US voters and the puzzle of Tin Man versus Scarecrow

JOHN ZOGBY, one of America’s leading pollsters, has a novel way of getting to the underlying dynamics of this closely contested campaign.

He told The New Yorker magazine that his polls include the Oz question: “you live in the Land of Oz, and the candidates are the Tin Man, who’s all brains and no heart, and the Scarecrow, who’s got all heart and no brains. Who would you vote for?”

In 2000, the Saturday before the presidential election, voters were split evenly between the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. This year the Tin Man leads by ten points.

This may be a crude characterisation of the two candidates but it also highlights a real difference in leadership style. With the election on a knife edge, voters are weighing up the character of two very different men whose strengths and weaknesses are mirror images of each other.

George W Bush has made his certainty and steadfastness a signature issue. Although his record contains plenty of U-turns, voters are confident that he has the courage of his convictions. What worries them is whether he is capable of second thoughts and self correction.

Repeatedly Bush has refused to acknowledge that he has made major policy mistakes. In the 2000 election, when asked to name his greatest mistake he jokingly replied ‘trading Sammy Sos’, referring to a transfer deal he made while owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

The issue came up again at the second presidential debate; Bush said something about how he should not have hired Paul O’Neill as treasury secretary.

No sensible politician will give his rival the rope to hang him with however, the American people see the unfolding crisis in Iraq every day.

Even enthusiastic supporters of the war feel hurt and betrayed by the administration’s deeply flawed post war strategy. Voters want to know if Bush sees the same thing they do. Are lessons being learnt? Will changes be made? All they get are platitudes to the effect that everything is fine.

Bush could have taken a different course. When faced with disaster at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 John F Kennedy took full responsibility.

Richard Nixon saved his career some years earlier with a full and frank statement about allegations of financial impropriety. On both occasions their popularity went up. Americans, noted for their belief in redemption, may have proved more favourable to the prospect of Bush’s reelection if he had come clean and accepted that mistakes had been made in the Iraq war and promised to correct them. His refusal to do so raises concerns that although his heart may be in the right place he cannot fix a problem if he does not see it.

John Kerry has a different weakness. Voters know that he thinks, and having thought thinks again, but are unsure what he feels. They hear his macho talk and sense a determination to fight the war on terror but wonder if he is just saying what they want to hear. Is this a man who, in his gut, is as tough as Bush or is he hiding something? Their worries are exacerbated by the strong support Kerry enjoys from the Michael Moore wing of US politics.

Above all, these voters can see that Kerry’s rhetoric is at odds with parts of his record and they wonder what caused him to change his mind and why. Kerry is understandably concerned that being honest about his intellectual and personal development will open him to more charges of flip flopping. However, the confusion that continues to surround why he moved from being a dove to a hawk means some still suspect he is a phoney.

The concerns about Bush and Kerry are both concerns about character. They have a particular importance because for all intents and purposes this is a single issue election.

The dominating issue is what it has been for the past two years; namely, how best to protect America. The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman put it most eloquently last week when he said it is really a question of who you would bring on a tiger hunt. The question for Kerry is ‘can he pull the trigger?’; for Bush it is ‘can he aim?’

Kerry may have a slight advantage with the character question because he is actively trying to assuage voters’ fears about his own weakness. He repeatedly commits himself to an aggressive strategy against terrorism and he has strongly indicated that he will try to heal a bitterly divided country after the election by appointing a number of Republicans to senior foreign policy positions in his administration.

By contrast, Bush has said nothing to indicate a willingness to change his strategy if reelected. In fact he has trumpeted his reliance upon his instincts and principles and is noticeably impatient with those who question his judgement. Many moderates in his own party hope that Bush will emulate Reagan by rejecting the neo-conservatives in his second term but if he intends to do so it remains a closely guarded secret.

That means that Bush is placing all his bets on Kerry being unable to convince voters that he can be trusted with the security of the nation. If, over these next six days Americans decide to take Kerry at face value Bush will really be in trouble.