“The Four Fights”

The Wall Street Journal— The 2016 Presidential Campaign Runs on Fighting Words. To hear the presidential candidates tell it, they’re all fighters-every single one of them.

You know what Hillary Clinton is? I’ll tell you what she is. She’s a fighter. And Scott Walker? The same. How about Bernie Sanders? And Chris Christie—and Martin O’Malley? Fighter, fighter, fighter, every one of them. They’re all candidates for president too, of course, but they’re running for the office, to hear them tell it, because they have a particular gift for beating the living daylights out of…whom? That part isn’t always clear.

Presidential politics has become alarmingly pugilistic. The best evidence we have that our candidates are built for combat is their own testimony. “Right now,” Mr. O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, told CNN, “our country’s in a fight for the very future of the American dream, and I am drawn to that fight.” So dukes up, whoever you are! Mr. Christie—another fightin’ governor—is ready too. Uneasily courting a conservative convention earlier this year, he tripled down: “I care about fighting the fight worth fighting.”

So does that make Mr. Christie the fightin-est governor in the land? He will have to fight Wisconsin Gov. Walker for the title. Mr. Walker does not look like a fighter. But stand him up in front of a crowd, and he sounds like Sonny Liston.

By my count, he used the word “fight” or “fighter” 14 times during his announcement speech, delivered in his hometown of Waukesha:

“It doesn’t matter if you’re from a big city, a suburb or a small town, I will fight and win for you. Healthy or sick, born or unborn, I will fight and win for you. Young or old, I will…” and so on. And in case you’re wondering, “fighter” is apparently not one of the words the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, uses to describe himself, though it’s much nicer than the words other people are using to describe him. 

Given the preference of Democrats for “soft power” in international relations, for diplomacy over military might, it is a wonder that the belligerence has so quickly spread leftward. Democratic candidates are promising nothing short of a blood bath. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist and senator, often uses “fight” twice in the same sentence: “That’s the kind of American political system we have to fight for and will fight for.”

In his own announcement message, Mr. Sanders promised to fight for free college tuition, fight for social and economic justice, fight for America’s working families, fight for lower interest rates, fight for environmental sanity, and—ironically enough—fight for a world at peace. By the time the actual voting starts, he’ll be exhausted.

And yet Mr. Sanders looks like Gandhi next to his chief rival for the Democratic nomination. Mrs. Clinton’s first video ad was called, simply, “Fighter.” It featured anonymous voice-overs giving barely intelligible definitions of the word: “To me, a fighter is someone who is passionate about what they believe in and that will make a difference in people’s lives.” And when Mrs. Clinton held her first big campaign rally at a New York City park named in honor of FDR’s “Four Freedoms,” she built her speech around “Four Fights.”

The Fights are just as alliterative as the Freedoms but much wordier. FDR got his freedoms out in three words each—freedom from fear, freedom of speech, etc.—for a total of 12 words. Mrs. Clinton requires a mouthful. Here’s the third fight she’ll be fighting: “to harness all of America’s power, smarts and values to maintain our leadership for peace, security and prosperity.” One fight, 18 words. [ click FULL STORY ]

***

And add, “Take our country back” to the list of tired and generic phrases lazy speech writers use when they are afraid to say what they really mean.