By Wes Pedersen
Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the White House a bully pulpit.
That was when “bully” meant first-rate, not blustering or bombastic as it does today.
That was when pulpit meant a platform for rousing oratory, not dreary pitches for political causes bereft of social significance though filled with promises of meaningful glory days ahead and threats of retaliation against those who commit the mortal sin of opposing anyone trying to dictate moral conduct.
Barack Obama, aided by teleprompters, and channels running the gamut from TV to Twitter, has used the bullying pulpit that is the White House now for some stirring lectures not only to the country but to the world.
At times he gives impression that he is about to lay hands on someone and pronounce a healing of the moment.
He has the benefit of imagery beyond the ken of previous presidents. Consider the message conveyed when, on camera, he gave the order to kill Osama bin Laden.
Everyone watching Obama’s exercise of power knew it was real.
“Got you, you SOB!,” was the message sent unvoiced from the bully pulpit that memorable day.
Ronald Reagan toyed with a similar, though more sweeping, image of the moment when he jokingly announced, to what he thought was a “dead” microphone, that “in five minutes, we begin bombing” Russia. No one thought that was funny, because everyone knew it might happen one day.
Reagan was the strongest voice for the Republican Party it had had for decades. His voice remains crystal clear in the minds of millions today, as sharp as that of John F. Kennedy does to others.
We come, then, to the bleak truth that none of the candidates for the GOP nomination, and none for the Null and Void nomination, has a voice or sensibly thought-out message worth spending time on.
Even Jeb Bush admits they are a sorry lot.
What the country wants now, says a media veteran on the campaign trails, is a president who can be a moral leader, not the country’s chief executive.
That rules out Mitt Romney, a Mormon in good, stiff standing, who can’t get the juices flowing from the crowds that aren’t there. He looks George Bush-like presidential, but his tendency to speak off the cuff betrays an elitist unaware of how pompous he can appear.
Romney talks high-falutin’ economics when his audiences want to talk jobs.
His opponents are having field days with such Romney gaffes as “My wife drives two Cadillacs.” That is not so terrible, but it requires the explanation that one Cadillac is used in the East, the other at a separate home in California.
Rick Santorum, in contrast, tends to ooze sanctimony and his version of what God wants. He’s Huey Long reborn when it comes to rabble rousing. Christian conservatives bless him.
Santorum rails against “elitist snobs” and talks about reviving manufacturing to ensure a revival of the nation. It has a special appeal to anyone who regards the current trend to a service economy as an evil unto itself.
Look again at the lineup of GOP presidential hopefuls. You can see why Roger Stone, a veteran Republican strategist and trickster, has quit the Grand Old Party and is saying why in language that cannot be repeated here.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C.
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