The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they’re always too small. I know: the self-help experts tell us to focus on “achievable” goals, those little lifestyle tweaks like, “Don’t buy cookie dough logs unless you actually intend to bake them.” But vows like that are too easy to break. Life wants a bigger challenge.
In this spirit, I offer some sweeping resolutions to the group of people who need full-on transformations most—our presidential candidates. The stakes are too high for them to settle on puny goals in January. Let’s face it: Bill Richardson is not going to win Iowa by passing on that third slice of pizza. So here’s my suggestion to all those pols: resolve to be more like somebody else. No, not Ronald Reagan. Think bigger.
Hillary Clinton:
Resolve to be more like Hannibal. I don’t mean the Hannibal who ate human flesh in Silence of the Lambs—although I suspect a portion of the American population believes Hillary does that already. I mean the Carthaginian general who scored a place in Machiavelli’s handbook on leadership for a rare feat: He won huge victories with an army full of mercenaries.
Team Hillary has always had a mercenary quality. She has neither the natural union base of John Edwards nor the powerful charisma of Sen. Barack Obama. Her followers aren’t behind her because she’s lovable. They tend to be big shots aligning with one of their own or people trying to bet on the winning horse. Hillary’s campaign has done a series of cutesy videos to try to warm up her image. But the lady who threatened to stiletto her health care enemies and brushed off sweetas-a-puppy Obama on the Senate floor will always rule with a whip. So embrace the real you, Hillary. It worked for Hannibal. He pumped up his mercenaries by promising them plunder, while always remembering that it’s better to be feared than loved.
Rudy Giuliani:
Resolve to be more like England’s Henry V. From his former police commissioner Bernie Kerik to Monsignor Alan Placa, a priest still working for Giuliani who has allegedly molested boys, Rudy has a major friend problem. When Henry was just a young Prince Hal, he, too, palled around with a band of unsavory thieves led by the supremely decadent Falstaff.
But when it was time to become king, Hal knew some ruthless de-friending was in order. “I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers,” Hal sneered at Falstaff during his coronation—and then banished the man from within 10 miles of his person. Who wouldn’t love to see Rudy deploy a similar line on Kerik? “I know thee not, Commish. Get out of here—and don’t get any closer to me than Yonkers.”
John Edwards:
Resolve to be more like Rocky Balboa. The son of a poor mill worker, Edwards talks an angry, rich-against-poor game. But with his $400 hairdo and moviestar good looks, he’s way too stylish. None of us wants a pretty boy to be our commander-in-chief. We like our presidents to have been through wars and show it. Rocky was a rags-to-riches guy too, but his face was battered from the fights it took to get to the top. Edwards’ clothes should be a little coarser, his manner a little rougher—and a badly bruised nose from dust-ups with Wall Street villains wouldn’t hurt. If the transformation means college freshmen start putting up pics of Edwards in boxing trunks next to their Bob Marley posters, well, that might not be such a bad thing.
Mitt Romney:
Resolve to be more like Cleopatra. Why? Because Romney’s new friendships with right-wing evangelicals still feel as fake as a high school airhead’s scheming before the vote for Homecoming Queen. After all, this is the guy who was pro-choice and gayfriendly just the other day. Cleopatra—now there’s someone who knew how to change sides. Egypt’s queen successfully threw over her own dynasty and climbed into bed, literally, with Julius Caesar and his successor, Mark Antony. Her genius was to show she was as charmed by her unlikely new allies as they were by her, even rolling herself up into a carpet that was then laid at Caesar’s feet. The carpet thing might not work for Romney, especially since it would mess up his perfect hair. Instead, he could show the evangelicals his enduring love by mentioning them more on the stump—or by burning his Mormon undergarments in a public ceremony. Just a thought.
Barack Obama:
Resolve to be more like Nicolas Sarkozy. Yes, John Kerry crashed and burned in 2004 after people got suspicious that he was a closet beret-lover. But today’s French president, nicknamed “Le Cowboy,” is as all-American as the flag pin Obama once refused to wear.
Addressing Congress in November, Sarkozy articulated a better vision of what America can be than any of our own leaders, saying the U.S. was “a new frontier that was continuously pushed back—a constantly renewed challenge to the inventiveness of the human spirit.” Conservatives in the chamber hollered approval, while lefty Rep. Barbara Lee ran up afterwards to give Sarkozy a hug. Obama once pulled off something similar, riffing on the Declaration of Independence in high Lincolnian style at the 2004 Dem Convention. So where did that guy go? Since then, he’s been talking “hope” and “unity” and other vague keywords that make him sound more like Tony Robbins than Honest Abe. “Le Cowboy” showed there is a hunger to unify around a common idea of the country out there. If Barack can’t manage to resurrect the Obama of 2004, he should try at least to be the Sarkozy of 2007.
Fred Thompson:
Resolve to be more like Richard Nixon. It may seem insane to advise a candidate to act more like Tricky Dick, but Thompson has so little ambition that a touch of Nixon’s shameless self-promotion would do him good. Thompson is not only lazy, he’s disdainful of the process. He thought that by letting the manly scent of his cigars bring the nation into a swoon he could win the nomination. He’s reluctant to stoop to cheesy campaign rituals like paying tribute to a giant cow sculpted out of butter at the Iowa State Fair.
For Nixon, on the other hand, no humiliation was too great if it served his ambition. Consider how he wooed his wife, Pat: Undeterred by her initial rejections, he stayed on her radar by driving her to dates with other men. Thompson could offer to give voters a lift to his rivals’ rallies. He can always hope they’ll dance with the one who brung them.
Eve Fairbanks is an associate editor at The New Republic.