides a feminine silhouette.

“Her clothes say she is an individual, she’s intelligent and not fooling around.”

Her wardrobe differs greatly from the “very European and Anglo Saxon” outfits worn by Cindy McCain and Laura Bush, Chu says.

Michelle Obama is “showing a different side of the global, ethnic community.”

Chu, a member of the international team that yearly picks the fashion colours that will be popular, says the clear red dress Michelle Obama
wore to the White House after the election was an excellent colour for her.

Other good colours, Chu says, include black, white and purple, which she obviously has a fondness for, having worn it many times in public.

That “regal iris” evokes the royal purple of monarchy and is associated with strength and power, Chu says. Wearing black also evokes a “black is beautiful” undercurrent, she says.

Barack Obama’s preference for white shirts and dark suits sends a message that he’s “honest and straightforward.”

She expects white dress shirts to get a popular surge. Historian Gil Troy, of McGill University, agrees, saying everything about the new First Family will be scrutinized and copied by an adoring public.

“We’ve seen this thing before, with the Kennedys,” says the author of Mr. and Mrs. President, from the Trumans to the Clintons. “But the frenzy this time is going to be that much more intense.”

The press, which shares a “vibe” with the intellectual, urban Obama, is giving him a bit of a free ride right now, says Troy, feeding the public’s appetite for information about his favourite snacks (Planter’s Trail Mix), preferred drink (Black Forest Berry Honest Tea) and favourite book (Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls).

“This product placement is a boon for consumer manufacturers of all kinds.”

The Obamas, Troy says, are clever at making decisions, such as what car to buy, and “turning it into political points.” Saying this couple “is very coached,” he points out Michelle Obama has replaced early complaints about her “stinky, snoring husband” with the traditional supporting role. “Michelle didn’t play well. She was being passive aggressive,” Troy says of the early days of the campaign.

The couple has to give off an air of authenticity, Troy says. Any signs “that it is too faux, too calculating and on the make will cause a backlash.”

Their White House style will fit in with the new era of austerity, predicts Troy, but will still have sparkle and energy.

As he puts it, “They give great celebrity.”

Copyright 2008 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.

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Response to Allan Lichtman: Obama Must Lead from the Center — Just Like FDR

OP-EDS & REVIEWS

By Gil Troy,HNN, 11-19-08

I agree with three of Allan Lichtman’s four “simple rules” suggesting how Barack Obama could be another Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, among others, also knew to “Strike Early.” Americans’ desire to see their new president succeed gives an administration a great launching pad. “Bringing the People With You” is essential in a democracy. Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill described Americans’ insistence in 1981 that he give Ronald Reagan a chance to succeed. “Thinking Big and Broadly” is the example FDR set, and other successes such as John Kennedy followed. I lost Professor Lichtman on his fourth rule “Don’t Govern from the Middle.” In fact, Obama should lead from the center – but as a muscular moderate not a spineless centrist.

Lichtman builds his case against moderation by mentioning a grab bag of mediocre presidents. Actually, the greatest presidents including FDR led from the center. Being a muscular moderate entails having core principles, thinking big, but mastering the art of compromise too. Franklin Roosevelt understood that, as did the other president whom Lichtman identifies as a success, Ronald Reagan.

To understand Roosevelt as a moderate we have to recall the historian’s favorite text – context. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March, 1933, America’s prospects looked bleak, radicals demanded revolution. “Mr. President, if your program succeeds, you’ll be the greatest president in American history,” an admirer told Roosevelt. “If it fails, you will be the worst one.” Roosevelt responded: “If it fails, I’ll be the last one.” Against that backdrop, Roosevelt’s reforms were pioneering but temperate. He preserved private property. He restored American capitalism. The American welfare state he created was a stretch considering America’s past, but a far cry from European varieties, let alone the Soviet model so many American intellectuals desired.

In the historian Richard Hofstadter’s apt metaphor, FDR was a nimble quarterback, always scrambling but usually remaining within America’s constitutional boundaries. Perhaps Roosevelt’s greatest failure – his attempt during his second term to pack the Supreme Court – resulted from running out of bounds. The Court-packing scheme – adding up to six new justices for each justice over seventy – failed because Roosevelt overestimated his own power and the American people’s appetite for revolution. This miscalculation set back the New Deal – but taught FDR a valuable lesson. When World War II broke out in Europe, Roosevelt was a model muscular moderate – advancing forward in an important direction, toward intervention, but always staying half a step ahead of the American people, rather than outrunning them.

Similarly, Ronald Reagan proceeded more cautiously than conservatives hoped and liberals feared. From the start of his administration, Reagan demonstrated that he was not the president of the Republican Party or its conservative wing but president of the United States. The Reagan Library has many files filled with letters from conservatives blasting Reagan for being too accommodating. Reagan’s Cabinet, filled as it was with moderates like Alexander Haig and Malcolm Baldridge, let alone Rockefeller Republicans like Richard Schweiker, infuriated conservatives.

One of the few ideologues Reagan appointed to a high position, his Office of Management and Budget Director David Stockman, would write a kiss-and-tell book, “The Triumph of Politics,” complaining that the so-called Reagan Revolution was headed by an amiable former actor more interested in being popular than storming the big government Bastille. Ultimately, the Reagan Revolution slowed the rate of growth of government – but it preserved the New Deal status quo. Stockman’s glum conclusion was that American government was more “Madisonian,” fragmented, temperate, incrementalist, than he had hoped.

This moderation provides essential ballast in a democratic system. America remains a center-right nation – and a country of pragmatists wary of revolution. Even the American Revolution itself was a relatively mild, reasonable affair – compared to the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutionary bloodbaths. In his victory speech, Barack Obama acknowledged the tens of millions who did not vote for him, whose support he will need to succeed. George W. Bush presidency should be remembered as a cautionary tale warning against the Karl Rove strategy of mobilizing the base and neglecting the center.

When President Bush struck early, thinking big and broadly, one Democratic senator proposed minor changes to Bush’s controversial tax cuts. The senator promised that with those compromises, “I guarantee you’ll get seventy votes out of the Senate.” Rove replied, “We don’t want seventy votes. We want fifty-one.” This polarizing take-no-prisoners attitude alienated many and derailed Bush’s presidency. The writer who recounted that anecdote was Barack Obama himself, in “The Audacity of Hope.” Obama then wrote: “Genuine bipartisanship … assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficit.” This is a great description of what muscular moderation is all about – and what Barack Obama needs to remember as he reads about FDR’s presidency – and plans to lead from the center in an Obama administration.

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Obama’s “Historic” Triumph: Did He Win or was it a GO George – Get Out George W. victory by default?

