Obama, the debt deal and the tragedy of Generation Jones

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Generation Jones - a question of courage

In the latest issue of The Economist, the Lexington column ponders whether President Obama has, at any point in his presidency so far, demonstrated real political courage.

After weighing the evidence, Lexington concludes:

[Obama] made hope and audacity his running mates, so he should answer for their defection. With the exception of health reform the big fights—on global warming, immigration and the deficit—have been put on hold and many of the smaller ones ducked . . .

. . . Maybe Mr Obama will find the same raw courage [as some of his predecessors] when at last he thinks it warranted. All one can say is that it has not happened yet.

I was persuaded, even if the article led me to another uncomfortable conclusion. Obama’s lack of ideological clarity or, to put it more kindly, his propensity to synthesise all sides of an issue, might stem from to a lack of political courage. Other political leaders from Generation Jones - my generation - display similar characteristics [click here and here]. Might they too be lacking in courage?

The evidence isn’t encouraging. Last year, the then Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd (born 1957), flip-flopped on whether to bring in an emissions trading scheme, despite the fact that fighting climate change was meant to central to his government’s mission. His personal popularity sagged badly, providing the ALP caucus with an excuse to dump Rudd and bring in Julia Gillard.

In New Zealand, prime minister John Key (born 1961) is a popular and charismatic politician, but is so cautious that he has been dubbed “smile and wave” by his Labour opponents. On the other end of the political spectrum, Sir Roger Douglas has repeatedly criticised Key’s government for its “cowardice” and reluctance to take “tough decisions”.

Here in London, Lexington’s question about courage could just as fairly be asked about Mayor Boris Johnson (born 1964).

The baby boomers’ willingness to push boundaries and achieve greater personal, social and, later, economic freedom surely stemmed from the prosperous economic times in which they were raised. The more difficult economic environment of their formative years (the mid/late 1970s and early 1980s) and the ambiguous and uncertain spirit of the age could have caused members of Generation Jones to be less politically confident than their forebears.

But Lexington and I may both be rushing to judgment. The Economist article was written before the international coalition, which of course includes the US, imposed a no-fly ban on Libya – otherwise known as going to war. The Obama administration’s action on Libya has been criticised by some of the president’s political opponents [click here, and here]. The response from the American public has been somewhat ambivalent and they want no further military involvement in Libya. Lexington’s opinion of the president’s backbone may yet have to be revised upwards.

Julia Gillard (born 1961) is a member of Generation Jones, just like Rudd. She is now bringing in a carbon tax, after ruling it out during last year’s federal election campaign, and her Labor government’s poll ratings have collapsed as a result. Courageous, or what?

As for Key, he has promised to sell off some important government assets if his National-led government is returned at the November general election. He’s taking a big risk. Public anger at a large-scale privatisation programme helped to sink the fourth Labour government (1984-90). So far, however, Key’s proposals haven’t fired Kiwis up in the same way.

The leaders from Generation Jones may still be able to take pride in their political courage. But they - or at the least, the leaders from my side of the political fence - could have to claim that mantle in electoral defeat.

Narrativewatch: Obama's "Sputnik moment"

In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Obama called for big investments in education, infrastructure, research and innovation as the best ways to make sure the US meets the challenge from an economically resurgent China. He wants to improve the education system, ensure there are more maths and science graduates, pioneer new industries, invest in R&D and encourage entrepreneurship.

Here’s his call to arms:

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment.

In recalling the time when a complacent America was galvanised into action after the Soviet Union launched the first Earth-orbiting satellite, and saying “now we must do it again”, Obama was telling a springboard story, but in a political setting.

(What’s a springboard story? Storytelling guru Stephen Denning defines it as:

a story that enables a leap in understanding by the audience so as to grasp how an organization or community or complex system may change.

For more background, click here.)

Springboard stories can be as powerful as, well, as Saturn V rocket. But they are tricky things for politicians to keep under control, because others soon drop in context and spin. For instance, Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted the apparent contradiction between Obama’s call for the funding of "a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the space race," investing in biomedicine, information technology, and clean-energy technology, and his proposal to freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years.

Kaplan discussed how America prevailed over the USSR in the space race of the 1960s and concluded that “doing big things” (another key soundbite from the speech) usually needs a big injection of government funding.

There’s more to it though. Today, Don Lee and David Pierson of the Los Angeles Times show how the analogy between America’s current concern about China and the US/USSR space race doesn’t really stack up. They remind us that China’s attitude towards the US is not as aggressive or as belligerent as that of the Soviet leaders of the 1950s and 1960s. The level of economic integration – and dependence - between the US and China is well-documented and neither side wants to mess that up. Some companies may choose to have their innovative plant in China. Lee and Pierson make another telling point:

Perhaps most important, Washington was able to respond to Sputnik by pouring billions of dollars into a new space program. But today, the nation is deeply in debt.

