Have you heard of Adlai Stevenson? I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t until I watched him being interviewed by John Freeman in a BBC TV series called Face to Face, broadcast in 1959.
As you may remember, I spent some time in the last few months delivering election material on behalf of unsuccessful London mayoral candidate, Zac Goldsmith. I believe Zac to be a man of integrity and principle, qualities which may ultimately exclude him from high office. Adlai Stevenson comes over similarly. He stood twice as a Democrat against Eisenhower and was thrashed both times. When he tried a third time Kennedy beat him to the Democrat nomination.
Here is part of his acceptance speech when he was first nominated in 1952.
When the tumult and the shouting die, when the bands are gone and the lights are dimmed, there is the stark reality of responsibility in an hour of history haunted with those gaunt, grim specters of strife, dissension, and materialism at home, and ruthless, inscrutable, and hostile power abroad. The ordeal of the twentieth century – the bloodiest, most turbulent age of the Christian era – is far from over. Sacrifice, patience, understanding, and implacable purpose may be our lot for years to come. … Let’s talk sense to the American people! Let’s tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions.
You get a flavour of the man; his humanity and his realism.
One of Freeman’s questions was why he stood if he thought he was unlikely to win. His answer was that he thought he could win, especially in 1956. However, he felt it was more important to be direct and honest with the American people and more important to espouse hard truths than adopt policies that might be popular with the electorate. Zac Goldsmith took this approach and it does him credit.
When Kennedy was elected President he appointed Stevenson as US ambassador to the United Nations. He had a tough time over the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis but ultimately his judgement was proved to be sound. Although I am convinced that Zac is wrong to support Brexit and I hope that his judgement on this will be proved wrong, I believe him to be a politician I can trust – out of the same mould as Adlai Stevenson. In 1965, aged 65, Stevenson had a fatal heart attack walking in London near Grosvenor Square.
Running for the office of the U.S. Presidency and governing a State such as Illinois are markedly different tasks requiring distinctly dissimilar talents. Stevenson was an excellent administrator when governor as evidenced by his replacing the Illinois’s political patronage system and introducing a non-partisan civil service. This made the state government operate efficiently and professionally. However, despite having three Pulitzer prize winners as speech writers in his 1956 campaign for the Presidency, Stevenson lacked the common touch, often accused of being an “egg head.” His lofty rhetoric left his political audience doubting if he truly understood the average American voter.
Perhaps, Zac Goldsmith, having taken principled positions as a MP, also suffered from the same inability to empathize with the London mayoral voters during a political election season.
Hi,Ned
Don’t you find it weird that on the Stevenson poster FDRs photo is on the Hoover side? I think that proves your point about communication skills.
By the way many back here liken Obama to Stevenson.
Over here, in Connecticut, back then, my parents, nominally Republican, were great admirers of Adlai Stevenson.
At school, children whose parents wore “I LIKE IKE” buttons, ran around at recess, happily singing:
“Whistle while you work,
Stevenson’s a jerk,
Eisenhower’s
Got the power,
Whistle while you work.”
I don’t think we were so politicised – at any rate I cannot think of any British equivalent to your school yard ditty, except “Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher” – so I can only contribute this limerick that I found in the Guardian (natch).
George Osborne is a useless fecker,
Who got appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.
With him running the show,
There’s less chance Britain’ll grow,
Than the Pope taking up residence in Mecca.
I used to meet Zac from time to time and found him and his backstory charismatic and compelling. He was and may well still be a very attractive, intriguing figure. He was also, though, representative, I thought, of many of the worst features of the Green movement. I thought he was just bright enough to be articulate but what I could not be sure of was whether he was simply deceiving himself in much of his evidence-light opinionising, for instance on carcinogenity. It may be that he was one of those people who really cannot see the difference between what one wants to believe and what one can reasonably believe. It is an old Alpha Male problem.
As an MP he was against HTR expansion, but his arguments seemed convenient and actually tricksy rather than merely well-evidenced. He wanted a recall system for MPs, but seemed to push its criteria beyond the interesting and into the dangerous.
I never got to grips with his candidacy for the mayoralty, but when I did watch the big TV debate between the contestants, with Andrew Neil, he seemed unimpressive.
But it is his career as a Green and an MP which makes me wonder why you were so struck by him.
I am impressed by his performance as a constituency MP since 2010. He increased his majority in 2015. Standing for mayor, he was well up to speed on every issue, many of them mind-numbingly dull. He didn’t win because he often lacked passion in debates, it was Labour’s turn to win and they had a good candidate too.