Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.What nonsense! Paraphrasing a line Lloyd Bentsen originally stole from me, "I knew Jean-Francois Lyotard, the author of The Post-Modern Condition. Jean-Francois Lyotard and I served in the Foreign Legion together in Algeria. Or was it Vietnam? Anyway, Jean-Francois Lyotard was a friend of mine. John McCain is no Jean-Francois Lyotard and John McCain is no post-modernist."
And neither are the reporters on the McCain bus. In fact, there's a better word for the reporters--hacks who like to throw around words like "post-modern" even though they have no idea what they're talking about.
An Alternative Hypothesis. So what was McCain doing when he was spending hour after hour "wooing" the gathered reporters with all his criticism of his own weaknesses and discussion of how he was manipulating the press. John McCain has to be the biggest media schmoozer who's ever walked the halls of Congress. He's always been willing to appear on any news program, be a discussant for any interview show, or participate in any debate. I think Michael Kinsley once referred to McCain and Joe Lieberman as "fifteen minute men"--the kind of politicians who would get an emergency call on a Friday night from "Crossfire" and be at the studio, made up, and ready to ponticate in fifteen minutes. Talking all day with the reporters on the campaign bus is just an extension of his long career of determined catering to the media. Maybe the press should stop referring to McCain simply as a "war hero" and start referencing him as "the war hero and legendary media schmoozer" Sen. John McCain.
But why does he do it. My hypothesis is that John McCain looks to the media to be a combination of friend, confidante, protector, and nurturer. As William Greider mentioned, McCain wanted reporters to protect him from himself.
In 1999, William Greider wrote in Rolling Stone that, “While McCain continues examining his flaws, the reporters on the bus are getting a bit edgy. Will somebody tell this guy to shut up before he self-destructs?” Imagine, reporters protecting a candidate from himself!"Reporters protecting a candidate from himself--that's what McCain wanted. But it's also what every kid wants from their mom as well. They want someone to be their friend, confidante, and protector, someone who will clean up their messes and make their clothes look all shiny and new, and someone who will be proud when they succeed and encouraging when they fail. "Mommy's" as limited to biological mothers. Lots of traditional guys get the mommy treatment from their wives and I'd bet my bottom dollar that Cindy McCain gives her "studmuffin" the full mommy treatment when he's home.
But when John McCain is working as a politician, he wants the media to be his mommy, works relentlessly to get reporters to see him as their own special child, and has largely succeeded.
Borrowing a line from Chris Matthews, McCain refers to the media as his "base." It would be accurate if he thought of him self as the media's "favorite son."
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3 comments:
All right, still just a tiny bit like a fluff piece but Rome wasn't built in a day.
And as it happens, the phenomenon to which you are referring is accurate. Perhaps this still felt a little like a fluff piece because that's the kind of reporting the "mommy" media gives Senator McCain. They do it for Barak Obama to an extent but not to the same extent as McCain. Every story on McCain of late, be it written or spoken has amounted to nothing more than a verbal blow-job! Sickening! Obama doesn't get the verbal blow-job, he gets more of a verbal hand-job from someone with cold hands.
Senator Clinton takes the heat. I liken it to the entire media and disloyal Democrats filling a huge container of verbal bile and excrement and pouring it all over her every day like the scene in Carrie with the pig's blood. I've noticed a tendency on your part to enage in some of that yourself Dr. Caric. Strange phenomenon from a self-proclaimed Hillary supporter.
In any event, I couldn't agree more regarding the media love-fest with Senator McCain.
Interesting take on McCain, and an accurate one. And it can be expanded by 15-minute amateur psychologists like me.
McCain needs Mommy because he's fundamentally insecure. Whether this is continuing PTSD from his POW-torture years (no way am I mocking this - it's a very real affliction) or just part of his personality, the fact remains that McCain does indeed need this kind of attention. It's a very, very close attention to him and nobody else, the kind a child craves and demands.
Children are very self-centered beings - that's their nature in their youth, it's crucial to their psychological well-being and development, and usually they outgrow most of it - and getting what they want from Mommy is a primary way to feed this.
We all love and need Mommy's attention even into adulthood - when I need it my wife says very sympathetically, "poor baby!" and I eat it up and do the same for her (she says not enough) - but most of us don't depend on it the way McCain does. The personal attention and strokes only Mommy can give remain vitally important to a guy like McCain - and again, this could be a personality trait fostered by his upbringing and exacerbated by his horrific war experience. Without it he can't function all that well.
No matter how much McCain's voters adore and support him, it can never be enough because that kind of attention is too collective and mercurial - unreliable, and not warm and fuzzy. He requires people he can be with on a personal level in situations that comfort and reassure him, whose love is unconditional and lasting. Like in the back of the bus.
And this plays to the Mommy instinct in his reporters, who after all are only human and have mommy instincts like anyone else - nurturing, judgmental in only the kindest and most understanding of ways, and especially protective. How could they ever be cruel or remote to a guy who experienced the pain he did? McCain approaches them aching and limping; like a child he knows how to get the strokes he wants, and the reporters respond like a warm, bosomy Mommy.
As has been noted, he manipulates the press, but that manipulation is only partly cynical; it's also a way to fulfill this very basic yearning of his. The reporters just love to see him coming to them, and he just loves it as they pull him close to their metaphorical nurturing breasts and cover him with metaphorical kisses and poor babies.
- Montfort (this isn't letting me choose an identity, just keeps calling it incorrect OpenID [whatever that is] url)
Hey Montfort! Glad to see you here at RSI. If you scroll around a little, you'll see other posts on McCain organized around the theme of McCain as a StudMuffin. I like you're thumbnail psychologizing on McCain and might integrate it into my idea that traditional husbands are generally looking for their wives to be "mommys." Fortunately, a lot of guys get to live better than that these days.
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