By Gil Troy, HNN, 11-12-08

Historians have to navigate carefully when entering the strange, alluring world of media commentary. To maintain our integrity, we need boundaries. Presumably, those of us who comment believe that offering historical perspective even as history unfolds can elevate public debate, using current events as “teachable moments.” But most of the time journalists want us – especially on television – to do things we should not do, namely predict the future or determine the historical meaning of fleeting events as they unfold. Even on the air, historians should dodge certain questions. We should never predict. And we should sidestep premature queries such as “Is George W. Bush the worst president ever,” halfway through his term. Anyone who survived oral exams should be able to handle it. During last week’s remarkable redemptive moment as Barack Obama won the presidency, it seemed that most of the media wanted to trot out historians to certify that this election was indeed “historic.”

Of course, it does not take a Ph.D. in history to note that the first elevation of a black man to the White House in a country with America’s racist past was momentous. Moreover, every presidential election is historic given the attention we pay to voting and the job’s significance. But this question of “was this election historic” was fishing in deeper waters. Reporters wanted historians to label 2008 as significant as 1980 when Ronald Reagan launched his revolution or 1960 when John Kennedy inspired a generation or 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt tackled the Great Depression. And historians can safely say that there never had been such a cataclysmic domestic event during a general election campaign as this Crash of 2008. But we all know that it is too early to know whether Barack Obama’s presidency will be as transformative as he hopes. He could be the next Franklin D. Roosevelt – or Jimmy Carter redux.

As we wait to watch, and assess the historical impact of Barack Obama’s administration, we should start debating just what caused his victory. Here we have a legitimate “teachable” moment – showing how historians start thinking about a problem, start solving an historical mystery. One debate I have started with my students is whether Barack Obama won this election, or John McCain and the Republican lost it?

In asking the question, we have to acknowledge its artificiality. The accurate answer is “yes,” meaning it was a combination of factors. But the question gets students thinking about what were the most significant causes. My next step is suggesting that we construct a timeline of turning points, which helps answer the question and gets us to start weighing historical significance. I propose four turning points in this election:

– The first is Obama’s extraordinary 2004 Democratic National Convention speech. I believe historians will deem it more significant than William Jennings Bryan’s 1896 speech because it launched Obama into the celebrity stratosphere and toward the presidency.

– The second turning point is something that did not happen – or happened subsequently. Had Hillary Clinton run a war room as tough and efficient as her husband’s, and had her campaign uncovered the Jeremiah Wright tapes in the winter of 2008 before the Iowa caucuses, I doubt Obama would have won Iowa. This is a mischievous turning point, which raises questions about how historians assess missed opportunities, and speculate about potential outcomes. It also helps raise the question that will emerge as we start debating George W. Bush’s legacy – how do we assess something that did not happen, in his case, the fact that as of this writing there has been no catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil since 2001. How much credit can someone get for a bell that did not ring, a fear that was not realized. As for Hillary, how harshly do we judge a candidate or a campaign for overlooking what could have been a knockout blow?

– The third turning point is the market implosion. Whatever momentum McCain enjoyed after the Soviets invaded Georgia during the summer and his energized convention (thanks to Sarah Palin’s debut) vanished. As the fourth major disaster under George W. Bush’s watch, following 9/11, Iraq and Katrina, the financial crisis made it all but impossible for a Republican to win.

– Finally, I point to Obama’s performance during the debates, especially the third debate. That the young, inexperienced upstart Democrat appeared to be the mature candidate against his older, more experienced rival, made Obama look presidential and helped allay many Americans’ anxieties about this relative unknown.

This list is intended to trigger debate. Others would mention Hillary Clinton’s Super Tuesday strategy that ignored the causcuses, Sarah Palin’s nomination, McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign, Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war. It is important also to go beyond this event-driven list and talk about Obama’s extraordinary strategy, his effective use of the internet, and his brilliant ground game, organizing thousands of workers across the nation. And while the four turning points offer two affirmative actions of Obama’s and two events beyond his control, I ultimately conclude that Obama was lucky to be blessed with two flawed opponents.

For all the skills Obama demonstrated and the forces he marshaled, I argue that Hillary Clinton, John McCain, George W. Bush, and the Republicans lost this election as much as Obama won. Just as Ronald Reagan won an ABC election in 1980 – anybody but Carter – Obama won a GO George – Get Out George W. Bush –election this year. This conclusion does not diminish from the dare I say it, historic nature of Obama’s victory. Rather, it is an early attempt to plunge into the debate assessing the outcome of the wild, rollicking, unpredictable, and potentially transformative 2008 campaign.

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Gil Troy on CBC’s the Link Discussing the Presidential Election

CBC Radio Canada International – The Link – Monday, November 3, 2008

Listen to the second part of the program 

Hour 2… 
 
VOTERS FROM U.S. MINORITY GROUPS SEEN AS PIVOTAL IN 2008: Throughout the U.S. Election campaign, we’ve heard much about American voters and what influences how they vote. But how do various ethnic groups, immigrant populations and other minorities figure in the 2008 presidential race? Gil Troy, a McGill University history professor specializing in modern U.S. political history and American presidential elections, joins Marc Montgomery to talk about the pivotal role ethnic and religious minorities could play in the outcome of the election, especially in the key states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

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Gil Troy on “How Generation Y became Obama’s political animal”

“This is not a generation of enduring loyalty,” said Gil Troy, a presidential historian at McGill University. “They have quicksilver loyalties compared to their parents. At some point, there’ll be a confrontation between hope and government.”

POLITICS: YOUTH MOVEMENT

How Generation Y became Obama’s political animal

PATRICK WHITE, Globe & Mail, November 11, 2008

For a brief moment on election night, a 21-year-old University of British Columbia student and 15,000 friends managed to temporarily eclipse Barack Obama’s victorious glow.

Networks cut away from Chicago’s Grant Park to show a horde of fist-pumping youths chanting outside the White House.

Was it an angry mob? Or a rapturous celebration?

No one seemed to know, including CBC’s Henry Champ, who reported that the Secret Service was in a tizzy and that the crowd had co-ordinated the gathering using “text message machines.”

It was a symbolic capstone to Mr. Obama’s campaign, which lit a fire under Generation Y, those voters under 30 whose purported characteristics are anathema to the democratic process: apathetic, over-coddled, narcissistic, illiterate, hopeless.

The results could mark the biggest generational power shift in North American politics since baby boomers took the reins nearly two decades ago.

And thanks to a few Canadian political missionaries who volunteered for Mr. Obama, it’s a stumping style that is already creeping northward.

“That was no riot,” says Braeden Caley, a UBC political science major who campaigned for Mr. Obama in five states before marching to the White House gates on election night. “That was a celebration. And it was completely spontaneous, which gives you an indication of how this campaign worked.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign was a full-fledged youth movement. His field offices and online campaigns were run almost exclusively by bushy-tailed voters under 30 years of age.

They harnessed the young brains of Silicon Valley to co-ordinate everything from Mr. Obama’s rallies to his personalized text messages. And in the end, Mr. Obama drew an eye-popping chunk of the youth vote, outpacing John McCain in the under-30 segment by an unprecedented 2-to-1 margin.

