June 11, 2004
EVEN SHE GETS IT:
Ronald Reagan, Hedgehogs and the November Election (Arianna Huffington, June 11, 2004, AlterNet)
Ronald Reagan was one hell of a hedgehog.No, I'm not speaking ill of the dead. I'm referring to the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin who famously divided mankind into hedgehogs and foxes, taking his cue from a line in an ancient Greek poem by Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."
According to Berlin, the fox will "pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way." This is in sharp contrast to the hedgehog's "unchanging, all embracing . . . unitary inner vision."
Above all else, it is Reagan's unwaveringly positive vision of America that the nation -- friends and foes alike -- is honoring this week. But once all the eulogizing is over, some powerful lessons will remain for the November election.
You see, George Bush is presenting himself as a steadfast hedgehog, and at the same time trying to paint John Kerry as an intellectually promiscuous fox -- and a flip-flopping fox to boot.
Not a bad strategy, since there's no question that the country is longing for a hedgehog at the helm. If anything, this week has both confirmed and fed the hunger for hedgehoggery. Which is why there is no way that a fox, even a very clever fox, can beat a hedgehog, even a fanatical, delusional, incompetent hedgehog like George Bush. We are sick and tired of foxy triangulating and foxy slicing-and-dicing of the message.
This is what Mill accidentally pinpointed when he named conservatives the Stupid Party:
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
-John Stuart Mill
Anyone so stupid that they can't follow liberals' nuanced arguments about why America isn't a shinig city on a hill is indeed a stupid hedgehog and a conservative. Fortunately that's many of us.
Posted by Orrin Judd at June 11, 2004 10:04 AM
Meanwhile, the flipflopping senator from Botox, er, Boston keeps climbing in the polls. 51-44 and counting. A few more weeks like this and Texas is a battleground state.
Posted by: at June 11, 2004 10:16 AMAnonymous:
Only in the quagmire dreams of the mainstream media. Kerry will not get above 46% of the vote, even if he starts giving out free ketchup. Bush is heading towards 54/55%, and he's not looking back.
Posted by: jim hamlen at June 11, 2004 11:23 AMKerry's up in one poll where Democrats lead in the generic ballot by 19%--they must have surveyed only college faculty rooms.
Posted by: oj at June 11, 2004 1:24 PMMinor point: I'm fairly sure Mill was referring to a political party called "the Conservatives", rather than all people with conservative viewpoints.
Posted by: Just John at June 11, 2004 2:16 PM"Comment on the LA Times poll showing Senator Kerry opening a commanding lead was mixed. Contacted at his office in Sacramento, Governor Gray Davis of California said he was sure that the poll was completely accurate."
In other news, I am now officially hedgehogged out.
Posted by: David Cohen at June 11, 2004 3:21 PM"[T]here's no question that the country is longing for a hedgehog at the helm. [...] Which is why there is no way that a fox, even a very clever fox, can beat a hedgehog, even a fanatical, delusional, incompetent hedgehog like George Bush." (Emphasis added).
Um... Thanks.
"So it is into this void that John Kerry must stride, offering the American people a wise and hopeful and unifying hedgehog to counter Bush's dangerous and dogmatic and divisive one. [...]
In other words, John Kerry doesn't need speaking lessons or media coaching or more down-home outfits. He just needs to speak of great things."
In other words, Kerry "just" needs to do the impossible, to re-make himself, to have a complete change of personality.
Maybe if he just found the Holy Grail, or retrieved the Golden Fleece...
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at June 11, 2004 4:11 PM