Eastwood’s Genius: We Do Not Have To Be Mental Masochists

I watched Clint Eastwood’s address to the Republican National Convention with much anticipation. I’ve always been a great fan of his movies and am always interested in watching clips of interviews he’s done. I watched an interview quite a while back that showed his direction style on a movie set, and decided I liked him as a man because of that interview. Soft-spoken and to-the-point, a clear notion of right and wrong, a man that knows what he likes yet is gentle and kind and understanding, was my measure of him then, and remains to this day.

I was greatly entertained with Eastwood’s speech, or rather, performance. At 82, he still has the same grin, twinkle, smirk, and other qualities in his mannerisms that are uniquely his, and so comfortable and familiar to all of us. In that short performance, he showed his clearness of mind, his ultimate logic, and the craftsmanship of his trade.

Some of the greatest lines ever given in movie history belong to Eastwood, but my favorite line from the RNC performance was, “we do not have to be mental masochists.” Here is the entire quote:

We don’t have to be — what I’m saying, we do not have to be mental masochists and vote for somebody that we don’t really even want in office just because they seem to be nice guys or maybe not so nice guys, if you look at some of the recent ads going out there, I don’t know.

That moment of his performance was candid, and he conveyed a solution to a mental quandary. He identified the social reaction that the convention organizers seemed to overplay, that most people think Obama is a nice guy, and it does no good to diminish his likability, because they are taught to stay in tune with the emotions of voters. Eastwood threw out the media and consultant conclusion that people who think Obama is a nice guy will vote for him because of it. And he called it mental masochism.

Why would you assume that people are going to be thronging the polls on election day to vote in a nice guy? It’s not like America just met Obama yesterday, we’ve been watching his every move for four years now.

See, to me, the constant repetition of the media and the Republican party’s ‘nice guy’ commentary is defining Obama as a nice guy, and in turn tries to force people who know he is not a nice guy, to stop posting bad things about his policy on facebook and twitter, and blogs, and everywhere, for fear of being labeled a meanie. The Republican consultants know that the media labels them as meanies, and therefore the public believes it, and the tea party is defining them as extreme, so they want to show people they are nice to say Obama’s nice. As if people you try to reach who are undecided about this election, or could be swayed, would vote for Obama to spite you for being mean to him. It seems to me that those who would throw out the avalanche of information against Obama and vote for him for the nice guy he is, are mentally deficient to begin with, so why keep saying it? While Obama defines Mitt Romney as a tax-evading felon money bags weirdo Mormon who hates women, clean air and water, the RNC is successfully defining Obama as a nice guy.

So Eastwood said, you don’t have to buy that. You have a mind, and you don’t have to torture your future by accepting this line that Obama’s nice. The RNC’s position is to make sure everyone knows we all think he’s a nice guy, it’s nothing personal, and we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, or allow the tea party to over emphasize his negatives, we just kinda wanna point out that, and we aren’t being mean, but if you would look at Mitt, and his ability to turn things around, that would be nice too. As if you could ever imagine a scenario where a co-worker could ever say, “Hey, sure we are headed over a cliff, he’s spending money we don’t have, mortgages are worthless and so’s our money and credit rating, and he wants four more years to do more of the same, but I’m gonna vote for him because everyone says he’s just so nice.” Nobody thinks like that.

Eastwood’s performance increased my estimate of him as a man. He has pursued excellence and happiness his entire life, and his wit captivates me.