The last comment goes to the heart of whether the springboard will work -- or, in this case, whether the rocket will leave the launch pad. This week, Dan Farber of CBS pondered whether Obama will be able to persuade private corporations, who are, after all, more likely to have the investment capital, as well as Congress, to put the billions of dollars in the innovation and technologies that will be needed if America is to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.

President Obama should be congratulated for trying to find his own version of Ronald’ Reagan’s “morning in America”. But he will need some robust, credible policies and incentives, as well as sound political strategies for pulling in private sector investment and spurring innovation.

I have long argued that sound policies need compelling narratives in order to be sold successfully. Obama’s “Sputnik moment” may prove that clever narratives need sound policies in order to stick.

As Lee and Pierson say:

If partisan strife leads to paralysis and neither [Obama’s] proposals nor alternatives are enacted — or if they fail to produce quick results and the public grows disillusioned — then the slow growth and high unemployment of today could stretch even further into the future.

Footnote: In case you missed it, Sarah Palin tried to peddle a counter-story on the “Sputnik moment”, but it all went a bit weird. Click here.

Obama at Tucson

Yesterday’s brilliant, inspiring memorial speech by President Barack Obama in Tucson, Arizona will, no doubt, be studied by students of speech, rhetoric and the presidency for years to come.

What stood out for me was the way Obama exhorted the American people to rise above partisan bickering, to pull together and become better citizens. He told a powerful story.

As Slate’s John Dickerson put it, the president memorialised the dead and celebrated the heroes. He told their simple but value-laden stories: Judge John Roll, “the hardest working judge within the Ninth Circuit”; George and Dorothy Morris “high school sweethearts who got married and had two daughters”; Phyllis Schenck, “a qifted quilter . . . whose life revolved around her three children”; Dorwan and Mavy Stoddart who “helped folks in need at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ”; and Gabe Zimmerman, the aide who “made the cares of [Rep. Giffords] his own . . . seeing to it that . . . government was working for ordinary folks”.

The president had one more example:

And then there is nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green. Christina was an A student; she was a dancer; she was a gymnast; she was a swimmer. She decided that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the Major Leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age. She'd remind her mother, "We are so blessed. We have the best life." And she'd pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.

The point – the moral lesson – came when the president drew all the stories together and invited his countrymen and women to live up to and honour the examples set by Jared Loughner’s victims. Obama started the lesson by asking a question.

Their actions, their selflessness poses a challenge to each of us. It raises a question of what, beyond prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

Here’s the core of the president’s answer:

Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.

Then came the rationale, rooted in his values and what Obama clearly hopes are the better angels of his country’s nature:

We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -- but rather, how well we have loved -- and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better. And that process -- that process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions -- that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires.

The president backed up the argument by presenting the fallen as embodiments of American values, the self-images of the nation:

We may not have known them personally, but surely we see ourselves in them. In George and Dot, in Dorwan and Mavy, we sense the abiding love we have for our own husbands, our own wives, our own life partners. Phyllis -- she's our mom or our grandma; Gabe our brother or son. (Applause.) In Judge Roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family and doing his job well, but also a man who embodied America's fidelity to the law.

Of Rep. Giffords, he said:

In Gabby, we see a reflection of our public-spiritedness; that desire to participate in that sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious, but always necessary and never-ending process to form a more perfect union.

And:

In Christina we see all of our children. So curious, so trusting, so energetic, so full of magic. So deserving of our love. And so deserving of our good example. If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate -- as it should -- let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost.

The president spoke of the debt of honour we owe the victims:

. . . The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better. To be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.

We should be civil because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American Dream to future generations.

They believed -- they believed, and I believe that we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved life here -- they help me believe.

President Obama summed up the moral of the story thus:

Imagine -- imagine for a moment, here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that some day she, too, might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council. She saw public service as something exciting and hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted. I want to live up to her expectations.

I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us -- we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

There were some subtle metaphors too. When the president revealed that Rep. Giffords had opened her eyes during his visit with her, he may have been inviting the rest of us to open our eyes too, to see what really matters and how we can be better citizens.

And President Obama’s Tucson speech will be remembered for the powerful, pitch perfect way he told the nation’s story. He has had good reviews from the mainstream left and the mainstream right, because he gripped what his audience – the American people – were worrying about and then transcended the messy politics of the situation, offering them a higher path. In his own, more restrained way, Obama followed the empathetic example set by Bill Clinton at Oklahoma City in 1995.

As Max Atkinson has said: “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest”.

