When Al Gore, upon accepting his nomination for the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 2000, chose Joe Lieberman as his vice presidential candidate, I remember a socially liberal activist in Orange County Democratic Party circles, who also shared a Jewish heritage, being so excited. She said, "Isn't this great?! You won't support Nader now, right? Gore chose a Jew--like us!" I said, No, Joe Lieberman is exactly why I am voting for Ralph Nader and the Greens in CA. Lieberman is a corporate Democrat and his foreign policy is horribly neo-con (the phrases were already being used in the circles in which I traveled).
I was living in Thousand Oaks at the time, and at the synagogue we attended, there was so much excitement: Wow! A Jewish vice presidential candidate in a major party! My reaction there, too, was, Yuck--and of course, that reaction did not go over well. I would say, I'm sticking with the guy who grew up in a Lebanese-American Christian family. I said I didn't care about Joe Lieberman being Jewish. He is nobody I'd like personally or politically.
When Lieberman became a Bush/Cheney booster, I remember the Rabbi there saying to me, "How did you know Lieberman was so bad?" I just smiled and said, I read. And, I added, I don't fall for or make assumptions about candidates based upon their personal biographies. I admire RFK and FDR, both rich, white men who happened to care about those who are economically vulnerable and had tremendous empathy. Empathy and concern for those who are economically vulnerable are traits I admire in a candidate.
All these people currently announcing for president are "Biography" candidates. They are selling themslves on a personal heritage or membership in some group or status that is historically oppressed (Well, Warren is a strange version: I am a white dirt farmer's daughter who my family told me had some Cherokee blood.). They are following the Obama 2006-2008 playbook, and trying to bolster ethnic/racial pride, which, in these times, may (I repeat may, not will) ironically solidify white pride for Republicans and Trump in places like WI, MI, PA, and OH. We still live in an Electoral College world, folks, until enough States sign the Compact (I am hoping NM signs next, as it is on the agenda for the State legislature this week, and the new governor is ready to sign).
At least Warren and the Mayor Pete from South Bend, Indiana are progressive in matters of public policy. The others? Their playbook is not some book about public policy. It is merely Sheryl Sandberg's self-help book, "Leaning In," and they sell themselves as an ethnic/racial/gender "brand." When we consider so many of these other candidates, we think first of their personal status, make unwarranted assumptions, and their handlers smile.
I am already tired of the "Biography" candidates, whether Bankers* or progressives. Still, I know it is required if one wants respectful corporate media attention, and I find older people are more fooled by it than younger ones. I remember with ironic laughter how Bernie had a hard time accepting this style of campaigning and self-promotion, as his advisers had to beg him to talk about his own heritage. He was saying, "Who cares about these things? It should be about public policy."
Bernie learned to talk sometimes about these things, but I know he still finds it to be an example of one's vanity. And when we view these other candidates through that lens, their vanity is practically screaming at us. When thinking of them, my advice is to remind ourselves of Joe Lieberman, and look at his vanity in being so desperate for attention that he goes on FoxNews to rip into the future of the Democratic Party. It is not enough to say, Go away, Joe. It is important to realize these types of "Biography" candidates are first and foremost about themselves. And that goes for the Beloved Obama, too.
* Gore Vidal, in 1980, took to calling most Democratic and Republican Party presidential candidates and other politicians, "Banksmen." See: Vidal's essay, "The State of the Union 1980" first published, I recall, in Esquire magazine, but it is also in his compendium of essays, "United States" (1992). I think it is very apt to describe the corporate Democratic Party candidates running for president, or expecting to announce. It helps push back against the "Biography" diversion and expose these vain people for who and what they are.
