Why 2008 Presidential Aspirants Should Meet the Human Person, Not a Virtual One

If the CNN-You Tube debate was intended to connect John Q. Citizen with the 2008 Democratic presidential aspirants, it was half-successful. At least the questions were new and unscripted.  The plain-spoken concerns expressed regarding the minimum wage, the nation’s security, health care, and education were genuine or important. It was the candidates' responses that seemed shop-worn, partisan, and well, just plain hollow. 

First, a couple of particulars:

Iraq hasn’t worked out well, but does Barrack Obama really think he demonstrates leadership by constantly re-litigating Senator Clinton’s initial support for the war?  It’s, frankly, old news. A bit more revealing was Senator Clinton’s refusal to meet with rogue leaders from North Korea, Iran or Syria without a "game plan." That’s far better than Obama’s willingness to "chat" with anybody, but it is still lacking in meaningful detail of what diplomacy with rogue nations looks like.

At the more general level: 

a voter named Chris opened the debate taking aim at the whole bunch: "Can you as politicians...actually answer questions rather than beat around the bush?" (One assumes this salvo was not a pun and the preposition "around" was not intended to be "upon.")  At the debate’s end, the answer still wasn’t clear. Indeed, we are not likely to know the answer until we count the ballots – not just to see who wins, but whether enough people, without cameras on their computers craving a minute of video fame, are inspired to participate. That two-thirds of eligible citizens haven’t even bothered to vote in recent elections suggests something more fundamental needs attention in the American body politic.

With only a secular vocabulary, however, what ails us is hard to articulate. We know that free markets are efficient, but we also see massive disparities in wealth. The middle class, which Aristotle opined was essential to good governance, often seems consciously short-changed. All but the very wealthy are meaningfully priced out – from the pursuit of public office, affordable housing, and even places of higher education that are founded on principles of social justice like, for example, Notre Dame with its $46, 730 tuition and fees.

We value freedom of expression; yet, we see that which we express become coarse and immoral. The internet which binds us in conversation is drenched in venomous "chat" and pornographic exploitation.

We value law, but there seems far too much of it to go around, and its administration is, or is troublingly alleged to be, based on who you know, rather than objective standard.

We yearn for the "good ole days," looking for a candidate who will restore our self-esteem and standing in the global community – restoring, if you will, the image of a scrappy, open, honest, compassionate, and principled America, rather than Abu Ghraib, U.S.A.

The conservative and liberal political vocabularies on the 2008 debate platform are inadequate to these tasks. They fail most specifically to account for the foundational idea that is America: men and women created equal seeking a well-ordered civic society in order to pursue a transcendent end.

Competing conservative and liberal ideas reflect a diminished conception of the person. Without a sense of man’s supernatural self, conservatives emphasize individuality overlooking the need for community and human solidarity; liberals turn "right" into assertions of demand, tolerating if not extolling policies – such as abortion or uncommitted sexual practice – that is utterly destructive of the family and the basic goods of nature. Since these conceptions of the person are incomplete or just plain wrong, they leave us yawning when they are re-articulated in partisan fashion by candidate A or B.

Of course, the failure of the United States to address its own drift does not exempt us from the resentment that our attachment to materialism and unstable and diluted cultural values produces among very poor nations. To them, we are endorsers of cultural decay exported by market practice and depicted in film. And when our materialistic choices (and their related dependency on foreign oil) end up associating us with the worst elements of other societies, we compound the error by indiscriminately backing the wrong team with our economic and military power.

A thoughtful presidential candidate will help us re-examine our national conscience. To contemplate what it might mean for ourselves, our nation and our world if we understood the human person authentically and completely. In so doing, Americans might well rediscover a calling to get beyond self; a capacity to understand that exceeds our own point of view; a willingness to see our destiny as inseparable from that of others; a grasp of how a true generosity of spirit breaks down barriers of suspicion and creates community and long-lasting friendship.

Politics was once not solely about gaining national office, but ascertaining a way to live. The candidate that discerns how that might be so in the future will deserve our trust.