Learning from Ronald Reagan, master storyteller

In this week’s Economist, the Lexington column says that Barack Obama has been reading Lou Cannon’s well-regarded biography of Ronald Reagan for inspiration. The president could go to worse places. After all, Reagan’s party did not have control of both houses of Congress. He too suffered from poor poll ratings and bad mid-term election results in his early years in office. Like Obama, Reagan inherited an economy in a parlous state. Yet he went on to triumph at the 1984 election, carrying 49 out of 50 states.

Lexington argues, correctly, that Reagan’s experience does not provide a simple formula for Obama to follow. Nor does Lexington buy all the easy myths about the Reagan presidency. [For my take, click here.] But s/he comes to an interesting conclusion:

. . . Americans warmed to [Reagan] not just because of what he did but also because of the sort of person he was. Mr Cannon argues that his political magic did not reside only in his happiness and folksy charm. His greatness was that “he carried a shining vision of America inside him.” He had a simple belief that nothing was impossible in America if only government got out of the way. In rejecting the idea of limits, says Mr Cannon, he expressed a core conviction of the nation. Mr Obama does not share this belief, and is perhaps right not to. The idea that nothing is impossible in and for America is an illusion. But Americans have never thanked their presidents for telling them so.

In making American exceptionalism his cause, Reagan was a master storyteller, He understood, instinctively, what political narratives are about and how they work. He saw that his compatriots feared national decline, in the wake of Watergate, Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, the oil shocks and stagflation of the 1970s. Reagan offered them a happy ending, expressed powerfully in his ’84 campaign spot, Morning in America. Above all, he understood the need of the American people -- like people everywhere -- to have a clear sense of who they are, where they stand and where they are goig.

In his seminal book Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner argues that most leaders’ stories

address the most essential questions raised by human beings and seek to provide satisfying answers to those questions . . . issues of self, group membership, past and future, good and evil.

Gardner says that the stories of leaders are

created in response to the pervasive need to understand oneself, the groups that exist in and beyond one’s culture and issues of values and meaning.

I have long believed that politicians from moderate left and liberal parties do rather well at reaffirming their comrades’ core convictions about themselves and their political values, but are less adept at expressing the values of those “beyond the base”. By contrast, Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and it seems, New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, are good examples of conservative or moderate right politicians who succeeded by playing back or embodying the commonly-held stories of their countrymen and women.

If he is to win a second term, Obama must break this spell, just as Bill Clinton did. He will need to offer his own “Morning in America”, complete with bold rhetoric about investing in the future and making sure that nobody is left out. If he doesn’t, someone else will come through with his – or her - new dawn, and I suspect the outcomes will be unpleasant.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Analytical, pragmatic revolutionaries who see both sides - understanding the leaders from Generation Jones

Do you really know what you're getting from Generation Jones - the people who now rule much of the world?

Earlier this week, Cari Oke (a fellow Joneser) commented on how leaders from our generation are more likely than our forebears to strive for the greatest possible agreement when political choices have to be made.

As Gen Jonesers hover on either side of the half-century mark, are we seeing the telltale signs of our empathetic natures? . . . President Obama, born in 1961, is well known for his ability to see many sides of an issue and his belief that two sides can be brought together with a little help from a friend. Supreme Court nominee and Joneser Elena Kagan, born in 1960, continues to defy efforts at labeling. The best anyone can do is to call her a moderate.

For years, I’ve noticed and approved of the way "liberal-left" politicians from Generation Jones try seriously to follow political principles that are once “idealistic” and “pragmatic”. The obvious example, going right back to the “neoliberal” triumphs of the 1980s, are the concerted efforts to reconcile “social equity” with “economic efficiency”. Another example is the concerted effort that has been made over the last decade or so to synthesise “economic prosperity” and “environmental sustainability”.

But then I am, after all, a paid-up member of Generation Jones who has supported the New Zealand Labour Party and now the Liberal Democrats. And that may be one reason why I am more prepared than some Liberal Democrats to cut Nick Clegg (born 1967) some slack as he tries to frame the coalition government’s tough fiscal policies as progressive, as well as responsible. In today’s Guardian, Nick cites his conversion over fiscal consolidation as an example of accountable politics. Nick even says:

“I am a revolutionary but I am also a pragmatist.”

The latest example of the Jonesers' empathetic, thoughtful but somehow ambiguous brand of politics is Australia’s new prime minister, Julia Gillard. Born in 1961, she is the latest member of Generation Jones to take power. Her competence and professionalism are not seriously disputed. Nor is her ability to consult or to engage in serious dialogue on tricky policy issues. Sounding like a true Joneser, she has promised:

"We will consult, listen and encourage people to give their best and we will work through the nation's policy challenges with a calm, methodical and analytical approach."

In his first weeks in the top job, prime minister Gillard has cut a deal with the mining industry over resources taxation – trying to make the government’s “fairness” rhetoric work alongside the industry’s needs. But she has come across as less than forthright over border protection and the processing of refugees. And the commentators are now asking Gillard to explain what she really stands for and reminding us that you win elections by setting out a clear path to the future.

