Whither Leadership in America?

I owe Sara Robinson for this diary. The overall theme and many turns of phrase are hers. But for those who don't have the time to search out a 5-part series in a political blog, here's my interpretation in 3 pages.

(Any actual candidate analysis is my own.)

What do we need and how do we get it?....after the fold...

The past seven years have been a season of things falling apart--the safe, secure center of America is gone.

The Bush cartel believes that America must control the world's oil supply at all costs; and that we must use military force to accomplish this. Absolutely everything else--health care, global warming, human rights, you name it--is subservient to oil. Our soldiers are dying to maintain a status quo that, like the ice in Antarctica, is cracking dangerously beneath our feet.

We cannot go back. Our current economy is based on untenable levels of debt and inequality. Our current lifestyle is built on oil and coal, dirtying and cooking the planet. Our once-shared hopes and values have been replaced by "Greed is good", and our public institutions and infrastructure are collapsing like the 35W bridge.  Our government, like Brer Rabbit, struggles with all four feet and a head buried in the Tar Baby while Brer Fox News and his friends stand by and laugh. And nobody, but nobody, in our current government will even admit what is happening—let alone courageously step forward and offer us a way out of the mess.

Once upon a time, shared American values, strong communities, and a sense of the shared common good held us together.  They were a sort of national trust fund that earlier generations of Americans had paid into, specifically so that we their children could fall back on them during times of challenge and change.

Like every other American legacy left to us, the modern corporate Republicans have spent this trust, quite literally, as if there was no tomorrow. Worse: they did it on purpose. "Shock and awe" techniques were intentionally developed to cut people loose from the solid moorings of shared values.  Corporate opportunists can then rush into the void and fill it with a new order of their own design. This is what we did in Iraq, and it has overwhelmed the hard work of our soldiers there.

For 30 years in America, phony "conservatives" have deliberately undermined the best stories Americans have told about why our nation exists, what its highest ideals are, and what we owe each other as citizens. They've corrupted so much of our political leadership that now we don't trust any of it--and we throw out Wellstone babies with Delay bathwater. They've driven so many wedges between races, genders, classes, religions, and political parties that most of us no longer speak to the rest of us.

In times of chaos, the task of articulating visions, uniting people, and building a climate of trust belongs to leaders. And we need to be very aware that leadership is very different from management.

When danger looms, we need leaders to help us avoid it, not managers who keep on keeping on. When the iceberg hits and the bulkheads crumple, we don't need managers in full denial, busily rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Unfortunately, a major problem with recent politicians (of all parties) is that they are managers. Both Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton have recently run ads touting their experience. This fact alone tells us how out of touch they are with our particular historical moment. They cannot even admit to themselves, let alone to the rest of us, that the American life we've known for 60 years is collapsing underneath our feet.

Leaders are different.  They are change agents who build new systems. They choose one future from many options, then clearly show us all what that future will be like, how we can get there, and why we must willingly sacrifice to reach it. They choose what to bury from our past, and what we must keep to build on.

When the center fails, those who move in first with a compelling vision and a committed core of people will earn the right to define a new reality. It's a moment of creative chaos that's bursting with new energy and tremendous potential—for those who are ready.

For better or worse, that first vision will most likely become the foundation for an entire new age. The founding myths, the cultural metaphors, the worldview and essential beliefs that define right and wrong, good and bad, useful and irrelevant for the new era will become a new worldview; and everything else that follows will be built on and out of that mental framework. Whoever wins this race for the hearts and minds of the nation will win control of the future for most of the rest of this century.

In 1932, a fifth of the country was out of work. Millions were bankrupt, homeless--even starving. To the last day of the Hoover administration, all they got from their government were sunny reassurances that "prosperity is just around the corner."

The gap between the White House balcony and Main Street was so wide that it constituted two separate realities. Two Americas, if you will. The frustration from three years of willful non-comprehension was so great that our grandparents and great-grandparents tossed the Republicans out of office — and kept them out of power for the next 50 years. Never underestimate the power of denial to create a backlash.

