To wit: A primary function of politics in NH is electing to laugh

Here’s the funny thing about the primary…

It’s always good to start with failed two-time Presidential candidate Robert Dole – who achieved equal failure as a one-time vice presidential candidate – if you want to write about the odd-couple coupling of politics and comedy.

Senator Dole is one of the few adept at both.

Well, unless you count those three electoral losses, I mean.

Anyway, what other politician – upon spotting Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon standing in a row – would have the temerity to crack, “There they are. See no evil, hear no evil and . . . evil.”

Maybe losing inspires humor.

Consider another failed, two-time Presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson. While running for office against Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stevenson once delivered a moving stump speech that prompted a supporter to assure the Illinois governor he would have “the support of all thinking Americans.”

“Not enough,” Stevenson replied. “I’m going to need a majority.”

And what of Gerald Ford?

When our only non-elected President was asked if he thought Ronald Reagan dyed his hair, Ford quipped, “No, he’s prematurely orange.”

Unfortunately, very few politicians are blessed with such wit. There are those who would argue that many have but half the requisite supply, which is why professional comics have raced to fill the vast wasteland that might otherwise be political humor.

Fortunately, they’re winning the race.

I discussed this a few years ago with a gentleman named Dan Glickman.

Dan represented Kansas in Congress for 14 years and served as Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration. He now serves as a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he focuses on public health, national security, and economic policy issues, but there was a time when he was executive director of the Harvard University Institute of Politics

What? You don’t associate Harvard with humor?

You’ve never met Dan Glickman.

I know it sounds like an oxymoronic circumstance, but Dan Glickman is a serious student of humor – political humor in particular – and like me, he thinks there are simply too few politicians willing to play the game. He spelled it out in detail once when he spoke before the National Press Club just before leaving the Clinton cabinet.

“It’s no coincidence that many of our most successful Presidents – Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Kennedy and Reagan come to mind – all could tell and appreciate a good joke, often at their own expense,” he said.

“At their own expense,” he emphasized. “That’s the key. Self-deprecation is the most effective form of political humor. It’s disarming. It projects humility. Tip O’Neill spoke of ‘hanging a lantern on your problem.’ In other words, finding your weakness and joking about it, thus deflecting your opponents’ criticism of that same weakness.”

Examples:

* When Stephen Douglass accused Lincoln of being two-faced, The Ol’ Rail Splitter – cognizant of his somewhat gnarly facial features – said, “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?”

* When JFK was criticized for making his little brother the US Attorney General, he parried the attacks by noting, “We thought we’d give Bobby a little experience before he had to go out and practice law.”

* And when Reagan came under fire after aides failed to wake him when U.S. fighters shot down a Lybian jet, he said, “From now on . . . no matter what time it is, I’m to be awakened. Even if it’s in the middle of a cabinet meeting.”

Where have all the jokesters gone?

“I suspect one of the reasons politicians are afraid to let their guard down has to do with the media,” Secretary Glickman explained. “Every word they say is dissected. In that environment – with a 24-hour-a-day media beast – the fear that some joke will set off a firestorm is very real.”

So, if politicians are afraid to make fun of themselves, professional comedians – as in the way that nature abhors a vacuum – have happily taken on the task. As a result, stand-up comedians and late night talk show hosts regularly run roughshod over incumbents and candidates alike.

Stephen Colbert. Jimmy Kimmel. Seth Meyers. Bill Maher. Jimmy Fallon. Trevor Noah. Larry Wilmore. Conan O’Brien. The list goes on and on, and for all the cracks about the size of the Republican field this year, there are far more comics than candidates.

What makes this potentially alarming is that more and more people are getting their political news from comedy shows.

The Pew Research Center released a study that said as many young people have their political views shaped by The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as they do by mainstream news anchors, according to The Hotline, which, since 1987, has been one of the premier on-line forums for the freewheeling mix of politics and humor.

Comedian Will Durst loves that mix.

Back in 2004, I was his unofficial escort while he was here covering the Democratic campaign for a San Francisco NPR station (and by the way, he and his crew absolutely loved the Puritan Backroom!)

Here’s how he sized up a couple of the candidates back then.

“I saw where Dennis Kucinich was at one percent in one of the polls,” he said. “The poll had a margin of error of four points. That means he could wind up owing New Hampshire three percent of the vote on Tuesday. Does that mean he can’t leave until he gives it back?

“And John Kerry has to be a comedian’s worst nightmare. You have to admire him though. He’s so life-like. They’re calling him the most electable Democrat? That’s like calling Posh the smart Spice Girl.

“And what about Howard Dean?” Will wondered. “When he gave that scream speech? If that’s how he reacts to finishing third, what if he wins New Hampshire? There’ll be nothing left of him on the stage but bits of chum.”

What’s sad is the notion that we’re laughing at candidates, not with them.

Alas, here’s a political laugh for the road from Dan Glickman. Back a few years ago, he delivered his political humor address before the National Press Club, and he seized upon his introduction thusly:

“I notice that you said, ‘It gives me great pleasure to present Dan Glickman,’” he said, “and that reminds me of a story about Winston Churchill. Before he was Prime Minister, Churchill was at a toastmaster’s function where everyone was given an index card with a one-word topic on it. The speaker then had to give an extemporaneous speech about that topic, after which the audience had to guess the topic.

“Churchill was given the card, he looked at it, and on the card, there’s just one word: ‘Sex.’ So when it was his turn to speak, he stood up and said, ‘It gives me great pleasure.’ And then he sat down.”

Wonder if any politicians would get it today.

Not sex. The joke.

John Clayton is Executive Director of the Manchester Historic Association. You can reach him with your historical (or existential) questions at jclayton@manchesterhistoric.org.

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