There’s an even bigger question around Julia Gillard – and Barack Obama and Nick Clegg for that matter. Even if another of Cari Oke’s observations about my generation sounds a little tongue-in-cheek, it still makes for uncomfortable reading.

While watching the implosion of Joneser General Stanley McChrystal’s career, one has to wonder if the Generation Jones ability to see both sides also allows us to play both sides. Does this characteristic come back to bite us in our once bell bottom clad butts? I could argue either way.

I hope that it doesn’t bite us anywhere. I am waiting and hoping for Barack Obama, Nick Clegg (though he's a deputy PM in a coalition government) and Julia Gillard to use their times in the sun to deliver a politics that is new and different in its substance. A competent, empathetic style of governance is most welcome. Using it to deliver the politics of the “soft heart” and the “hard head”, based on a more environmentally sustainable economy, would be great.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

A few more reasons why my generation isn't saving the world

Over on Huffington Post, Will Bunch has an interesting piece about Generation Jones, the cohort of people born between 1954 and 1965. He argues that Generation Jones is coming to power all over the world. But he’s not satisfied that we’re trying hard enough to solve its problems. Bunch believes that pragmatism has won out over idealism because our underlying anxiety about careers and personal economic security has left Jonesers with an innate aversion to taking risks.

The Next Greatest Generation? Hardly. The reality is that Generation Jones is showing up just in time, when the planet really does need saving -- and we are blowing it, big time. The challenges faced not just by the United States but by the entire world -- global warming, a deadly addiction to fossil fuels, governments addled by debt yet unable to stop spending billions on weapons -- require bold, boat-rocking risk-takers, people who have looked into the abyss of humankind and are not afraid to make daring moves.

This is simply not my Generation Jones . . . We are careerists -- clinging to our conviction that we can change the world not by forceful ideas but by the mere force of our own often-coddled personalities, even if the ideas and passions that once animated our humanity have been buried under pages of resumes and cover letters.

Ouch. Bunch goes on to describe Barack Obama and his new supreme court nominee, Eliza Kagan, as case studies of our generation’s cautious careerism and reluctance. And he wonders if the progressive ideals of Obama, Kagan other Jonsesers have now lain dormant for so long that they might never rise again.

I have argued previously that the leaders from Generation Jones need to start putting their political cards on the table and showing what they stand for and what they are going to do with their time in the sun. That applies to leaders from the moderate left, like Barack Obama and Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd, and to those from the moderate right, like New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key. All have been criticized, including by their own sides, for not being bold or visionary enough.

So I can relate a lot of what Bunch says. I grew up in New Zealand and not the US. He may be exaggerating parts of his argument for effect. Yet I can relate to his basic argument. When I was at secondary school, in the late 1970s, the senior teachers gave us stern lectures about how gruesome the job market was going to be. They were correct. By the time we got to university, unemployment had reached levels unknown since the great depression of the 1930s. The two oil shocks added in inflationary pressures and made a grim economic cocktail. But in my home country’s case, Bunch may be going too far when he claims that for Generation Jones, “progressive ideals were buried”. For instance, most of our Generation Jonesers supported the ban on nuclear warships visiting New Zealand.

And I suspect that it’s more than just the graduate job market of the 1980s that has made the leaders from Generation Jones wary of taking big political risks and reluctant to embark on big policy projects. The broader sweeps of politics and the fates of previous risk takers and visionaries have been important too.

Take Barack Obama. He came of age during the triumph of Reagan and witnessed the death of post-war American liberalism. American politics was fundamentally transformed during the 1980s and Bill Clinton did not try to turn the clock back – or forwards.

Kevin Rudd would have seen Gough Whitlam’s Labor government come to office in 1972 promising big shake-ups, especially in social and foreign policy. But Whitlam and co flamed out after just three years. When Labor returned, in 1983, they were led by Bob Hawke. Hawke’s government achieved a great deal, especially in the economic areas. But he branded his administration as reformist rather than radical; Hawke’s leadership style was based on the quest for consensus rather than promoting grand ideological designs. When his successor, Paul Keating, tried to paint big pictures, Australians just wanted the family snapshot. In 1996, they showed Labor the door – and Rudd himself failed in his first attempt to enter parliament.

His opponents used to mock John Key’s lack of interest in New Zealand’s turbulent politics of the early 1980s. But he and his Joneser senior ministers remember all too well what happened in the 1990s, when their National Party abandoned the safety of the conservative middle ground and undertook major cuts in social spending and broke the promises they had made to superannuitants (pensioners). The fourth National government saw its popularity plummet and at the 1993 election saw nearly all of its huge majority melt away. For many years, the memories of those years provided their opponents with a powerful political weapon.