As Mr. Obama said in his victory speech, the campaign “grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy, who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.”

One of those sleep-deprived campaign workers was Ajay Puri, who along with Mr. Caley founded Canadians for Obama, a web-based group that sent 20 volunteers to Washington State, where they made up three-quarters of Mr. Obama’s Snohomish County team during the winter primaries.

“We didn’t care about sleep,” says Mr. Puri, 28, who spent most nights in a sleeping bag on the campaign office floor. “We cared about Obama.”

So what is it in Generation Y’s DNA that predisposes them to Obama devotion?

Born in 1961, Mr. Obama is the first Generation X president, though his personal tastes can skew much younger: from basketball and the Fugees to The Godfather and ESPN SportsCenter, according to his Facebook page.

His hopeful message resonated with a generation raised amid political cynicism, brought on largely by George W. Bush’s unpopular presidency in the United States and guarded minority governments here.

“He didn’t talk down to us,” says Rahaf Harfoush, a 24-year-old Torontonian who moved to Chicago for two months to volunteer with Mr. Obama’s new-media team. “He’s one of the very first politicians I’ve taken note of who spoke directly to us with policies like putting the lobbying database online and making himself and government more accessible online.”

In Chicago, Ms. Harfoush worked across from Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who directed the new-media campaign.

The social-networking guru helped launch My.BarackObama.com, a digital staging ground for ad-hoc rallies, volunteer opportunities, phone bank requests and other campaign events.

“You really felt like you were connected to a movement of people driven by the same goals,” says Ms. Harfoush, who cried 40 feet away from Mr. Obama when he delivered his victory speech. “He gave us the tools and said, ‘You be the change you want to see.’ He came to where we were – on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter – and said, ‘Here, you call the shots.’ “

Mr. Caley has already brought the skills he learned on the Obama campaign to Canada. During the federal election he worked for Stéphane Dion’s UBC ground campaign, sending out numerous text messages and Facebook updates. Liberal support in the area increased from 30 to 50 per cent, according to Mr. Caley, who is supporting Bob Rae in the upcoming Liberal leadership race.

Others Canadian youths are waiting for a more inspiring candidate to come calling.

“Canadian politics are so dull, so boring,” Ms. Harfoush says. “If a candidate comes along who’s willing to invite our generation into the process, I’ll get behind them.”

But is there a best-before date on this youthful fervour?

“This is really a permanent generational sea change,” said David Madland, director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress. Mr. Madland predicts that Generation Y, which is nearly as large as the baby-boom generation, will form a huge block of voters who favour liberal policies, such as universal health care and high education spending, for decades to come.

But that view could overlook the fickle nature of under-30 voters, some say.

“This is not a generation of enduring loyalty,” said Gil Troy, a presidential historian at McGill University. “They have quicksilver loyalties compared to their parents. At some point, there’ll be a confrontation between hope and government.”

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New Book: The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction By Gil Troy

The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)

by Gil Troy (Author)

Now Available for Pre-Order from Amazon.com

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
“They called it the Reagan revolution,” Ronald Reagan noted in his Farewell Address. “Well, I’ll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.”
Nearly two decades after that 1989 speech, debate continues to rage over just how revolutionary those Reagan years were. The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction identifies and tackles some of the controversies and historical mysteries that continue to swirl around Reagan and his legacy, while providing an illuminating look at some of the era’s defining personalities, ideas, and accomplishments. Gil Troy, a well-known historian who is a frequent commentator on contemporary politics, sheds much light on the phenomenon known as the Reagan Revolution, situating the reception of Reagan’s actions within the contemporary liberal and conservative political scene. While most conservatives refuse to countenance any criticism of their hero, an articulate minority laments that he did not go far enough. And while some liberals continue to mourn just how far he went in changing America, others continue to mock him as a disengaged, do-nothing dunce. Nevertheless, as Troy shows, two and a half decades after Reagan’s 1981 inauguration, his legacy continues to shape American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush modeled much of their presidential leadership styles on Reagan’s example, while many of the debates of the ’80s about the budget, tax cutting, defense-spending, and American values still rage.
Love him or hate him, Ronald Reagan remains the most influential president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and one of the most controversial. This marvelous book places the Reagan Revolution in the broader context of postwar politics, highlighting the legacies of these years on subsequent presidents and on American life today.

About the Author

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and a Visiting Scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC. A frequent media commentator, his writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Newsday, the New York Times Book Review, the National Post, and other publications. He is the author of Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s and Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents.

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Gil Troy’s Leading From the Center Now on Amazon.com’s Kindle

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Leading from the Center (Kindle Edition)

by Gil Troy (Author)

Print List Price $27.50 Kindle Price: $16.34 & includes wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet You Save: $11.16 (41%)

Kindle Books Kindle Books include free wireless delivery – read your book on your Kindle within a minute of placing your order. Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

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Gil Troy on “‘Entitled’ students expect grades for effort, attendance: Study”

Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service, Monday, November 10, 2008

Most university students believe that if they’re “trying hard,” a professor should reconsider their grade.

One-third say that if they attend most of the classes for a course, they deserve at least a B, while almost one-quarter “think poorly” of professors who don’t reply to e-mails the same day they’re sent.

Those are among the revelations in a newly published study examining students’ sense of academic entitlement, or the mentality that enrolling in post-secondary education is akin to shopping in a store where the customer is always right.

Students who are academically entitled are more likely to engage in academic cheating, exploit others and shirk hard work, the study found.

Jana Chytilova/Ottawa Citizen

The paper describes academic entitlement as “expectations of high marks for modest effort and demanding attitudes toward teachers.”

It’s a hot topic – and source of much frustration – among instructors, says author Ellen Greenberger, a research professor of psychology and social behaviour at the University of California-Irvine.

“I would have trembled with fear before I suggested to some of my revered teachers that I wanted them to give me a higher grade,” she says, chuckling about how attitudes have changed.

Greenberger’s study reveals that students who are academically entitled are more likely to engage in academic cheating, exploit others, shirk hard work and display “narcissistic orientation.”

She found virtually no connection between self-entitled attitudes and grades, meaning it’s not just weak students trying to wheedle better marks out of their profs, and those who do so aren’t reaping the benefits on their transcripts.

“It certainly suggests that these attitudes and behaviours aren’t producing the desired effect,” she says. “It’s just making teachers crazy.”

Greenberg was surprised that parenting appears to have little influence in shaping self-entitled students, with one key exception: students who say their parents often compare their achievements to siblings, cousins or friends are more likely to engage in these behaviours.

It may be that young people who are pushed to keep up with the Joneses develop a shaky sense of self-esteem and use academic entitlement as a “coping strategy” to get good grades by any means necessary, she says.

