This campaign is playing out through what on the surface seems to be farce, but it would be a mistake to blame the campaign staff or the media for this exercise in rabid name-calling and apparent trivialization. All of the candidates are running for the same office, an executive position with extraordinary power and responsibility. If they cannot dominate their own staff and manage their own topical agenda, if it truly is the media and the hired help who are controlling the tenor and substance of the campaigns, why should anyone believe that any of the candidates can handle the Presidency? Like it or not, we either believe that the candidates are mere puppets of people like Wolfson and Axelrod and Russert and Limbaugh, or accept that the candidates themselves have made these choices and are the ones responsible for them.

I believe the responsibility lies with the candidates, and I also believe there is ample justification from a practical standpoint for the tactics and strategy they are employing. What appears to be triviality to many analytically oriented people – all of whom are, to be perfectly clear, intelligent and careful thinkers – is actually a deliberate process to appeal to the much larger population of voters who make decisions based largely on emotional and value judgments. While we, and I put myself in the same analytical category as other “reality-based” people here, can calmly make lists of our concerns and perform thoughtful analyses of candidate position papers, action item lists, voting records and talking points before making what we view as a rational decision, the far greater number of people who are not dominantly analytical view the same decision through the lens of their own “reality”, one that is dominantly emotional.

These subjective thinkers are far more prevalent in both the general population and in the segment that actually shows up to vote. Without their support, no one can be elected President or even win a primary. What has happened, in both the Democratic and Republican primaries, to the candidates whose campaigns focused on issues like the wars, the economy, health care, civil rights, social justice, education and the like? How did that work out for any of them regardless of which side they were on?

The three survivors are still in the running precisely because they have avoided this kind of policy detail as much as possible, and of the remaining three which one is beginning to lag because her worth as a candidate is primarily based on claims of competency and knowledge? Barry Obama’s whole campaign strategy is built around emotion and feeling, and while he certainly has a track record it is not the centerpiece of his public presentation – and that is entirely deliberate. John McCain is running as the same illusion he has carefully crafted over the whole of his public career, a persona of emotional perception of him as a “maverick” and “independent” when the reality is that he is a solid member of the same cabal that has led the country deeper and deeper towards destruction. Within both parties, the value to a candidate of emotional appeal trumps the value of appeals based on hard fact and rational analysis.

Similarly in the general election, I cannot off the top of my head recall a single successful presidential campaign where the newcomer ran on issues. They all talk about them, of course, and they all have the position papers and party platform and detailed this and that but the actual campaigns, the successful ones, made emotional appeals to voters on emotionally inspiring topics like “change” and “values”. Only a few incumbents have even tried to run on issues and of those who did only Clinton was successful thanks to an unusual combination of both peace and prosperity.

That is what this posturing and fussing and fuming over seeming trivialities is all about, the appearance of possessing Leadership. To the analytical person, this all seems a waste of time and an obfuscation of what the true purpose of a campaign should be – the open and careful exercising of policy and intent on core, structural issues of practical governance. Indeed, this apparent triviality is part smokescreen, a way to keep from getting drawn down into the weeds, because the problems we face today are horrifically complex, without simple solutions and certainly without magic policy wands that obviously and unequivocally can be seen as providing benefit to everyone.

NAFTA is an excellent example, an imperfect first attempt to deal with a changing world that was never meant to be the final word on regional trade and has had complex repercussions in ways that were partly predictable and partly not, with much of the nation worse off while some of the country has prospered. Whose fault is that? Well, actually, George Bush and the Republicans, but Bill Clinton gets the blame and Hillary shares it by extension, while Obama postures about doing something but is deliberately vague about exactly what and in what way and certainly avoids talking about the complexity and effects of any changes on international trading partnerships and the necessity of either voiding or renegotiating other important treaties. Hillary Clinton is no better, while McCain says he wants to leave it alone but knows that isn’t going to be possible for much longer; proposing to do nothing is his way of avoiding having to publically deal with the inevitable problems, pushing them off for another post-election day.

What these candidates are trying to achieve is to be seen by the emotionally based populace as a Leader. (Please don’t start in on me over that term. I share – to a large extent – many of the concerns expressed here over the concept, but it is the right term for what I’m talking about, there is no other applicable, and so there it is; you’ll just have to let me use it without dragging in what it has meant or might mean under other political circumstances. Please.) Political movements, social movements, gatherings of any sort that have a purpose of achievement, not only require a Leader to be effective but demand one; the general membership of any group will force the selection whether any individual member wants the position or not. It isn’t just a human imperative but one that operates in all the social animals; it is a drive embedded way down deep in the brainstem, below the level of consciousness, right along with pleasure, pain, food and procreation. We want Leaders, we need Leaders, and the Office of the Presidency is a Leadership position.

This battle of trivialities, what in less polite company would be termed a “pissing contest,” is being done to impress the emotional thinkers and influence their choice, not as you might select an accountant or a caterer or a plumber but as would be done for a sports team or an army. The general election for President will hinge on persuading the public not of who is the better technician but of who is the better Leader more than any other issue, including what the polls suggest like the economy or the wars and certainly far more so than things that few people understand like Constitutional rights. I don’t like it; probably most people here don’t like it, but it is “reality” so as “reality-based” we had best recognize it and figure out how to deal with it.

That the Democratic nominee is the one most skilled at projecting an aura of Leadership will be all to the good in terms of winning the general election. That a woman is having difficulty being perceived as a Leader in a society as patriarchal and misogynistic as this one is not shocking; frankly I am surprised – and pleased – that she has done as well as she has. Whether a black man with little leadership experience beyond attempted – and ineffectively so by his own admission – organizing of poor people can compete with a genuine war hero who has a documented command and leadership history remains to be seen; again speaking frankly, I have my doubts. Either way, Hillary or Barry, pretty soon will be a good time for progressives to start re-sharpening our verbal knives and practice sticking them into McCain; he will be a formidable challenge for either of them.

The Presidential general election will be won or lost over the question of perceived Leadership, not on the question of who has better public policies. Sad, but there it is; the sooner the progressive community accepts it – and acceptance that we have a problem is the first step in recovery – the sooner we can move to the practical steps of doing something about it.