Now for the big questions: what have Obama, Rudd, Key and the other generation Jonesers who are running the world learned from their predecessors’ sometimes bitter experiences? How do they plan to apply that knowledge to the massive challenges they face – most notably in saving our environment for future generations? And how are their leadership styles different from those of the political leaders that Generation Jones watched on TV in the 1970s and 1980s?

I have a sneaking fear that, in different ways, they don’t know the answer to the first two questions and that the answer to the second is based more on electoral tactics – polls and focus groups – than a clear sense of political ideals and policy strategies.

Let’s hope this concern is misplaced. There may be a new cause for hope. The UK has a new coalition government, whose prime minister, deputy prime minister and half of cabinet were born between 1954 and 1965. Perhaps they will show us what my generation is really all about.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

The BP oil spill and reframing climate change

Today, the FT's Fiona Harvey has provided a quick, useful summary of the politics surrounding this week's climate change talks in Bonn. This year, "climategate", whilst overblown, has helped to make the public less receptive to messages about climate change. She concludes:

. . . the recession has grabbed all attention, and now the crisis in the Eurozone means European Union countries are far less interested in climate change than they are in the survival of the single currency. As finance is central to any progress on climate change negotiations, the recession could yet be the rock on which these talks founder.

I agree. But Fiona Harvey also notes that the BP oil spill has brought a whole new focus on to environmental issues and enabled environmental groups to broaden the issue to the way the US sees energy. [Here's one good example] She says that the oil spill:

could yet be the most important thing to happen to the public discourse on climate change. Obama has in the past week linked the incident to both the dangers of fossil fuels, and pledged to try and get the climate bill through - both statements well overdue, in the eyes of environmentalists.

David Roberts of Grist has discussed at length the rhetoric used in Obama's latest speech on the climate bill, making the case for moving to a clean energy economy. Interestingly, the president explained that:

our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk.

He made no mention of "climate change" or "global warming".

Over the coming months, Chris Huhne and other ministers in the coalition government will be making the case for a low-carbon economy, with more ambitious renewable energy targets - and, almost certainly, higher costs for energy consumers. They will be making it to a public that is more sceptical and less receptive to frames based on the dangers of climate change.

Will they follow Obama's lead, by bringing in the BP oil spill and, just as important, using new, potentially more powerful frames?

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

Obama's lost year and the secrets of political storytelling

The New Yorker of 15 March has a fascinating article by George Packer, called “Obama’s lost year”. Packer traverses the political and strategic mistakes that the president has made, the opportunities he has lost over the past twelve months. [Sorry – there’s no hyperlink to the full article unless you’re a paying subscriber]

Inevitably, one of the issues that Packer discusses is Obama’s failure to craft a narrative and tell the American people a story about what he is doing, and why he is doing it.

“Phrasemaking, throughlines, frameworks and narratives simply aren’t the stuff of the Obama press office.”

Packer draws some important contrasts between Obama and Ronald Reagan, another president who ran into big economic and political problems in his first year. In so doing, Packer shows us what makes a political narrative work.

“Reagan could recover from battlefield setbacks because he was fighting a larger war. His talent for phrasemaking and anecdote derived from having a strong world view: unlike Obama, he began with a set of ideas and found the evidence to match them and the words to dramatize them.”

The article goes on to quote the leading Democratic political consultant, Paul Begala:

“[Reagan’s] point of departure was always philosophical. He explained how the world works. Roosevelt did the same thing.” [emphasis added]

Reagan blamed the nation’s woes on “decades of tax and tax and spend and spend”.

Later in the article, top Democratic pollster Geff Garin develops the same point and shows the crucial role that characters – heroes and villains –play in political stories.

“Reagan had a kind of robust narrative with real explanatory power for people. He had a political narrative that told people what he was doing and what the Democrats were doing: a narrative which is available to Obama: Jimmy Carter left the country in a mass, we’re making changes that are painful now but if we stay the course they’ll succeed, and why would anyone want to go back?” [emphasis added]

Notice also how Reagan’s story offered two alternative endings, one good, one bad, and left people to work the rest out for themselves.

During the last presidential election campaign, I wrote a lot on my blog about Obama’s gifts as a teller of stories. In fact, I unpretentiously named him the political storyteller of the year for 2008. But Packer is correct: as president, he has not rendered the country’s story in a way that is memorable and convincing. To quote Paul Begala: “[Obama] doesn’t situate it in a philosophy.”

No, a political narrative is not the same thing as an ideology. But the experiences of Reagan and Obama show that a successful narrative must be based firmly on a coherent set of ideas.

As Packer puts it:

“To be an effective communicator, a President needs a strong world view, a fundamental vision of why things are and the way they ought to be, which can be simplified into a few key ideas and images – in short, an ideology. For Obama and his advisers, there is no worse pejorative.”