The study, which surveyed two groups of approximately 400 undergraduates aged 18 to 25, is published in the November issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Technology may encourage some of this demanding student behaviour because e-mail is quick, provides easy access to professors and opens the door to a less formal and respectful tone, Greenberger says.

“In-person communication obliges you to look the person in the eye as you’re about to say, ‘You really ought to give me a B because I came to most of the classes.’” she says. “Try saying that face-to-face.”

However, professors may well be guilty of the same impertinence in e-mails to their students, she says.

Gil Troy, a history professor at McGill University who has witnessed this behaviour in his own students, blames it largely on the self-esteem movement that ties evaluation of work with personal judgment.

“If I give a student a B or a B-minus or a C – God forbid – I have to explain to them because they haven’t learned it in elementary school that I’m not evaluating their personality and I’m not even evaluating work they intended to do; I’m evaluating the work they submitted and it’s not personal,” he says.

He sees the roots of this in own children’s elementary school, where spelling is sometimes not corrected for fear of squelching students’ creativity and walls are adorned with grammatically incorrect work.

The “consumer revolution” has also convinced some students that universities and professors are service providers, Troy says. Both he and Greenberger believe anonymous student course evaluations have fuelled this and left some professors capitulating to student pressure because evaluations can be tied to tenure and advancement.

“It’s kind of like, ‘OK, you’ve done your grading of my work, now I’m going to grade you,’” Gil says. “And it’s often grading you as a performer.”

FACTBOX:

The study asked approximately 400 undergraduates aged 18 to 25 whether they agreed with these statements:

If I have explained to my professor that I am trying hard, I think he/she should give me some consideration with respect to my course grade – 66.2 per cent agree

If I have completed most of the reading for a class, I deserve a B in that course – 40.7 per cent

If I have attended most of the classes for a course, I deserve at least a grade of B – 34.1 per cent

Teachers often give me lower grades than I deserve on paper assignments – 31.5 per cent

Professors who won’t let me take my exams at another time because of my personal plans (e.g. a vacation) are too strict – 29.9 per cent

A professor should be willing to lend me his/her course notes if I ask for them – 24.8 per cent

I would think poorly of a professor who didn’t respond the same day to an e-mail I sent – 23.5 per cent

Professors have no right to be annoyed with me if I tend to come late to class or tend to leave early – 16.8 per cent

A professor should not be annoyed with me if I receive an important call during class – 16.5 per cent

A professor should be willing to meet with me at a time that works best for me, even if inconvenient for the professor – 11.2 per cent.

© Canwest News Service 2008

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Gil Troy on Michelle Obama as First Lady

First among first ladies

Devoted, smart and forcefully clear about her role, Michelle Obama could be the most successful first lady in decades

Sarah Wildman, guardian.co.uk, Friday November 7 2008

As Washington preps for a transition team, there is one person of whom there is no doubt. Throughout the raucous American election season, Michelle Obama – Barack’s professed “best friend” and “partner” in his journey – has been both completely present, a tireless fighter and campaigner, and yet, at the same time extremely, forcefully clear about the role she wants to play in this administration.

If her campaigning strategy is any indication, we may be in store for one of the most successful first ladies in decades, one who uses this terrible and amazing office to the fullest extent of its abilities, without losing herself in its twisted mores.

She learned her lesson early – after the blow up over her purported anti-Americanism – a twisting of the words that she had never been more “proud” to be an American – Michelle Obama toed the party line. She kept her public face perfect, from her fashion choices (smartly, and quietly, wearing low-dollar off-the-rack frocks for big ticket events, like her appearance on the View and on late night television), to her carefully worded cheerleading for her husband – announcing she would not comment on his choice of vice-president, for example, in a pointed nod to more activist first ladies before her, saying she was actually pleased it wasn’t her place, nor her desire, to be a part of such thing.

As she wrote for the Times today (a piece that originally ran in some form before the outcome of Tuesday’s vote was decided, in US News &World Report), “mom” is the title she holds most dear. In that message to Americans and the rest of the world, this ultra-educated (Princeton, Harvard) careerist, super mom laid the ground work for what her tenure as first lady will look like. She will be the guardian, first and foremost, of her own family. (These are the youngest kids in that stately mansion in decades – Chelsea was a bit older, Amy Carter was eight, but the comparison people will surely make most will be the Kennedy kids).

But woe to those who interpret that to mean she will go quietly into that good night, tucking the kids into bed as Barack handles the matters of state. No. If these early statements are a good indication, she will extrapolate her family guardian role into one that positions her to be a champion for mothers and families across America – and perhaps, at some point, around the world. She’s already made an outreach to military families, noting their struggles, and in so doing she helps smooth over any anxieties military families might have about this anti-war president understanding their needs.

But such a multi-faceted message that seems, at face value, so simple, exposes just how difficult this job really is. Having not yet picked out the drapes for the private quarters, or – much more importantly – decided which school her children will attend upon arrival in Washington (a dicey, potentially politically explosive decision in and of itself given the Clinton’s bashing for sending Chelsea to the tony Sidwell Friends school rather than a DC public school), Michelle Obama is already being criticised – for the dress she wore on election night – and wooed: Vogue, reportedly wants her for the cover. The role of the first lady is an uncomfortable one.

In the post-feminist era, a first lady has come to be expected to be all things to all people – smart and well educated, but also satisfied with her ceremonial position and encouraged not to speak up. Laura Bush pulled the role back to one that was far quieter than her predecessor, Hillary Clinton, even as she gave gravitas to her once-wild husband. But while feminists might have cheered Hillary’s role as adviser, there was always something terribly uncomfortable about her unelected position, a sense of dissatisfaction and condescension that swirled around her from the marriage itself, to her snappish retort that she wouldn’t be a “Tammy Wynette” that was simply standing by her man, or a woman who baked cookies all day.

Back in July Gil Troy, author of, most recently Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents told me: “The problem of the first lady is that there are all these unspoken assumptions and unmarked landmines, and if you start feeling too empowered as a modern voice and deviate from the script, you risk landing on political-cultural landmines.”

You have to go all the way back to Lady Bird Johnson to find a first lady that was happy in her position, who used the office to advance environmentalism for the first time in America, who braved a whistle-stop tour of the roiling, racist southern states alone when her husband feared to. And yet even Lady Bird had to tolerate the infidelities of her husband.

Michelle Obama is the perfect modern hybrid. Smart, beautiful, fiercely devoted to her children and her husband, her very presence adds to the sense of class and dignity this campaign – and this administration – has projected from the outset. And the one quality we hear about her again and again? She’s real. It’s a quality that’s perhaps the most difficult to maintain in this job, and the one that will keep her most sane.

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Gil Troy on the Obama Election Win and the Obama Presidency Transition

Barack Obama’s ease in beating John McCain should not obscure the magnitude of this achievement. A one-term Senator who just a few years ago described himself as a skinny guy with a funny name, his election as President of the United States demonstrates tremendous political talent, an American generosity of spirit that is rarely recognized these days, especially abroad, and that necessary ingredient in all greatness – good luck.

