The question of character

This must be a challenging piece of news for many politicians. You can imagine the briefing meetings:

“Hey,” says the consultant charged with the responsibility of molding the candidate. “It seems that the voters aren’t as interested in our positions on the issues like health care, the war in Iraq or even the economy.”

“No?” says the candidate. “What are they interested in?”

“Character.”

“What does that mean?” the candidate says, shifting nervously in their seat.

“Well, it means you have to have some.”

“What kind are they looking for?”

“It doesn’t matter,” says the consultant, growing somewhat impatient. “Character isn’t something you can triangulate based on polls. It’s something you have independent of other people’s demands. It’s inside you.”

There is a thoughtful silence. “I’m sure I have some in there someplace,” the candidate says at last. “But you might want to check where I can get a little bit more, just in case.”

The good news for the candidates is that Character, having been absent from much of the business universe in 2007, is at this moment wafting around looking for anybody interested in anyone who wants to spend time with it. 

There are many things that make up Character, but its most attractive features are well known:

• Character is honest, and always does what it has promised to do; 
• Character is simple and straightforward and always means what it says;  
• Character tries never to do things that will hurt people just to make a little bit of money or get a vote;
• Character is loyal to its friends and polite to its adversaries;
• Character has empathy for those less fortunate;
• Character is guided by principles that do not change with the weather or the polls, but is not so stiff-necked as to impose its views on others who are not persuaded;
• Character listens to other people and cares about what they say.

There are other qualities voters are ostensibly looking for today: experience, new ideas, a renunciation of the decades-long pattern of partisan stupidity. But none of them are as important, it appears, as the demonstration of this very precious and elusive entity.

My sense is that right now we can tell very clearly who’s got it and who ain’t.

I like Character and I think you do too. Let’s just hope it doesn’t blow it all today, and  sticks around long enough to determine what happens in November.