Unfortunately, when things come apart, everything comes apart—and that includes the systems and structures through which we develop and choose our leaders. As the chaos rises, odd things happen that could never happen in more stable times. New ways to vote also offer new ways to steal elections.

Companies, communities, and countries that spot and plan for distant troubles normally have time to think through options and to plan  effective transition strategies. When Bush stole the elections, he also stole from us eight critical years of prep time.

But leadership alone is not enough. Where they will take us is even more important. The current mix of presidential candidates is fully as varied as the World stage during the 1930s. If we choose a manager--we get a Neville Chamberlain. If we choose only on charisma, we get a leader--but that still leaves questions. FDR, Churchill, Stalin, and Hitler were all leaders.

Good leaders must be honest, because great changes cannot be navigated without implicit trust between the leaders and the led. They must embody the culture's core purposes and values, and depend heavily on those values to guide their decisions. They must make hard choices, say "no" to powerful people, and set the common good over personal interests, using every lever of power at their disposal to gain cooperation. When the leader's work is done, chaos navigated, goal achieved — that's when the managers take over.

This year, we Democrats are lucky. The Corporate Royalists in the Republican party have grown fat and lazy.  Their recent partners in the religious Right Wing are tired of gnawing the odd bone left over from the corporate feast. The coalition is fracturing. Two thirds of the electorate has been voting or caucusing Democratic this year. Huckabee is the only candidate there with an enthusiastic base--and he is unlikely to inspire or support another stolen election.

But just ANY Democrat won't necessarily be enough to pull America through this crisis. This year we cannot afford to choose the wrong candidate. We need a Lincoln, not a Buchanan, an FDR, not a Hoover.

The ball is in our court, and the question has changed: Can we progressives rise to the occasion, raising up leaders who can step into the void and fill it with compelling visions of a future we want?

That's why we need to be very skeptical about our sudden glut of "change" candidates. It's not enough to say you're for change--Hitler did that! We need a leader to lay out, very specifically and in the most visionary terms possible, what changes he/she seeks.

I have admired Hillary Clinton for years--she has a sharp mind and her heart is in the right place. But, especially in regards to the so-called "war on terror", I worry. In terms of her senate votes, she seems to have responded to fear with a sort of reflexive willingness to cooperate with authority. I haven't heard her stand up under pressure with a clear and resounding NO.

Of all of our front-runners, Barack Obama seems to have the most charisma and the most energized base. But I want more from my candidate. I like his message of unity--but unity going WHERE? When Senator Dodd went back to Washington to block legislation that would give the telecom companies retroactive immunity from prosecution--Obama and Hillary stayed in Iowa campaigning. They offered WORDS in support of Dodd's filibuster--but neither votes nor deeds to back their words.

I have a different set of issues with John Edwards. I'm a Minnesotan, and he's from the South.  And he just smiles too much of the time for me!  I've lived in the South myself, and I realize that my discomfort is a cultural thing--Southerners often perceive Minnesotans to be dour and unfriendly. I'd prefer for him to  build consensus around his goals, not "fight" for them. But I know exactly what his goals are, and I can support them whole-heartedly.
 
None of them is a perfect choice.  But Edwards does one thing the others avoid. Clearly and consistently he identifies the issues that matter for our future--and then proposes workable short-term solutions that will support even more effective solutions in the long term.

We have 7 months to go before the Convention, and another 3 until the election. During the next 7 months, Chris Matthews and his ilk will be giddily trying to flog our candidates into a "horse race". They want our front-runners to make as many mistakes as possible to create "news". This is one time that choosing a candidate early is the worst possible thing we can do for the country. If either Hillary or Barak takes a clear early lead, there will be one and only one Democrat taking flak from Republicans. If neither has a majority coming into the convention, then Edwards will have some real control over the platform and the values of our eventual nominee. And, in the worst case, if they slip up and cripple each other beyond recovery, John will be there to carry us forward.

For that reason, I'd like to encourage your vote for John--because he supports values and goals that all of us can live with--now and for the rest of the century. Link to the series.