 

The long, $4.3 billion campaign has been quite a ride. When the primary candidates began debating in the spring of 2007, most pundits predicted a general campaign battle between the New York titans, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani – remember them? At the time, waking up at 3 A.M. was more associated with running to the john than proving you could run your country, as a Clinton commercial argued. Joe the Plumber was that guy who took too long to answer your calls and charged you too much, not John McCain’s ideal expression of the people’s voice. And the meltdown most people  worried about came from overstimulated and under-supervised children not over-leveraged and under-regulated markets. Back then, the most famous Barak in the world was Ehud , Israel ’s defense minister, and many Democrats revered John McCain as a non-partisan, decent, bridge-building senator.

           

Barack Obama’s emergence from a cast of talented, experienced, Democrats, including the formidable Hillary Clinton, reflected remarkable discipline and eloquence. Throughout the seemingly interminable campaign he rarely made a mistake and never seemed to panic. This cool was in marked contrast to the disorganized, amateurish efforts of two, far more experienced, chief rivals, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. But beyond simply being calm, cool and collected, Obama’s “Yes We Can” unity vision tapped a wellspring of enthusiasm among demoralized Democrats, often alienated young voters and his core constituency, African-Americans. To those lamenting Obama’s victory, I prescribe a simple Rx: watch his 2004 Democratic Convention speech or the will.I.am 2008 “Yes We Can” video. It is hard to view either without being wowed by Obama’s compelling, healing, nationalist vision.

 

Obama’s victory also reflects America’s transformation from a divided, racist country as recently as the 1960s, and a much more magnanimous, equal, open country today. The greatest concern about Obama from the start was not that he was black, but that he was too green – inexperienced. In choosing Obama in such numbers Americans showed that most judged him not as a black man but as the best man for the job.

 

Sealing the deal for Obama was tremendous luck. He was blessed by Hillary Clinton’s incompetent campaign along with John McCain’s erratic search for a strategy. And America ’s misfortune was Obama’s good fortune – when the markets tanked in September, Obama’s campaign soared.

 

In the classic Robert Redford movie, “The Candidate,” a young, good-looking, come-from-nowhere reformer upsets an older, more experienced pol. The movie ends with the question now facing Barack Obama, as the euphoria of the election dissipates and   America ’s sobering economic, military, diplomatic, and social challenges intensify: “what do we do now?”

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The Obama-McCain “Return Night” Reconciliation: Lasting Hope or Fleeting Moment?

By Gil Troy, HNN, 11-5-08

On Thursday, in Georgetown, Delaware, the losing and winning candidates from the various contests around that state will assemble for Return Day. In a ritual tracing its roots to 1791, voters and politicians will hear the official electoral returns and make nice, no matter how bitter their campaigns may have been. In addition to parading together down the main street in antique automobiles, the rivals will bury a ceremonial tomahawk, quite literally burying the hatchet. Late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain mounted their own version of this reconciliation ritual, offering a magnificent display of the grace, civility, and patriotism that could heal America, even during these painful times.

While rituals help us navigate life’s highs and lows, often elevating our actions, they also risk imprisoning us in rote behaviors. Concession speeches and victory speeches are usually mechanical, more formulaic than transcendent, because everyone knows that the speech-maker is play-acting. Few losers or winners are as gracious as their election night speeches suggest.

Happily, both Barack Obama and John McCain rose to the occasion, ending the drawn-out, often bitter 2008 campaign on a high note. McCain conceded with the grace and non-partisanship for which he had been famous – and which often seemed MIA during his campaign. Hopefully, he will honor his constructive vow to support the president-elect. McCain could be an essential ally in the Senate, and could help a President Obama lead from the center, as he needs to do. In America, we lack the institution of the leader of the opposition. All too often, losing nominees vanish from the scene. Neither Al Gore nor John Kerry offered the kind of national and party leadership they should have following their respective losses, considering how many millions of people supported them. Although he is not the Senate majority leader, John McCain could play Lyndon Johnson to Obama’s Dwight Eisenhower, replicating the best aspects of that cross-the-aisle senator-president relationship that produced bipartisan triumphs in the late 1950s, including launching NASA.

For his part, Obama’s speech was masterful. Although it started a tad grandiose, as he associated his personal triumph with America’s redemption, the rest sparkled. Understanding the daunting challenges ahead, he called, Franklin D. Roosevelt-style, for a spirit of community and self-sacrifice. Acknowledging the more than 48 million voters who voted against him, he reached out to his opponents. And, distancing himself from the Bush Administration, Obama also appealed to the good people around the world listening in – while warning America’s foes not to underestimate him. As an added bonus for historians, his story about Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old African American woman who voted for him, offered a wonderful trip-tych of twentieth century history, punctuated by the supposedly “timeless” but actually quite contemporary and Obamian credo “Yes We Can.”

Many of us who study the presidency, are suckers for charismatic leaders singing a compelling, optimistic song. The office’s unique mix of king and prime minister makes generating hope part of the skill set for a successful presidency. The hope that a Franklin Roosevelt or a Ronald Reagan brought to the American people boosted the country’s sense of well-being as well as each leader’s popular and historical standing. We need an arm-twister-in-chief to get things done, and a cheerleader in chief to make us feel good about our country and ourselves.

The outpouring of emotion when Obama clinched his victory was thrilling. Little more than a decade ago, when O.J. Simpson was found innocent of two murders, cameras recorded cheering blacks and morose whites, emphasizing a split-screen America. On this Return Night, the cameras showed blacks and whites crying together, laughing together, celebrating together, hoping together, in a tableau of healing.

You would need a heart of stone not to be moved by watching the joy that swept America – but you need a head of straw not to worry about just how Obama will succeed. His calls for unity will only last if he understands that he must govern in the same expansive and moderate spirit his speech stirred.

Hope is like a balloon, able to entrance and elevate but also easily over-inflated or easily destroyed by just the right pin prick. Politics itself is an odd mix of noble aspirations with ruthless ambition, high-minded ideals with thuggish tactics. Placing too much hope on any one mortal invites disappointment. Sixteen years ago, a young, charismatic candidate came, quite literally, from a place called Hope. Within weeks of his election, Bill Clinton had frittered away much of the positive emotion surrounding his candidacy, primarily by backpedaling on the gays in the military issue, which stemmed from an off-the-cuff Andrea Mitchell question he should have dodged. Amid the other great challenges Barack Obama faces is the danger of disappointing the millions who have placed so much faith in him.

Still, all these worries vanished on Election Night, albeit temporarily. In the classy way McCain and Obama buried the hatchet, the goals of Return Day were achieved, the rivals unleashed the spirit of patriotic and bipartisan healing. May it prove contagious – and lasting.