The narrative, the story is the most powerful tool that a politician has to explain those ideas, convey the images and make them real to people.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley

Generation Jones leaders should put their cards on the table this year

We are seeing a major shift in political power. Having ruled much of the world for more than a decade, the baby boomers --usually seen as the age cohort born between 1946 and 1961 -- are now on their way out. The boomers are being replaced by what the social commentator Jonathan Pontell calls Generation Jones*, a sub cohort born between 1954 and 1965.* They form a bridge between the baby boomers and Generation X, born between 1961 and 1981.

Evidence of the new shift piled up during 2008. In the United States, Barack Obama (born 1961) trounced John McCain, who was born in 1936 and, therefore, is not a baby boomer. Earlier in the year, however, Obama saw off Hilary Clinton, born in 1947 and the queen of the boomers, to become the Democratic party’s standard-bearer. On January 20 2009, Obama replaced a baby boomer, George W. Bush, who himself followed Bill Clinton, another baby boomer, in 2001. Obama’s inauguration marked the end of 16 years of boomer rule.

In the race for London mayor, Conservative Boris Johnson (born 1964) ousted Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone (born 1945 and arguably a baby boomer, if only just).

In my home country, New Zealand, National’s John Key (born 1961) defeated three term Labour prime minister, Helen Clark (born 1950).

These three joined other Generation Jonesers at the top, like France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy (born 1955), Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel (born 1954), Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd (born 1957) and Sweden's prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (born 1965). According to Jonathan Pontell, two-thirds of EU and NATO leaders now come from this cohort. Several key figures in Obama’s administration are also Jonesers.

There’s more. In this year’s UK general election, due in 2010, prime minister Gordon Brown (born 1951) will almost certainly lose to Conservative leader David Cameron (born 1966).

The change in ruling generations could have a profound of the substance and the style of politics. Baby boomer politics were all about enhancing personal freedom and self-fulfilment. Their legacy is 1960s and 1970s feminism, gay rights, the fight against apartheid, a new push for indigenous peoples’ rights, a new look at nationalism in Asia (well, Vietnam). Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and their contemporaries also carried on and sealed in the pursuit of greater freedom in the economic sphere. So turbo-capitalism is part of the boomer legacy too.

The theory is that Generation Jones still wants to change the world, but they are less ideological and more pragmatic. Last April, Pontell explained:

". . . We are practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part . . .

". . . Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren't engaged in that era's ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while Boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-Boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead."

I was born in 1962, which makes me one of Generation Jones, and Pontell’s argument rings a lot of bells with me.

Last year, however, the new generation leaders were ‘pragmatic’ enough but kept the ‘idealistic’ part of the formula under wraps.

On the moderate “left”, for example, “practical idealism” looks more like old-fashioned political caution. This has been a theme of several commentaries on Barack Obama’s first year in office. Drew Westen, the author of The Political Brain and a self-described “leftist”, has bitterly lamented the lack of fire in Obama’s belly and his reluctance to take risks, “to take anybody on.” Given Obama’s record and the fact that Generation Jones is meant to be about a pragmatic pursuit of ideals, I don’t think any of that is especially surprising.

Westen has also slated the president for having “no vision, no message” and of simply not wanting to enunciate a progressive vision of where his country should be heading in the 21st century.

In my experience, when those on the “left” accuse one of their own of lacking a progressive vision, they usually mean that s/he doesn’t subscribe to their vision. Westen has a point though. Obama’s core political beliefs have always been a hard to pin down and his political message is more opaque now than it was during the campaign. Politics Daily’s Walter Shapiro has called the forces driving the Obama presidency “elusive”. He points to a “never show your cards vagueness” on key issues in health care reform, on top of a reluctance to challenge Wall Street and the bonus culture and concludes that Barack Obama remains, “more than any president in memory, an enigmatic figure who defies easy categorization.”

Analyses of Australia’s Kevin Rudd (in office since December 2007) tend to use phrases like “work in progress”, “voters still don’t really know him” and “lacks a narrative”.

Jonesers from the moderate “right” have been open to similar sorts of criticisms. John Key has remained popular in his first year and more in office, partly because he has eschewed economic radicalism and stuck to middle of the political road. But Key is now under some pressure to explain how he will reposition New Zealand’s economy for the difficult challenges ahead. [click here, and here].

As for David Cameron, he is not in power and that so it is unfair to judge him by the above standards. But I’ve yet to hear a convincing definition of “Cameronism”. The Tory leader’s core beliefs remain a mystery. Such a comment may seem predictable from the likes of me, but a recent issue of The Spectator contained some scathing (and well-argued) articles claiming that Cameron has no “big idea”.

And, can anybody tell me what Mayor Boris is trying to achieve?

