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1 | Bed-Wetters, Sherpas, Squishes, and Other Personality Types
- University Press of New England
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★ 1 1 Bed-Wetters, Sherpas, Squishes, and Other Personality Types You may, like many, be inclined to loathe politicians and the people surrounding them. But they can be entertaining —especially when they open their mouths. Among our favorites was the late former New Mexico Democratic governor Bruce King, a homespun, handshake-driven guy (Bill Clinton, campaigning in the state in 1992, called him a modern-day Will Rogers) with a penchant for malapropisms. One of his most famous was that a long-forgotten controversy could “open a box of Pandoras.” And then there was Jim Traficant, perhaps the most colorful person ever to serve in Congress. Before being expelled in 2002 after his conviction on bribery and racketeering charges, the Ohio Democrat made an indelible impression for his signature phrase after a speech, an homage to Star Trek: “Beam me up,” a comment on his wish to escape the bizarreness of Capitol Hill. Politics brims with overachievers, preeners, and boasters. High-profile politicians often seem narcissistic—attention seeking , grandiose, and ever willing to pass the blame on to someone else. Ego-wallers aim to impress visitors to their office by showing off photos with famous presidents, prime ministers, and others of similar stature—even if the Polaroids are thirty-plus years old. Mark Leibovich limned some of the less-flattering personalities in his 2013 best seller ThisTown: Two Parties and a Funeral— Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America’s Gilded Capital. He vividly described the jockeying for attention and schmoozing taking place at Meet the Press host Tim Russert’s funeral. Valerie 2 ★ Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs & Washington hanDshakes Jarrett, perhaps President Barack Obama’s closest advisor, took the hardest hit for circulating around the White House a draft memo with thirty-three talking points for people to get their story straight for a New York Times profile of her. Its title was “The Magic of Valerie.”1 Of course, not everyone in Washington behaves so awfully— far from it. There is a wider array of personalities in the political world, as we hope to show. Appeaser: The opposite of a hawk; a dismissive term given to post-9/11 critics of an aggressive foreign policy. ★ Conservatives regularly apply it to President Barack Obama, broadening it to encompass everything he does that they consider weak and counterproductive. As Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said in a June 2013 speech about a supposed “war on coal”: “The president can simply ignore the will of the representatives sent here by the people because he wants to, because special interests are lobbying him, and because he wants to appease some far-left segment of his base.”2 Attack dog: A politico who’s obviously willing to utter scathingly partisan things—a spokesman, insult comic, and source of blogosphere cacophony rolled into one. This figure can be a bit more mainstream than a bomb thrower, whose verbal volleys generally are more indiscriminate. Surrogates, for example, are more likely to serve as attack dogs. ★ The attack dog that relished the role more than anyone in recent memory was Sarah Palin. Even after her 2008 turn as John McCain’s running mate, she still delivers attack lines such as “How’s that ‘hopey-changey’ stuff working out for you?” with glee. But all vice presidential nominees, and vice presidents, play this role. (Witness Joe Biden’s campaign-trail sound-bite eruptions in both 2008 and 2012; one of the most heated moments of the latter was when he told a predominantly African American audience that Mitt Romney’s plan was to “put y’all back in [34.237.245.80] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:17 GMT) ★ 3 Personality tyPes chains.”3) So do the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic national committees. And during the 2012 presidential campaign , the dogs often were governors with a potential interest in running someday for the White House, including Maryland Democrat Martin O’Malley and New Jersey Republican Chris Christie. That kind of negativity turns off voters who don’t agree with their views. But people who can serve red meat to the base get noticed within party circles. These days, one of the most prominent attackers is Republican representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who regularly appears on cable television to blast Obamacare and other topics. She called the administration’s response to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, “probably more serious than Watergate.”4 On the Democratic side is Alan Grayson of Florida, who sent...