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An historic election: Echoes of the ’60s and ’70s in yesterday’s choice of Obama

An historic election

Echoes of the ’60s and ’70s in yesterday’s choice of Obama

By Gil Troy, Montreal Gazette, November 5, 2008

CREDIT: CHRIS HONDROS, GETTY IMAGES

A voter fills out ballot at poll in Columbus, Ohio yesterday: The campaign might seem like a cakewalk compared with governing.

Campaigns are social stress tests. U.S. presidential campaigns are regularly scheduled exercises highlighting the country’s social, cultural and political strengths and weaknesses. This year’s campaign – to the world’s sorrow – also demonstrated devastating economic weaknesses. Still, campaigns also breed optimism, as candidates invite their fellow citizens to remember the past and assess the present, then invest one mortal with the future dreams of 300 million people.

For all the foolishness and frustrations of the two-year, $4.3-billion presidential quest, Americans should enter the 21/2-month transition to Inauguration Day proud of the peaceful, thorough, and open process that selected their next president.

In this campaign, tens of millions participated and shaped the historic outcome. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain coasted to their respective party’s nomination and the lead during the general campaign switched at least three times.

From the “invisible primary” seeing who could raise the most money that began after the 2006 mid-term congressional campaigns through the first votes cast in the Iowa caucus in January, 2008, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed liked the Democrats’ inevitable choice.

Simultaneously, John McCain’s quest for the Republican nomination faltered. Only once the voting started did Barack Obama soar. Only after he won the caucuses of the overwhelmingly white state of Iowa did most people start believing that this young, first-term senator, who often described himself as the skinny guy with the funny name, just might win it all.

In this rollicking, gruelling, unpredictable 2008 campaign marathon, America’s voters – and politicians – found themselves particularly shaped by the 1960s’ revolution as they judged, but also partially tried to replicate, the 1980s revolution.

Both nominees embody America’s tremendous progress since the 1960s. John McCain represents the sea-change in attitudes toward Vietnam veterans which he helped trigger. During the war, many returning soldiers felt neglected and rejected by the country they had served. McCain’s iconic role in U.S. culture, symbolizing patriotism, selflessness and sacrifice, helped heal many of that war’s national wounds.

Obama, who spent much of the campaign emphasizing how young he was during the 1960s, is a child of that decade, born in 1961. The civil-rights movement made his candidacy possible. Standing on the shoulders of the movement’s giants, Obama has gone farther and faster than most dared to hope. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s audacity was in dreaming that his children would be treated as equals by whites; even he did not believe Americans would consider a black president so soon. And despite Hillary Clinton’s loss, her campaign – along with Sarah Palin’s – advanced the women’s revolution of the 1960s to the upper reaches of national politics.

As the 1960s cast its shadow, the 1980s’ Reagan Revolution loomed large, too. When John McCain was not channeling Theodore Roosevelt, he invoked Ronald Reagan. Both Roosevelt and Reagan offered the muscular, nationalist, patriotic leadership that McCain admires.

Obama admires that leadership style, too. Interviewed in Nevada in January, Obama said Reagan had “changed the trajectory of America in a way that … Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” Responding to the inevitable Democratic – and Clintonesque – onslaught, Obama explained he was not embracing Reagan’s policies, just admiring Reagan as a “transformative leader.”

At his most powerful campaigning moments, Obama demonstrated a similar ambition and potential. Obama did not run to be a caretaker. Having matured during the Reagan Revolution, Obama wants to redefine liberalism as more community-oriented and more sensitive to tradition than the liberalism the 1960s produced; balancing rights and responsibilities, government power and individual prerogative.

Of course, the financial meltdown directly challenged the 1980s’ legacy. During the summer, the Soviet invasion of Georgia and the continuing worries about Iran and Iraq made pundits predict 2008 would be a foreign policy-oriented election. That assumption explains Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as a running mate. That hedge – and so many others – diminished in value with the stock market’s collapse.

Alas, despite the leadership opportunity the financial crisis provided for the candidates, neither rose to the occasion. Both remained cautious, simplistic demagogic on economic issues. That is what tends to happen during campaigns.

Today, America’s new president-elect has to start preparing to govern. The 11-week transition to Jan. 20 is a gift, an opportunity for a healing honeymoon but also a test. And come Inauguration Day, the economy must be revived, the Iraq mess must be fixed, the challenges of a potentially nuclear Iran must be faced, the continuing threat of Islamic terror must be countered. Perhaps most important, the U.S. people need reassuring and reuniting after the anger and alienation of the George W. Bush years.

This campaign showed that Americans hunger for change and inspiration. Inspiring while making hard decisions that might entail sacrifice is an Herculean task. In the inevitably rough days ahead, the new president might start yearning for the clarity and simplicity of the campaign trail, where oratory could substitute for policy and soundbites could trump substance, even if the accommodations were less plush than those the White House offers.

Gil Troy teaches history at McGill University.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

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The Ghosts of the 60s and 80s Haunted and Inspired this Campaign

By Gil Troy, HNN, 11-3-08

When this campaign began so many months and $4.3 billion ago, many pollsters and pundits predicted that Election Day would be the final round of the battle of the New York titans, pitting Hillary Rodham Clinton against Rudy Giuliani. Back then, when we thought about waking up at 3 AM, we usually associated it with an unwelcome run to the john, not the test – as described in Hillary Clinton’s campaign commercial – of who was ready to lead the nation. If we imagined a ceiling with 17 million cracks in it, we assumed it would shatter, especially if the ceiling was glass; when we worried about meltdowns, it was because our kids were overprogrammed or undersupervised, not because our financial markets were overstretched and under-scrutinized; and when we talked about Joe the plumber we grumbled about the guy who charged too much and came too slowly not some idealized version of the people’s wisdom incarnate. In those days when we thought about the largest state in the union, we wondered what its connection was with baked Alaska, we did not think about the half-baked ideas of the governor from Alaska and the conventional wisdom in Washington described Joe Biden as a blow-dried, blowhard politician, (who barely won 11,000 votes when he ran in the 2008 primaries) rather than the ultimate democratic ideal, a working class kid from Scranton conjured into Beltway foreign policy guru. The most famous Barak in the world was Ehud, the Israeli Defense minister, and –dare I say it — the most famous Hussein was either Saddam or the late King of Jordan. Moreover, most Americans agreed that the most decent, nonpartisan, moderate member of the United States senate was… John McCain.

It has been quite the ride. Political scientists who doubt the impact campaigns can have on votes will need to take this roller-coaster of a campaign into account. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain coasted to their respective party’s nomination and the lead in the general campaign switched at least three times. Judging by most polls, Obama led for much of the summer, McCain surged just before and during the Republican National Convention. Then Obama pulled into the lead thanks to the financial meltdown and Obama’s steadier debate performances.