Pontell may be correct about Generation Jones and the opportunities that lie before it. President Obama is not fighting the old culture wars dating from the 1960s. Rudd has tried to fashion a fresh approach to social democratic politics. John Key has jettisoned the type of neoliberal ideology that caused his predecessors to self-destruct during the 1990s. In his quest to detoxify the Tory brand, David Cameron does not define himself in Thatcher-era frames. All of this is defensible, from an electoral point of view.

But I’m still not sure about the values and drivers of the leaders from Generation Jones - what their “practical idealism” is really all about. Perhaps there will be some clearer answers in 2010.

* I have previously written just about the Baby Boomers and Generation X, while mentioning a sub-cohort from 1955-65, but am happy to stand corrected and consider the theory about a distinctive “Generation Jones”.

Reframing climate change, part II

For years, climate realists have been concerned that, despite all the grim scientific evidence, the public is still not fully engaged with the debate or the action that will be needed to address climate change. One problem may even be the term “climate change”. Now a new report suggests that another term may shift the public’s dial. The term is, wait for it: "global warming".

Framing Science’s Matt Nisbet cites a new study that shows how using the terms "climate change" versus "global warming" has a real bearing on public perceptions. Published in the Journal Public Understanding of Science, it comes from Lorraine Whitmarsh of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and is based on a postal survey of 590 people in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

Nisbet quotes from the study’s conclusion:

""Global warming" is more often believed to have human causes and tends to be associated with ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and heat-related impacts, such as temperature increase and melting icebergs and glaciers. The term "climate change" is more readily associated with natural causes and a range of impacts. Furthermore, the term "global warming" evokes significantly more concern, and is rated as "very important" by more respondents, than the term "climate change." Finally, more people consider individual or public action to be an effective means of tackling "global warming than do so for "climate change"; while a higher proportion believe planting trees could mitigate "climate change" than it could mitigate "global warming.""

The political realities take us right back to the infamous memo produced in 2002 by the US conservative political strategist Frank Luntz. He advised the George W. Bush White House on how to neutralise global warming and the environment as political issues.

“It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming . . . . “climate change” is less frightening than “global warming.” . . . While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.”

All this suggests that climate realists should stop talking about “climate change” and start talking about “global warming”.

But Drew Westen and Celinda Lake, who are experts on the emotional and neurological drivers of public opinion, see it differently. They were involved with a recent comprehensive research project for the communications gurus ecoAmerica, which aimed to find new ways to persuade people who haven’t made up their minds about climate change / global warming. Westen and Lake contend that “global warming” may sound quite positive to some Americans and that they may be less inclined to believe it every time there’s a cold spell. In any case, they say, “global warming” may be too abstract a concept for most people.

Last month, ecoAmerica produced their report Climate and Energy Reports: Our Common Future. Here’s their key suggestion:

"For climate change, leading with global warming, climate crisis or climate change tends to polarize and weaken the message. The language itself is especially problematic among swing voters. We should speak of deteriorating atmosphere and only after establishing connections with Americans’ other values
first . . .

“The best new term is “deteriorating atmosphere” or “our deteriorating atmosphere”(personalizing the term) instead of ‘global warming’ or ‘climate crisis.’”

I agree with Westen and Lake on the need to get away from jargon and on the need for progressives and client realists need to speak to people in their language, speaking to their values. The ecoAmerica report makes many good points (example: don’t talk about “renewable” and “alternative” energy; instead, talk about energy sources that run out and ones that don’t run out.) It is worth reading in full.

But their big idea, “our deteriorating atmosphere” isn’t the most catchy phrase I’ve ever heard. The respected Democrat pollster Mark Mellman has argued that it lags a long way behind public American public opinion. He cites evidence that the vast majority of Americans believe global warming is real, is happening now and constitutes a serious threat, particularly to future generations.

Likewise, four out of five people the UK are very or fairly concerned about the impact of climate change on the country. Most think that the UK is already affected. The vast majority believe that it may result in increased pollution, changing local weather and increased risk of skin cancer. Around three quarters believe that climate change is mainly or entirely a result of human behaviour. Four out of five people in the UK are very or fairly concerned about climate change. [click here] We should use these assets and build on the foundations. This isn’t the time to forget them.

So where to now? "Climate change" is a more technically accurate term but, as George Monbiot has said, it does not explain the full impact of what we are doing to the earth’s atmosphere. If the Tyndall research is correct, "global warming" is more emotive but it may not public support for the action that we all to take. But nobody has yet come up with a new term that really works. And, as Nesbit says, there is a risk trying to bring in new ones may simply annoy or polarise the public, who may feel they are being “sold to”.

There may not be a silver bullet on climate communications. So let's keep working with the terms we know, such as "climate change" and "global warming". And we need more UK-based research (polls, focus groups) about these terms, some of the options, and what they really mean to people.

