November 13, 2008
The fight for the presidency is finally over. Before turning to the future, it's always good to see how we got to the present. Here are excerpts from previous columns, beginning almost a year before the Iowa caucuses:
February 15, 2007 — So which of the pack in the presidential race will survive the shakedown? The ones who can articulate, both programmatically and personally, the new vocabulary of the common good. Single-issue candidates like family-values Brownback and anti-immigrant Tancredi are now anachronisms. Image-only candidates like Giuliani, "Mr. 9/11," will eventually be judged by the sum of their public life, not just one day of it. Hillary says she is "listening," but we are as sick of listeners as we are of Deciders. Biden, bright but neither articulate nor clean, broke his leg before leaving the gate. Obama has a vision, but is it just a vision of himself? Kucinich has the vision, but the articulation of the self-righteous. McCain and Romney run without a base. Edwards shows some daring, but carries Kerry's baggage. Al Gore is more tarred by Clinton than Hillary herself. Richardson, with his national and international expertise, could be the dark horse, if he can only stay away from Comedy Central.
January 3, 2008 — The horses are at the starting gates at last...
My bet is that not even [Super Tuesday on] February 5, nor the several primaries and caucuses that follow it, will determine the nominee of either party.... By convention time this summer, no candidate will have amassed enough delegates to enter as the winner. Then Old-time Politics ... will take over: All that ad money down the drain, only to have the nominee selected in smokeless rooms and with multiple floor votes. The convention will become the high drama it once was.
January 31, 2008 — Long before Iowa, all through that year- long string of Democratic presidential debates, I sat before the TV thinking: "Dream Team." With the exception of Marijuana Mike Gravel and Don-Quixote Dennis Kucinich, any one of those people at the podium would make a superior president....
In the short-term quest for long-term power, the dangers of bitterness and hatred increase. We the voters can only hope that the inevitable attacks will be friendly sparring and not friendly fire, and that the Dream Team will not end up as just a dream.
February 14, 2008 — And then you have voter fatigue. After a year of foreplay and the multiple climaxes of the early primaries, people may start waking up thinking it sure was nice but do I really want to spend so much time with this person?
February 28, 2008 — Over the months, the Democratic race has evolved into a microcosmal clash of the generations, a symbol of what is going on, largely unarticulated, in the country as a whole. The caucuses and primaries threw out all those graying friends of the family, Biden and Dodd and the rest, and what remained was the fundamental: the test of wills between Mom and the Kid.
July 24, 2008 — Put images of John McCain and Barack Obama side-by-side on the satellite news, and there is no doubt who gets the focus [abroad]. A different view of America emerges.... His complexion and the ethnicity of his name, as well as his youth and energy, tap into the deep well of symbol and draw up something universal, transcending the old polarities.
August 21, 2008 — Achieving effective political goals does not start with legislation, it ends with it. The way to bring about large-scale change is first to bring about small-scale change, change in individuals' attitudes, practices, and vision of themselves and their communities....
This is what Barack Obama learned from his youthful years as a community organizer in Chicago ....
If only his experience will remind him that the politicians don't own the issues, the people do.
August 28, 2008 — Now that the pieces of the Democratic presidential puzzle have been put together, the picture turns out looking like a Picasso portrait: No part of the face is in the right place....
Will the campaign emerging out of Denver be able to overcome the sense that somehow the arrangement is askew? Unless the Democrats, like a good art teacher, can reveal the beauty and the genius of their Picasso portrait by election day, people may end up voting for the devil they think they know.
September 4, 2008 — As Gustav aimed at the Gulf Coast, a third hurricane arrived from exactly the opposite direction — Alaska — and in exactly the opposite form — not a storm with human qualities but a human with storm qualities....
Palin may not finally draw very many disgruntled but issue- oriented Hillary women, but she's got even them thinking twice. Those she will draw are the non-ideological independents and undecideds, female and male, old and young, people who vote from the gut, admiring the veteran McCain yet looking for freshness, youth, and that certain feminine quality to balance him out — yin and yang.