Tomorrow, American voters will find themselves shaped by the 1960s’ revolution as they judge – but also partially try to replicate — the 1980s revolution. Both nominees represent the tremendous progress the country has made since the 1960s. As one of America’s most famous Vietnam veterans, John McCain represents the seachange in attitudes towards Vietnam vets, partially due to his own efforts. Although the claim that soldiers returning from Vietnam were spat at has never been proven, in the 1970s, many felt neglected and rejected by the country they had served. McCain’s iconic role in American culture as a symbol of patriotism, selflessness, and sacrifice illustrates that many of the national wounds from that war have healed.

Obama, who has spent much of the campaign remarking about how young he was during the 1960s, is in so many ways a child of that decade. The civil rights movement made his candidacy possible. Standing on the shoulders of the movement’s giants, Obama has gone farther and faster than any of them dared to hope. Martin Luther King, Jr’s audacity was in dreaming his children would be treated as the equal of whites, not that they would be in a position to lead.

As the sixties casts its shadow on this choice, the decade of the eighties looms large as well. When John McCain is not paying homage to Theodore Roosevelt, McCain speaks of Ronald Reagan. Both Roosevelt and Reagan offer the kind of muscular, nationalist, leadership McCain admires. Obama admires that style of leadership too, even if he dislikes Reagan’s policies. In a January interview in Nevada, Obama said Reagan had “changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” In defending these remarks against the inevitable Democratic – and Clintonesque – onslaught – Obama explained that he was not embracing Reagan’s positions, just admiring Reagan as a “transformative leader.” Again and again, at his most powerful campaigning moments, Obama has demonstrated a similar potential.

Of course, the financial meltdown put the legacy of the 1980s into contention more directly. In the summer, the Soviet invasion of Georgia and the continuing worries about Iran and Iraq made 2008 look like it was going to be a foreign policy-oriented election. That assumption helps explain Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as a running mate. This choice – like so many other assumptions – seemed unnecessary once the stock market started plummeting.

Alas, despite the leadership opportunity the financial crisis provided for the candidates, neither rose to the occasion. Both remained cautious, simplistic demagogic. Of course, that was par for the campaigning course. But the campaign hoopla is almost over. Tomorrow, the president-elect has to start planning how to help the country – a task that will make the challenges of even this campaign seem downright trivial.

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Gil Troy on the Campaign for McGill TV

History Professor Gil Troy knows a thing or two about presidential politics. Find out what he has to say about this year’s US Elections.

Dan Lieberman, Mik Rubin, Tim Reyes, Arthur Cormon

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Gil Troy: At the Canadian Consulate General in Boston, November 25, 2008

Tuesday November 25, 2008 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm

Canadian Consulate General in Boston

Three Copley Place, Suite 400
Boston, Massachusetts

Category: Education

Website: http://www.alumni.mcgill.ca/events/Troy-Boston08

McGill on the Move

The McGill Alumni Association of Boston
Extends a cordial invitation to graduates, family and friends
to attend a lecture and reception with

Gil Troy
Professor of History, McGill University

“Understanding How They Run By Seeing How They Ran:
A Historian’s Guide to the US Elections”

Once again, a hard-fought presidential campaign rages in the United States. With passions running high about Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, the 2008 election is certain to be remembered as a historic event. But to understand just how historic – and just how typical – we have to look backward as well as forward, appreciating the longstanding patterns at play as well as the unique and unprecedented situations the media likes to emphasize. Just a few weeks after the final votes are counted, McGill historian Gil Troy, author of the recently released book Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents, will explain what worked and what didn’t in the latest race to the White House.

Date: Tuesday, November 25

Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Location: Canadian Consulate General in Boston
Three Copley Place, Suite 400
Copley Mall
(across from the Back Bay T and commuter rail stations)

Parking: Street parking is limited.
Copley Place parking garage costs approximately $18.

Cost: $20 USD (includes light refreshments), cash bar

RSVP: Register online at http://www.alumni.mcgill.ca/events/Troy-Boston08
For more information, call at 1-800-567-5175 x 7684 or email event.registration@mcgill.ca

Additional directions:
http://geo.international.gc.ca/can-am/boston/services/directions-en.asp

Please register by November 18.
You must pay in advance to reserve your place.

A native of Queens, New York, Gil Troy is a Professor of History at McGill and a Visiting Scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s and Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady. He comments frequently about the American presidency on television and radio, and has published articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and USA Weeken

Ticket Info: $20.00 Buy Tickets

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McCain Hopes for A Win, Obama Aims for a Mandate — LA Progressive

McCain Hopes for A Win, Obama Aims for a Mandate

by Gil Troy, LA Progressive, October 31, 2008

Senator John McCain’s campaign should be experiencing a surge in this final week of the campaign, a narrowing of the gap between him and his opponent Senator Barack Obama. In almost every campaign since 1988, except for when Senator Bob Dole lost to President Bill Clinton in 1996, the eventual losers experienced a last minute burst of energy.

In losing campaigns such as Michael Dukakis’s 1988 effort and John Kerry’s 2004 race, a loser’s psychosis set in. Insulated from reality by sycophantic, encouraging aides, surrounded by adoring crowds wherever they went, both Dukakis and Kerry seemed convinced they were going to replicate Harry Truman’s come-from-behind win back in 1948. The result was an energetic, euphoric, sprint toward the finish line that while delusional limited the winner’s margin of victory.

Speaking to Tom Brokaw on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, John McCain seemed to be channeling Dukakis and Kerry. He was not as petulant as Walter Mondale appeared when he lost in 1984. He was not as resigned as Bob Dole was as the 1996 campaign ended. Instead, McCain was confident and ready to fight. Characteristically, his campaign of many strategies introduced yet another approach in the penultimate weekend of the campaign, arguing about the danger of having Democrats dominating both Capitol Hill and the White House. On the campaign trail, McCain has been delighting in the prospect of defying the pundits by winning.

McCain’s confidence is not completely delusional. He knows that Ronald Reagan gained as many as ten points in most polls during the last days of the 1980 campaign, ultimately defeating Jimmy Carter. McCain knows that he has been counted out before, even during the 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination. And McCain sees that, for all the hoopla surrounding Barack Obama, Obama has not quite closed the sale with millions of Americans.

If there is any narrowing in the race between McCain and Obama in these last days or on Election Day, analysts will be quick to cry racism. Pundits will continue the incessant chatter about the “Bradley Effect,” recalling the African-American Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley, who failed to be elected Governor of California despite a lead in the polls. The conventional wisdom attributed the drop to the racism of the voting booths, the fact that many voters told pollsters they would vote for a black but ultimately could not pull the lever for Bradley.

McCain, who has been careful to avoid playing the race card, is banking on other, more benign, factors. The truth is that Barack Obama has not closed the sale because his campaign has been so cautious. Since the convention, Obama has followed a conservative strategy that avoided mistakes but minimized the sparks he generated last spring. Especially since the economic meltdown, Obama has let McCain stumble. During the debates, most people were impressed by Obama’s cool. Still, displaying maturity is not the same thing as convincing the American people. If Obama loses in an upset, the Monday morning quarterbacking should lament his passive, seemingly defensive, campaign rather than Americans’ racism.

