Covering politics for three decades left me with a lifetime of takeaways, but a compelling one that resurfaces more often than most, as we try to explain widespread public perceptions of politicians, is the importance of narrative.
It’s an overarching media-and-consultant-driven storyline that, for better or worse, defines, describes and tends to stick to candidates and elected officials like glue until the passage of time or a figurative solvent — an unanticipated major event — pries it loose.
Some examples:
Richard M. Daley’s brain trust, leftovers from his father’s kitchen cabinet, sold the local media, during his first successful run for mayor in 1989, on a narrative that framed “Richie” as the wonky Daley, more interested in public policy than raw political power. That dubious but highly effective image makeover contributed to one successful re-election campaign after another until the narrative came unglued by a series of corruption scandals.
Barack Obama rode the “stylish, post-racial, hope and change” narrative wave, created by advisers and sustained by the national media — local reporters who viewed him through the lens of Democratic machine politics found that amusing — to an unexpected presidential win in 2008 and reelection four years later, escaping small scrapes but no solvent.
For Rod Blagojevich, it was the charismatic, Elvis-loving, working-class man-of-the-people populist narrative that propelled him to the governor’s mansion in Springfield twice. Then the feds applied the figurative solvent that unstuck the disingenuous narrative glue, replacing it with a well-earned toxic corruption patch and a bumpy ride to the “Heartbreak Hotel.”
Moving on, I’m reminded of my 2007 interview with political lightweight Todd Stroger after Democratic ward bosses “consoled” him with the coveted Cook County board presidency, replacing his formidable and beloved father, who died after a stroke a few months earlier.
Stroger’s unearned ascendancy, and several tone-deaf political appointments, turned him into a media laughingstock, which he called racist because he was African American and the predominantly white local press corps was ignoring a dozen of his small-bore reforms.
“It’s not racism,” I told him. “It’s a narrative that defined you as an unqualified political hack, and you can’t change that with a few little initiatives.”
I actually reported on his new programs, but they were inconsequential in his quest for respect and legitimacy, and he went on to an ignominious reelection defeat.
So now we get to President Joe Biden, whose narrative honed over a decades-long career characterized him as “Good ol’ Joe"— a solid, earnest, hail-fellow-well-met Democratic pol who endured several personal tragedies and survived multiple stumbles and bumbles on his uneven road to the White House.
The narrative glue weakened as he shouldered the blame for inflation, border and immigration chaos, the bloodshed in Gaza, an embarrassing Afghanistan retreat and growing concerns about his apparent age-related diminishing capacity.
Then came the devastating debate debacle, which entirely ripped off the narrative patch, leaving Biden gasping for air in shark-infested political waters as handlers rushed to the rescue and an increasing number of voters shrugged their shoulders in dismissive disinterest.
The questions now are (a) whether the emerging new narrative—that of a doddering old warrior too enfeebled to lead the country for another term — will solidify enough to either force him out of the race or on to a likely loss to Donald Trump. Or (b) could an 11th-hour epiphany — a personal revival combined with unforeseeable national, international or Trump-related developments — repair enough of the old narrative to keep his reelection hopes alive?
Stay tuned because, either way, it will be compelling political theater through the Democratic National Convention here in August and on to Election Day in November, after which we’ll know what narrative prevailed.
Andy Shaw is a semi-retired Chicago journalist and good government watchdog.
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