Election 2012 Free Associations and Psychohistorical Questions

The party primary election system reminds me of the King of the Mountain game we would play as children. One of the kids standing atop a large stone or mound of grass would shout, “I am King of the Mountain,” while the others would seek to knock him off. The one who was most successful or cunning (allowing others to do most of the pushing, pulling, and shoving until they became tired and discouraged) would then make the monarchical claim. In

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the Republican nominating process, the media and/or candidates declared, based upon public opinion polls, the ascendency of Donald Trump (he only threatened to run), Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney. The caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, etc., and the primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and so forth are the meaningful determinants of who would gain the 1,144 delegate votes necessary to win the nomination. Thus far, Mitt Romney has been both most skillful and well-prepared in the adult version of this children’s game.

The Republican tradition has been “winner takes all” in the primary selection process, but because considerable interest was generated as the 2008 Obama-Clinton Democratic primary contest was prolonged, in some states for 2012 the Republicans have allowed proportional allotment of votes for the leading primary candidates. Because the Republican vote is so fragmented among Romney’s competitors, it remains to be seen if this will prolong the process that is usually shortened by the strong tendency of politicians and candidates without adequate votes and money to compete effectively to join the frontrunner and then perhaps collect political favors should this nominee indeed be elected president. The mechanisms of defense the Republicans use in the political struggle, which are certainly not unique to them, center on projecting all that is bad onto Obama and the Democrats, and all that is good onto themselves. The domestic world, according to them, is split into good Republicans and bad Democrats, and the international world into good America and evil Europe and China, as well as good Israel and evil Iran.

Psychohistorical Ruminations and Questions

What exactly distinguishes psychohistorical explanations of presidential candidates from the best sort of political journalism that you can find in the media and in the more thoughtful journals? In psychoanalytically informed political psychology, we are much more concerned with issues of ambivalence, coping mechanisms, creativity, empathy, fantasy, idealization, intergenerational messages, interpersonal relations, life traumas, and unconscious motivations of the candidates. Plus, an added burden for those of us devoted to doing psychohistory with a minimum of technical psycho-

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logical terminology is how to get the reader to take the results of our research seriously without readily providing materials for pathologizing the candidates. The 20-plus Republican nominating debates and innumerable interviews I have watched in an effort to glean knowledge of Gingrich, Paul, Romney, Santorum, et al. have not revealed a great deal about how they would actually govern, since candidates’ promises often have a vague relationship with presidential political reality. However, I have learned a great deal about their emotions, knowledge, personalities, style, and public values.

In building a picture of people who happen to be candidates, it is good to first get a sense of their childhood experiences, though this is not something you’ll find a lot about in the earlier stages of the nomination process. Newton Leroy Gingrich (born June 17, 1943) is an only son who has three younger half-sisters, while Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is the second son and youngest of four children. The former Speaker of the House was born to a struggling 16-year-old mother in modest circumstances in Pennsylvania, while the former Massachusetts Governor is the child of prominent Michigan parents. “Newtie” was named for his biological father, Newton Searles McPherson, whose wife would soon divorce him for lack of support. He would agree, in exchange for four months of child support payments, that the mother’s new husband, Robert Gingrich, could formally adopt young Newt. Bob Gingrich was a strict taskmaster who moved around the world and reported that he once “smashed Newt against the wall for breaking curfew.” He was disappointed in the son who embarrassed him by being “too soft,” having “no guts,” a son with thick glasses and flat feet, who was therefore unsuitable to follow him into the military. Because of Newt’s mother’s bipolar disease and his estranged relationship with his stepfather, as well as because the family was always moving, he focused more on his imagination while growing up as what he called a “50-year-old at [age] 9.” He reports that he “had imprinted John Wayne…as my model of behavior,” and in high school he read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and Arnold Toynbee’s history. (Of course, Asimov’s fantasy psychohistory has nothing to do with the psychohistory we practice.)

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By comparison with Gingrich, Mitt Romney had a very stable childhood. He was named Willard after his father’s highly successful, wealthy business friend Willard Marriott (of the hotel chain) and Mitt after a cousin who was a star football quarterback, leading me to wonder if some of the early messages from his parents were for their son to become highly successful, rich, and very much in control of the game. Their mothers faced different levels of stress. Unlike Kathleen (“Kit”) Gingrich, Lenore Romney did not have to clean houses to make ends meet.

