About 25 years ago, a friend of mine who was the CEO of a well-known company was invited to the White House by President Bill Clinton for a small gathering of businessmen from around the country.
To say my friend was not a fan of Clinton would be an understatement. But in the best interest of his company, he reluctantly decided to attend.
Two weeks later I saw him in a coffee shop in the North End. Something had changed, it was almost imperceptible, but you could sense it as soon as he spoke. “He’s a great guy,” he said. “Who?” I asked. “Bill Clinton.” I looked at him as if he was joking. “Are you serious?” He just looked at me and laughed. He then proceeded to tell me this story.
The day of the event he had walked into a room at the White House where the small gathering was taking place. Clinton was on the other side of the room talking with some of the attendees. My friend was introducing himself to some folks when he heard someone yell his name from across the room. It was Clinton.
As he told it, he turned to see Clinton walking towards him, head bobbing up and down, a big smile on his face. Clinton walked over and shook his hand and put his other hand on my friend’s shoulder. My friend remembered feeling the warmth of Clinton’s hand as the president pulled him in and zeroed in on him like a laser. It was the legendary Clinton charm in action. It was personal, it was real, and it was strangely intimate. On the spot, my friend became his biggest fan.
It was a perfect affirmation of the fact that politics is above all a personal art form and that it’s all about making a personal connection: kissing babies, taking selfies with your arm around someone, speaking to small groups, big groups, standing on soapboxes. These are all political
devices, so to speak, and any candidate worth their salt is well versed in all of them.
But of all the disparate arrows in a candidate’s political quiver there is one which stands far above the rest. One that is so personal, so persuasive and so direct that it simply cannot be replaced. It is the “piece de resistance” of political interaction, the not so secret weapon … the handshake.
The question now in our present world of social distancing is how do you make a personal connection? Especially when you can’t touch someone. And they can’t touch you. To be fair, the chances of actually meeting a presidential candidate in person and shaking his or her hand are slim but there has always been the chance. This campaign season the odds are practically non-existent and quite frankly impossible in a world where you have to stay at least six feet apart.
There will be no huge rallies and the sense of momentum that they can bring to a campaign, there will be no pictures of candidates in Rockwellian moments standing before the electorate with union members clapping and cheering, there will be no young mother holding her baby’s hand at a 4th of July parade as the candidate stops to bend down and look the child in the eye.
In a word, there will be no people. It will be a play without an audience. People will still be involved but in an antiseptic “American Idol” kind of way where they watch the candidates’ campaign on screens … television and otherwise.
The poetry of politics and our rich American political traditions have always been about people, the average folk in particular. But I fear we won’t see much of them this time around. Sadly, this may end up being a bloodless election. One without the passion that can only be stoked when like-minded people cram into small halls, or even large arenas, and collectively breathe in unison for their candidate.
Worst of all, it’s not going to be much fun. Like all our national pastimes: going to baseball games, going to the movies, going out with friends, politics will be a virtual event. It’s going to have all the warmth of a Zoom video conference with a bunch of insurance salesmen from Wisconsin. In my lifetime, there is one event that stands out above all others in terms of capturing the grandeur of American politics, especially presidential politics. And that is Barack Obama accepting the nomination of the Democratic party at Invesco Field in Denver on a cool August night in 2008 in front to 80,000 foot-stomping, flag-waving Americans.
It was political theater at its best. It was people shoulder to shoulder from around the country, crammed together, sweating, cheering, hugging and looking hopefully toward a new horizon. The images from the historic event themselves spoke louder than any words ever could. They said, we the people.
We will not witness anything like this during this election cycle. Not this year. This year we won’t be able to touch the candidate, we won’t be able to get close to the candidates, we won’t be able to gather in the communal church which is our great political system. It will be politics in the time of the coronavirus.
And in this uncharted territory as candidates and campaigns struggle to make a personal connection with the voters through the cold touch of technology I think we’re quickly going to come to one undeniable conclusion: politics is, was and always will be about people. And that no matter how you slice it, there will never be such a thing as a virtual handshake.
And that’s how it should be. Just ask my friend who met Bill Clinton.
Frank Ciota grew up in Lynn, graduated from Harvard and has directed award-winning films in both the U.S. and Italy
