The phrase was used by Mara Liasson on NPR this morning, and to be understood as horse race language--for the attention that will come to a candidate if he gets more votes relative to some other candidate than she was expecting him to, which will apparently contribute to his getting still more votes somewhere else; the desperation would be at the thought of not getting those votes, of being no longer "in the running", and it doesn't sound like the right word, at least as long as you don't think about the money at stake, and I don't think these very high rollers habitually do.
But it made me think of a humbler context,[jump]
from here in Manhattan, and the self-denominated center of the world at the northwest corner of Broadway and 79th, where candidates for state and city office from the outer boroughs come to the subway stop to get their existence recognized by the snotty West Siders; I had a great chat there with a very young Anthony Weiner years ago, when he was thinking about running for mayor (it was before he became a liberal, though--doesn't that sound like Doris Day before she became a virgin?--and I wasn't persuaded).
More memorable still is the sight of candidates in bad weather at the rush hour, getting bypassed as the commuters hurry down the stairs dealing with reluctant umbrellas and folding papers: in the 1998 senate primaries, the late Geraldine Ferraro at one point and the then congressman Charles Schumer at another, hands outstretched, looking bewildered and even frightened at their momentary solitude, as their entourages passed out leaflets ten or fifteen feet away.
It's the other, more sweet and vulnerable side of politicians' psychopathy, that they're genuinely lonely, that they crave approval, that they desperately need attention. I'll bet even Barack Obama looked a little like that, in a one-stoplight town in southeastern Illinois, when he was running for senator. In our senate race, the candidate with the easy charisma, Kennedy tan and Obama smile, Mark Green, lost--Schumer is the senator now, and he manages his attention very well.
And after all, isn't it something we all need? And aren't they trying to get it by being good?
But it made me think of a humbler context,[jump]
from here in Manhattan, and the self-denominated center of the world at the northwest corner of Broadway and 79th, where candidates for state and city office from the outer boroughs come to the subway stop to get their existence recognized by the snotty West Siders; I had a great chat there with a very young Anthony Weiner years ago, when he was thinking about running for mayor (it was before he became a liberal, though--doesn't that sound like Doris Day before she became a virgin?--and I wasn't persuaded).
More memorable still is the sight of candidates in bad weather at the rush hour, getting bypassed as the commuters hurry down the stairs dealing with reluctant umbrellas and folding papers: in the 1998 senate primaries, the late Geraldine Ferraro at one point and the then congressman Charles Schumer at another, hands outstretched, looking bewildered and even frightened at their momentary solitude, as their entourages passed out leaflets ten or fifteen feet away.
It's the other, more sweet and vulnerable side of politicians' psychopathy, that they're genuinely lonely, that they crave approval, that they desperately need attention. I'll bet even Barack Obama looked a little like that, in a one-stoplight town in southeastern Illinois, when he was running for senator. In our senate race, the candidate with the easy charisma, Kennedy tan and Obama smile, Mark Green, lost--Schumer is the senator now, and he manages his attention very well.
And after all, isn't it something we all need? And aren't they trying to get it by being good?
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