The evidence points to the aspiring nominees having quite different relationships with women. Romney has been married to the same woman for 42 years. In contrast, Gingrich married his first of three wives when he was 19 years old (she was his 26-year old high school mathematics teacher who supported him right through his doctoral degree in history), has a reputation as a womanizer, and always appears to need a woman or two in his life. He has ready, but unconvincing, denials for those who say that he brought the divorce papers to his first wife when she was undergoing medical treatments in the hospital and the claims of his second wife (who has recently given interviews helpful to the “stop Gingrich” movement) that he requested an “open marriage” so he could carry on an affair with his staffer, who is now his third wife. The pattern of his life leads me to wonder if he can be faithful to a wife over a long period of time, or if he will repeat his prior pattern of infidelity.

Wives often serve as humanizing stage props when candidates present themselves to the public. Callista Louise Bisek Gingrich (born 1966) stands on the stage looking up adoringly at her campaigning husband as he speaks. Ann Lois Davies Romney (born 1949) speaks more readily than Callista and exudes considerable warmth. Her 1998 diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and 2008 treatment for breast cancer have not seemed to deter her public appearances. Romney’s adult sons and some grandchildren are a commonplace before the campaign cameras, but I have not seen Gingrich’s two daughters or Candace Gingrich-Jones, Newt’s much younger lesbian-gay advocate sister, or either of his other halfsiblings in his campaign.

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There is a paucity of material readily available on Romney’s childhood, which appears to have been much closer to the mainstream American ideal and much less challenging than that of either Barack Obama or Newt Gingrich. In this childhood, I am finding the roots of his considerable accomplishments as a businessman, civic leader, and politician, but there are few hints to his being very introspective and self-revealing. It is hard to imagine Romney saying, as Gingrich did to Gail Sheehy in 1995, “I think you can write a psychological profile of me that says I found a way to immerse my insecurities in a cause large enough to justify whatever I wanted it to.”

At the moment I write this, Romney has what many political pundits consider to be a commanding lead for the nomination, with Gingrich appearing to them to be his only viable challenger. The Georgian states his determination to take the fight right up to the Republican convention beginning on August 27^th in Tampa. They are two very different types of men. The former Massachusetts governor is a planner with an extremely well-organized strategy for success and a determination not to reveal too much about himself or repeat the mistakes his distinguished father George, a former Michigan governor and later U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, made during his abortive 1968 presidential bid. The elder Romney released 12 years of his tax returns to prove his openness and became a subject of ridicule for having spontaneously declared that he had been “brainwashed” by the generals regarding Vietnam. Conversely, Romney’s campaign is suffering from his lack of spontaneity; for example, it took enormous political pressure for him to release his tax returns for one year.

Although at times Gingrich has been an organized and effective planner, as when he orchestrated the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, no one is likely to accuse him of a lack of spontaneity. The former Georgian Congressman has great confidence in his ability to adjust to changing circumstances and so seemed unfazed when his top campaign aides quit because he was not doing things their way, and, as of the end of January, has twice survived being declared politically dead. He has contempt for those who would mock his imagination and call him grandiose, hailing American grandiosity as the basis of its greatness. During the Florida pri-

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mary he proudly declared that as president, he would establish a permanent base on the moon and talked of it becoming our 51^st state.

Mitt Romney: The Front-Runner Called Inauthentic by Many

Thus far, while Willard Mitt Romney is ahead of his competitors, most Republican primary voters have been slow to warm up to him. This is despite the fact that he is a much-improved candidate from 2008. He has established an impressive, very well financed campaign organization, has a large number of endorsements, and has worked hard to keep the focus on the need to replace President Obama. Some of the voter reluctance is clearly based on the distrust of a presidential candidate who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Protestants, especially fundamentalists, do not consider Mormons to be Christian and they compete with them for converts. Mormons are still associated with polygamy (Romney’s great-grandfather Miles moved the family to Mexico to avoid U.S. anti-polygamy laws). Romney has been a Mormon bishop (a leader of his congregation) who tithes. A great deal of the discomfort with him has to do with the combination of Romney’s personality and his strategy. He manifestly does not have the common touch; he is too “Ivy League” and “Wall Street” for many Americans. Some of his business associates labeled him the “Tin Man” because he appeared to be all head and no heart. His early strategy was to avoid exposure as the frontrunner—“King of the Mountain”—in an attempt to protect himself from being severely attacked until he had a commanding lead and could rely on his superior campaign organization and funding to repulse challengers.