The same applies to framing. UK climate realists have long used the “environmental disaster” frame. There are others on offer, most notably the “economic development” frame, which usually translates into “green jobs” and the “public health frame”, which has some value too. All of these should help to target messages and tell stories, to build support with different sections of the public and persuade people to act. Yet there is still very little research about how these frames work or fail with British people.

Most importantly, we shouldn’t pretend that any of these can be used in isolation from the evidence and arguments about climate change and global warming. Too many of the arguments over climate communications – especially those in the states – are carried out as if there is a direct choice between the science and the popular messages” / frames. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The climate realists can win on all these fronts. For some brilliant examples of how the jobs frame, the economic security frame and the climate message can work together, check out this speech by Barack Obama, urging passage of the Waxman-Markey energy bill. (hat tip: Climate Progress) Or this post by Joe Romm showing how Obama uses rhetoric and metaphor, to push his climate change messages so brilliantly.

If only there was a politician willing and able to apply those lessons in the UK.

Narrativewatch: "Barack Obama has lost focus"

I think it’s safe to say that there is a new narrative on President Obama: that he is trying to do too much when he should be focussing his efforts on stabilising the financial system.

Of course, this is not what the president is telling us. But one of the main rules of narratives is that politicians don’t get to decide what they are.

Mr Obama is being criticised for trying to act quickly on the wider agenda of healthcare reform, new investment in education and tackling carbon emissions -- and for trying to suggest that are all part of a plan for long-term prosperity.

The new narrative is well summarised in a major article in the latest issue of TIME, which starts off:

"Barack Obama's big reform agenda won't get off the ground unless he fixes the banks first. The case for doing one thing at a time."

Without endorsing it, the FT’s Clive Crook has summed up the new “conventional wisdom” about President Obama: “he has far taken on far too much” and may outstrip the system’s capacity – administrative, legislative and political – to deliver.

It should come as no surprise that conservatives are telling this “lack of focus” story. They oppose President Obama and have no truck with his policies. See, for instance, George Will on the president’s economic plans and Michael Barone’s (weird) views about global warming.

But some Obama supporters are also calling on the president to focus on the economy – or, in some cases, to avoid embarking on an FDR-style New Deal too quickly, in order to avoid a policy car crash.

Warren Buffett has accused the administration of having “muddled messages” on the economy.

David Brooks, a “moderate” writer for the New York Times, has said of the Obama administration: “I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well.”

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has called on the president to avoid “financial giantism” and to focus on “reconstructing our broken financial system.

The risks of overload shouldn’t be brushed aside. Michael Galston, writing last week in the liberals’ house journal, the New Republic, made another case for caution. He drew a number of distinctions between the situation faced by Barack Obama and Franklin D. Roosevelt, a previous president facing a depression, and trying to take forward a big political agenda. Galston reminded us that FDR concentrated on fixing the financial system and delayed unrelated structural reforms until he was sure that he had Congress and the public onside. He concluded:

“In sum, our circumstances are not (yet) as dire as they were in 1933. In part for that reason, the people are not prepared to give the president and his party the degree of deference that Roosevelt and the Democratic congress enjoyed at the start of the New Deal--all the more reason for Obama to distinguish between short- and long-term measures at least as carefully as FDR did.”

And the veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder – usually cast as non-partisan and “centrist” – declared on Sunday that President Obama’s honeymoon is over. Broder set out the risks for the administration in having such a sweeping policy agenda; and, in particular, that its health and education programmes will get bogged down in Congress.

We shouldn’t forget that the “loss of focus” storyline is a clever political gambit for conservatives to follow. The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes gave some of the game away when he wrote that the president had a big “grandiose agenda” and that he was right to “go for it now”, while his popularity ratings are still high and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate remain strong. The longer he waits, this argument runs, the more likely Obama’s personal ratings are to sag, with Democrats in congress becoming more worried about the 2010 elections.

Clive Crook explains:

“The prospects for Mr Obama’s agenda depend on his ability to marshal political capital and spend it wisely. In the simplest terms, he needs to stay as popular as he can for as long as possible. Once his approval ratings slide – and they show the first signs of doing so – he is sunk. This is why the “overload” critique is so significant: not because it is correct on the merits but because it is plausible and bipartisan and will erode his standing with the electorate.”

Even if he doesn’t buy the whole “Obama overload” story, Clive Crook regrets what he sees as the president’s failure to play to his strengths with centrists and to rise above left-right rancour.

If the “taking on too much” storyline sticks, his opponents will have succeeded in undermining one of President Obama’s strongest personal narratives: that he’s a positive, new force for real change who can put the “old politics” behind. Another embattled president, suffering falling poll ratings and seeming to play cynical games in order to advance an agenda that is too big and too “radical” can’t do that.

Or, as a very tough politician I worked with years ago told me, if you want to destroy your political opponents, you have to destroy their myths.