Our local paper carries an advice columnist named Carolyn Hax, who is actually quite good, almost always putting the question in a larger perspective, going into issues that lurk beneath the surface of the person’s questions. Today’s column handled a question about the difference between ego and self-esteem. The response starts from the perspective that ego and self-esteem can be synonyms, but then widens the issue. If one has high self-esteem, a healthy sense of self, then one faces life with a high sense of self-assurance and the protective aspects of the ego need not come into play. However, if one has low self-esteem, then one’s life can revolve around protecting one’s ego.
This line of thought leads to some interesting conclusions when one applies it to the Presidential Race.
Senator Obama faces life with a high sense of self-assurance, especially so given how disrupted his childhood was: left by his father, his move to Indonesia, his leaving his Mother to be raised by his Grandparents. One has to wonder at how he pulled everything together and be understanding if there is a certain level of self-detachment, a coolness that may the residuals of self-protecting mechanisms.
Senator McCain, on the other hand, contrary to what one would expect, given his military background and subsequent experience, seems to lack self-assurance, to need his ego stroked and calmed a bit. His feelings are genuinely hurt that Barack Obama did not sit down with him to discuss campaign financing or the town hall debates.
When McCain perceives that someone is leveling political attacks at him, most recently in the case of Rep. John Lewis, it is more than simply a campaign tactic to implore Barack Obama to somehow censure the person. At Saddleback Mountain, John McCain named Lewis as one of the three most important mentors in his life, as someone to whom he would go for advice. Why should McCain need Obama to intercede in a disagreement between McCain and one of his three most important mentors?
So one is left with a perception that Obama has a self-assurance that allows him to maneuver through stormy weather, the intelligence and intellectual curiosity to approach complex problems and the leadership skills necessary to assemble the right team to address the problem at hand and to work comfortably with them to make and implement the right decisions.
One is left with a perception that John McCain shoots from the hip when making decisions, is inarticulate to the point that one must question his thought process and level of understanding, and he lacks the level of self-assurance necessary to being a clam, decisive leader.
I would not have written or even suspected all this at the beginning of the year, but we now have a lot of information on which to make our voting decision this election year.
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