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285 7 Leadership and Courage Editor’s Note Paul Simon articulated a consistent philosophical position on the concept of representation, which was that, as Edmund Burke advocated, the political leader had an obligation to be honest and forthright in his commitment to public service, to cast the hard vote, and then to go home and explain himself to his people. Thus, leadership also entails a central role for public education. The obligation to exhibit that kind of profile in courage was perhaps born in the idealistic young Paul Simon when he watched his Lutheran minister father take a principled and courageous stance against the internment of the Japanese on the West Coast at the height of the World War II scare. It was a lesson he seemed never to forget. It was a high standard, and he spent a career attempting to live up to it. After he left public office, he often lamented the fact that so few modern officeholders seem to have the fortitude to exhibit many “profiles in courage” qualities and that the voters seem to reward those who offer them an easy solution for complicated problems. One of his last books, Our Culture of Pandering, was a treatise on this theme, and he deeply believed that the political process demands more than many who seek office are willing to give. He constantly admonished his colleagues to tell the people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear and to tell them the truth. In that respect, Paul Simon had some very idealistic values, which he tried to play out in a very competitive and often cynical game. 286 Leadership and Courage It is not clear whether Simon could have survived electorally in today’s world of hyper politics. He lost early in the Democratic presidential nomination contest of 1988; however, he came back and won his second term in the Senate with an overwhelming victory in 1990. Most observers, myself included, believe that he would have won reelection if he had chosen to run for a third term in 1996, although the contest would likely have been a competitive one. Bill Clinton was running for a second term as president that year against Senator Robert Dole. Although Simon was a friend and admirer of Bob Dole’s, he would have endorsed Clinton and campaigned with him and would have likely been reelected along with Clinton. Simon’s prospects for reelection to a fourth term in 2002 are more problematic. That was the year after the 9/11 terror attacks; George W. Bush was riding a wave of patriotic fervor, and he and the Republicans got a strong “rally around the flag” lift out of the Bush administration’s handling of the early stages of the war on terror. It was the year of saber-rattling and a determined buildup toward the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003. It was not a good year to be a Democrat running for reelection, and a number of prominent Democrats lost their seat that year. It was not the kind of electoral atmosphere in which Paul Simon thrived, and he may well have chosen to retire that year had he not already exercised that option in the previous round. More important, Paul Simon was uncomfortable with the requirements of modern campaigns for major public office. A candidate now must raise tens of millions of dollars to be competitive in a big state like Illinois. Simon hated fund-raising, and that was one of the reasons he gave for his retirement in 1996. A candidate has to be always onstage under the watchful eye of the electronic media. Simon was pretty good at that part of the job; he was not intimidated by television and used it to his advantage, even though he was a print media creature at heart. He liked to joke that he had been told that he had a good face for radio. He would have been puzzled by and probably uninterested in Facebook, Twitter, or any of the new social media developments . He was very set in his ways regarding dress, personal style, and image adjustments. No one could imagine him sitting still for any kind of cosmetic makeover. He knew what his image was, and he protected that image and was comfortable with it because it rang true with who he was intrinsically. There was no pretense and no artifice with Paul Simon. I knew him in all kinds of...

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