If – as the polls seem to suggest – Obama wins, he will have to recall what Ronald Reagan did in 1980. That year, Reagan basically won the election by default – it was an ABC vote, “Anybody But Carter,” the incumbent president. But from the moment Reagan won, he and his aides began speaking about Reagan’s Mandate. By the time Reagan was inaugurated, talk about Reagan’s Mandate had caught on, and Reagan entered office with more power than he deserved based on his Election Day performance.

Barack Obama and his advisers understand the need for his own final surge – and the need to start thinking about an Obama mandate. As the campaign winds down, Obama seems to be returning to the “Yes We Can” spirit of last spring. He has spoken to adoring crowds of as many as 100,000 voters. His campaign spent four million dollars purchasing 30 minutes on CBS, NBC and Fox Wednesday night, for the first prime time candidate’s extended infomercial since Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign. And with an eye on healing the day after, Obama has returned to the unity rhetoric that first catapulted him into the American political stratosphere with his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address.

“In one week, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election, that tries to pit region against region, city against town and Republican against Democrat, that asks us to fear at a time when we need hope.,” Obama recently proclaimed. “In one week’s time, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.”

Some applaud this final week because this seemingly endless campaign is almost over. But the last week of a campaign is often the best week of a campaign. As both candidates make their best efforts to win, we can remember what a privilege it is for citizens in a democracy to choose their leaders freely. Campaigns get passionate, messy, even ugly – as we have seen this fall in the United States and Canada.

But the one prediction we can make with assurance – and with a sense of tremendous satisfaction – is that on Election Day we will hear the sounds of democracy in action – reporters chattering, voters shuffling in line, the click and whir of voting machines. And we should all celebrate that the sounds are in contrast to the sounds of regime change in other parts of the world, which usually include the rumble of tanks and the rat-tat-tat of bullets.

by Gil Troy

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Visiting Scholar affiliated with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

Reprinted with permission from the History News Network.

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Does Our Culture Condemn Us to Endure these Nasty, Partisan campaigns?

By Gil Troy, HNN, 10-31-08

As the campaign winds down, and speculation about how the next president will govern intensifies, a cloud continues to hang over the campaign. Once again, we are hearing complaints about how nasty and idiotic American politics is. The two nominees, both of whom secured their respective party nominations as bridge-building centrists have campaigned mostly as narrow partisans. Senator John McCain, in particular, has seen his reputation for moderation and decency blackened as he, his running mate, and many Republican operatives have run a slash-and-burn campaign. And while Barack Obama has benefited by calmly hovering above the fray, he has shown an ability to counterpunch effectively. He has cleverly but manipulatively dismissed many legitimate criticisms as smears. Moreover, his approach to the financial meltdown has been as simplistic and demagogic as McCain’s. Claiming, as he did in his effective, compelling 30 minute primetime infomercial, that the market crash is simply the result of the last eight years of governing is partisan history in a vacuum. It ignores the preconditions that emerged during the Clinton 1990s and pretends that there were no Democrats in bed with Wall Street or overriding bankers’ judgments in granting mortgages willynilly. But in considering a campaign that ended up being more overheated than either candidate initially promised, it is worth wondering, were they doomed to fail? Can we expect reasonable, civil, and centrist politics in an age of excess?

When critics mourn American politics’ increasing nastiness, the usual suspects include the media’s headline-driven hysteria and polarizing black-and-white approach to news, talk radio’s demagoguery, and the blogosphere’s viciousness. Others note the scramble for relatively few swing voters in a divided society and this election’s high stakes. Yet culture counts too, especially popular culture. Today’s no-holds-barred, decadent culture encourages a sensationalist and indulgent politics.

While conservatives love to blame the amoral and liberal media, America’s hedonism is a joint accomplishment, rooted in the American dream, intensified since Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. This anomaly is one of conservatism’s great blind spots. The prosperity Reagan helped unleash triggered a wave of materialism; the national revival Reagan celebrated spread an epidemic of individualism and libertinism which has weakened the nation’s social and moral fabric. Liberals and conservatives each see themselves as more virtuous than their opponents. Yet neither has a monopoly on morality; personal virtue does not correlate with political views. As Sarah Palin’s family makes clear, rates of pre-marital sex, divorce, or even trashy movie-watching do not correspond to the overused red state versus blue state paradigm.

Amid the loud, lurid carnival that constitutes so much American popular culture, with so many distracted by shopping 24/7, politics must compete with modern America’s burlesque for attention. In a world of caricatures, with too many consumed by the desire for goods rather than for “the good,” politicians feel pressed to lead by slinging simplistic slogans rather than confronting complex realities. As the stock markets have tumbled, both nominees have offered facile postures not thoughtful solutions.

While cultural forces feel overwhelming they are not immutable. Unfortunately, most entertainers, journalist, and politicians go with the partisan flow rather than standing against this polarizing tide. But consider Jon Stewart’s impact in 2004 when he confronted Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on CNN’s “Crossfire.” “Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America,” Stewart demanded, calling Carlson and Begala partisan hacks reducing every political conversation to combat. CNN soon cancelled the show. Alas, we have to reach back four years to find someone standing up so effectively against the toxic partisanship. If more influentials followed Stewart’s example, politics would improve.

A politics that minimizes clashes, seeking the public good, requires a vigorous, romantic faith in America’s democratic experiment. Americans need to restore some of that old time civic religion, that confidence in America’s virtue and in this collective enterprise known as the United States. Structurally, the country also needs some pressures promoting centrism to counterbalance the media and partisan pressures to polarize. Creative leaders and organized citizens groups must tap into that spirit of American nationalism at its best, renewing a sense of collective mission as Americans celebrate their individual freedoms and prerogatives.

George Washington himself taught that the spirit of enlightened moderation, a culture of reasonableness, does not only depend on the Commander in Chief. Citizens in all democracies – including Canada where only 59.1 percent chose to vote this month – must take more responsibility for what we collectively are doing to our politics, our culture, our country, ourselves. The escapist combination of partisanship, cynicism, and frivolity which defines too much contemporary Western culture invites flights from responsibility; the privileges of citizenship, the needs of our time, invite – and demand — the opposite. We all must begin finding our inner moderate. We must reward muscular moderates who lead from the center. We must repudiate those who through vitriol, demagoguery or mockery divide, polarize, or distract from important issues at hand to attract our entertainment dollars or score some cheap political points.

Citizens in a democracy get the leadership they deserve, for better or worse. If we, collectively, revitalize the center, our presidents and prime-ministers will become center-seekers; if we demand the best of our leaders, we just might get the best leaders. As the new president helps the nation heal, let us hope that he brings out his inner moderate, the promise from the spring of a new politics that defies the usual cultural and political laws of gravity in America.

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