The extent to which others harbor a drive to discredit him is apparent in the “anyone-but-Romney” movement. However, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum, Huntsman, and Paul have all filled this role without displacing him from the status of being the leader and perhaps the inevitable victor. Yet, the issue of Romney being an ineffective chameleon-type opportunist is central to the doubts plaguing the conservative faithful who come out and vote in the Republican primaries. Romney, who is now running as a conservative, has been on both sides of many issues—healthcare reform, a woman’s right to choose, gun control, stem cell research,

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taxes, and so forth—so much so that conservatives simply don’t trust him, although many are drawn to his appeal to independent voters. He sometimes speaks in a hesitant manner, and there is also an inauthentic quality with which he says “my friend” to Newt Gingrich and others who are manifestly his competitors rather than his friends. His opportunistic tendencies are simply too evident for conservatives to be comfortable with him, even if their calculations tell them that he is their best bet to beat Barack Obama on November 6.

The divided Republican conservatives have made it possible for Romney to be the leading candidate despite a desperate attempt beginning in New Hampshire to discredit him. Gingrich called him a “crony capitalist” and his supporters put together a film on Bain Capital presenting the case that it did not create the 100,000 jobs Romney claimed and that it engaged in predatory capitalism. Perry referred to Romney as a “vulture capitalist” because his firm made money even when the companies they bought went bankrupt. Romney denounced these attacks by Gingrich and Perry, calling them “desperate Republican candidates” who were “putting capitalism on trial,” which he associates with Obama’s “politics of envy.” He has wrapped himself in both capitalism and American exceptionalism (see the June 2011 Clio’s Psyche special issue on the latter subject). He does not want readily to accept the distinction between those who create new businesses, and therefore jobs, and private equity firms that make money for their investors and themselves, sometimes cutting or adding jobs in the process. If he is nominated, the election will be between two Harvard-trained lawyers, each raised to idealize his father, and each lacking great emotional contact with his followers.

Gingrich’s Faltering Attempt to be the Anti-Romney Champion

After Herman Cain’s candidacy imploded at the end of November, Newton Leroy Gingrich became the prime beneficiary of the “anyone-but-Romney” movement. He had been written off as an untenable candidate for various reasons. One, he had too much negative baggage and a very bad reputation among conservative Republicans who had worked with him in Congress. Two, he appeared to be so disconnected from his campaign that his top staffers resigned in June when he seemed far more interested in going on

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vacation to Greece with his wife Callista and selling his books, than doing the hard work of campaigning. Three, his apocalyptic language and tendency to brinksmanship makes some uncomfortable. Four, his temperament leads many to declare him to be untrustworthy, unreliable, and therefore un-presidential. Five, he has demonstrated a tendency to self-destruct as a leader, doing it in a manner that is especially obnoxious to his associates. For example, when he was being forced out of the leadership of the Congressional Republicans in 1997, he declared them to be a bunch of “cannibals.” He shows an inclination to take his party into dangerous power struggles as in the case of his engineering governmental shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 and the Clinton impeachment. In a 1996 article, “Taking Conservatives Seriously,” I argued that he, in fact, was twinning with Bill Clinton with both being Southern Baptist, cigar smoking, prevaricating, smooth talking, womanizing, Southern politicians, with Gingrich being the Scrooge-like twin who wanted to throw mothers off welfare and Clinton being the more generous one. In the current campaign, Gingrich advocated putting children to work in schools, displacing costly unionized janitors. With ideas like these, it continues to be likely that based on his past history and inclination to grandiosity, he will eventually self-destruct as a viable candidate, if he has not done so already.

Ron Paul and Anarchistic Rhetoric vs. the Reality of Governing

Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is the most consistent of all the Republican contenders, as he generally says the same thing regardless of the audience. He is a dedicated antigovernment conservative libertarian who, for some reason, has stayed within the Republican Party, which often relies on libertarians for their ideas, energy, and ability to inspire voters. However, once in power Republicans overwhelmingly discard libertarian policies. His clarion call of “get government off our backs and out of our wallets” has enormous appeal, as does the fact that Paul is a true believer. His enthusiastic supporters come out in any weather, bringing Ron Paul signs. Adam Smith’s 18^th-century dream of a laissez faire society resonated among the most conservative primary Republican voters, especially in the early stages of the campaign.

