A bunch of us college guys drove over to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to hear a peanut farmer from Georgia give a speech. I got to shake his hand afterwards. The year was 1976. That self-described born-again Christian would later become President of the United States. His presidency became a dismal failure.
Mr. Carter did not have evil intentions for our country; he really loved our country, but he was simply way in over his head. His incompetency began to reveal itself in deplorable economic conditions. Plus, our foreign policy was not much better. Iran had held Americans as hostages for 444 days. I remember the long gas lines.
Jimmy Carter was a stickler for detail. In fact, he was truly a hands-on president who wanted to know everything about everything. His attention to minutia, though, also contributed to his downfall.
Along came 1980, a new presidential election. Now a Georgia peanut farmer and former governor of that state would be running against a Hollywood actor and former governor of California.
In the first presidential debates, Carter took it to Reagan. Even Reagan's closest aides would later admit that their boss could not keep up with Carter's detailed knowledge of a wide range of subjects. In spite of a bad economy, things were initially looking up for Carter's reelection. But then things became to change. . .because the actor-turned-politician got his bearings and began to beat on the same drum.
Reagan kept things simple. He did not dive into the tiny nuts and bolts of policy matters. That was Carter's expertise. Instead, Reagan pounded repeatedly on two simple key themes--we must revive the economy by lowering tax rates. and we must defeat communism. While Carter got bogged down in the details, Reagan, the great communicator, kept hammering away on his simple, straightforward dual message.
Reagan saw the big picture and was able to communicate that masterfully to the masses. As a result, Reagan won the big prize, and Mr. Carter went back to his farm.
Politicians today make things much more complicated than they really are. Part of it is because their governing liberal philosophy has a way of muddying the constitutional waters. The reason why economics is the second hardest major in college is because anything but undiluted free market capitalism is tough stuff to understand.
Added on top of that is the politicians' inability to speak the language of the people. They speak "politicalese", a language that President Carter mastered. The "buffoon" Reagan (as his critics described him) ran circles around the intelligentsia elite of his day, because he went right to the common language of the people. Even his opponents would later grudgingly admit that Reagan was one smart cookie when it came to his brilliant communication skills, where he often laced his speeches with wit and humor. Of course, good policy is a much easier sell, especially when one has some outstanding results to run on.
In 1980, Reagan was headed for a landslide win over Walter Mondale, the Vice President under Carter. It was no contest from the very beginning. I heard Mr. Mondale say in an interview many years later that he knew exactly the time when he knew he was a goner in that presidential race. It was during one of those debates, that Reagan gave a witty one-liner that left everyone in the audience, including the debate moderator and Mondale himself, grabbing their sides with uncontrollable laughter. I remember that Reagan quip myself to this very day.
To be elected to office, it sure serves a person well to have good CHARACTER with deeply-held CONSERVATIVE principles with burning CONVICTION within and the ability to COMMUNICATE all that in the language of the people. Appropriate humor, even self-deprecating humor like what Reagan had, can disarm even the harshest critics.
How many words are contained in this sentence: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."? That had more force behind it than dropping a nuke on the Berlin Wall. There is so much we can learn from the great communicator.
Aloof, stodgy, wordy, detailed-oriented politicians, take note.