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In fact, laissez faire never existed anywhere, so it is mythic to believe in it. Further, a weakness of the emphasis on states’ rights is that telecommunications and rapid transportation takes what were once local, state, and regional problems and makes them national/international problems. Thus, the reality of governing America and the rhetoric of Paul and other Republican contenders for the presidency are incredibly divergent. Consider the voting record of the anti-federal government Tea Party candidates in 2010 and the fact that only a small minority of Republican members of Congress have not signed the Grover Norquist Americans for Tax Reform Pledge to promise never to vote for a tax increase. Consequently, conservative politicians have put themselves in an ideological strait-jacket, caused by advocating only tax reductions and never increases. People want services, and the government costs a great deal of money. Therefore, many of these debates and campaign promises have been about the fantasies rather than the realities of governance. This contributes to the problem of Washington gridlock that is so detrimental to our country.

Nevertheless, it can be refreshing to hear Congressman Paul, nicknamed “Dr. No” by his colleagues for his congressional voting record, defying conservative interest groups. He is alone among Republican contenders in denouncing the failed “War on Drugs” as well the “Warfare/Welfare State,” including the cost of well over 100 American bases around the world. It is noteworthy that the anti-government rhetoric in conservative Republican circles is focused on the federal government, since states’ rights is a central tenet of conservatives. Both their hearts and their rhetoric are inclined to favor a weak central government that does not intrude in local affairs until conservatives actually hold the responsibilities and opportunities afforded by government. It is interesting that after a series of electoral candidate debates, in which the main focus has been the minimization of government by reducing taxes and government regulation, the leading candidate is the historically big government man Romney.

In sharp contrast to the politics of Ron Paul, former Senator Richard John (Rick) Santorum (born May 10, 1958), a mostly big government social conservative, has emerged in early February as the anyone-but-Romney candidate. In June 2011, he vowed to

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“fight very strongly against libertarian influence with the Republican Party and the conservative movement.” Unlike the Texas Congressman, he is a consistent hawk in foreign affairs and more of a party insider, as when he became the third-ranking Republican senator from 2001-2007. When in Congress he fought hard for expensive federal education and transportations programs and especially for earmarked funds for his constituents. His school nickname of “Rooster” reflects Santorum’s loud, assertive style as well as a cowlick strand of his hair. As the father of seven surviving home-schooled children, he is emphatic about living his Catholic social values. He had fought for “intelligent design,” which he considers to be “a legitimate scientific theory” to “be taught in science classes” alongside of the “theory” of evolution. On issues such as the partial privatization of social security and the complete privatization of some other governmental functions, he does share some political positions with Paul. At this point, I have little psychohistorical sense of him, but I do have questions including the following. Why does Santorum so idealize his father while being so confrontational in dealing with his political fathers? Why did he bring his stillborn child home from the hospital to be viewed and grieved over by their siblings, some of whom were quite young?

Materials for the Explorations of the Dominant Candidates

This is a good year for those wanting to gather materials for a psychological comparison of the President and his likely competitor. Besides Obama’s writings, speeches, and public appearances, there are a host of recent books deepening our knowledge of him and his family background. Four quite useful ones are Janny Scott, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother (2011); Sally Jacobs, The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father (2011); Jodi Kantor, The Obamas (2012); and Dinesh Sharma, Barack Obama in Hawai’i and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President (2011). Two recent psychological studies are Stanley Renshon, Barack Obama and the Politics of Redemption (2011) and Justin Frank, Obama on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (2011). Renshon is a solid political psychoanalyst/psychologist, even if his book on George W. Bush was much more favorable than I thought appropriate. Frank is a Washington psychoanalyst who began his book on

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Bush appearing quite reasonable and ended up writing a psychoanalytic hatchet job (which I deplore on the principle that psychohistory should not simply be a tool of pathologizing) on Bush. Despite my reservations about the authors’ earlier work, I am eager to read both books on Obama, as well as a lengthy forthcoming one by David Maraniss, who did an excellent early study of Clinton. There are also a growing number of volumes by those who have worked closely with the Obamas, which can add to our knowledge of him.

Most serious contenders for the presidency today think they should write books or get others to ghostwrite. If by some unlikely chance (as of this moment) Gingrich should become the GOP nominee, a speed reading course would be appropriate since he, as a verbose history professor turned politician, has written about 25 books. The more likely Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, has in turn written two books, Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games and No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, and I have seen three books about him. His father George wrote books and had books written about him. Lenore, his mother, had a career as an actress and was also in the public even before she unsuccessfully ran for senator. Although their son Mitt is not especially self-revealing, given his long career in business, the Salt Lake City Olympics, public affairs, and politics, there is much material to be mined for information on him. Rick Santorum published It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good and Rick Santorum. I plan to write a long psychobiographical comparison of the Democratic and Republican contenders to lead our nation from 2013-2017.

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