September 17, 2008 — It was change-change-change, and we were so hungry for it we didn't bother to ask what it was exactly, we were just enamored of the very idea of it. A bold, fearless plan to redirect the country would have forced voters to make a choice for or against a real change. But the issues weren't the issue anymore.... And if you don't stand on substance, voters start thinking subliminally. A lot of White people who claim they aren't racist will turn away from him because he's Black.
October 2, 2008 — What we may see tonight [in the Biden- Palin debate] is not a political contest but a psychodrama, a playing out of various meanings of power and weakness.
October 9, 2008 — Barack Obama, who at an earlier stage of the campaign was giving many Democrats "buyer's remorse" by appearing distant and hesitant when off of his fiery stump, has turned decisive and forceful — "presidential" — in recent weeks. John McCain, by contrast, has betrayed a disconcerting dithering behind his hero's mask....
No candidate, no party will fulfill all your wishes; they either are too paralyzed by the polls or don't know what to think themselves.
But develop your wish-list anyway, and go with your gut about those personae. Then hold your nose and vote.
Showing posts with label presidential election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidential election. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
A PRIVATE ACT
October 30, 2008
Voting in America, while a public duty, is an intensely private act. It is something akin to how the psychologist William James defined religion: "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude." When you enter the polling booth and draw the curtain, you are utterly alone.
It was not always so. In an eye-opening article in The New Yorker of October 13, Jill Lepore describes the evolution of voting procedures in the United States, from manifestly public expressions of preference by voice vote or by counting heads in a candidate's corner of the polling place — much like caucus states conduct their party elections to this day — to the secret ballot, first devised in Australia in 1856, which only became the universal norm for general elections in this country at the end of the nineteenth century. The "Australian ballot," as it was called, generated much debate at the time, both here and abroad. When Britain was considering the measure in the 1860's, the political philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that voting privately would undermine individual accountability; would you want your legislators voting on bills anonymously instead of by roll-call? "Only if a man votes ‘under the eye and criticism of the public,'" Lepore writes, quoting Mill, "will he put public interest above his own." Mill's critics contended that legislatures are qualitatively different from electorates because their members share equal power. In a general election, Lepore summarizes, "the powerless will always be prevailed upon by the powerful; only secrecy can protect them from bribery and bullying." The critics prevailed; Britain went to the secret ballot in 1872.
In at least one respect, Mill was right. Without having to stand up and be counted, voters can be most capricious; behind the curtain, anything can happen. This is why pre-election polling is so often an unreliable predictor. Put on the spot over the telephone, people will say the first thing that comes to mind, or what they think the pollster wants to hear — or they'll just hang up. In the booth, they are left with their own decision, in their own solitude.
In this election especially, there may be many more undecideds than the surveys show. They will arrive at the polling place beset by "feelings, acts, and experiences" stored up in their brains over two years-plus of constant campaigning, now compressed into a few anxious seconds. They will process all accumulated data partly rationally, partly intuitively, partly emotionally, in the stream of their consciousness:
Republican, Vietnam hero, experienced, creative, maverick, spontaneous, impetuous, old, disabled, sloganeering, "my friends," White; anti-abortion, Keaton Five, surge-is-working, hundred years in Iraq, gas-tax holiday, Bush, Country First, Joe the Plumber, change, Cindy and the seven homes, "that one," socialized medicine, suspend campaign to solve fiscal crisis, flip-flop, trickle-down, Reagan...
Democrat, Black, youthful, determined, quick of mind, inexperienced, opportunistic, demagogue, Hillary-spoiler, community organizer, Leroy Brown, Jeremiah Wright, Weatherman Bomber, White mother, Hussein, Oprah, Teddy, Caroline, "thatone," Black; yes-we-can, change, pro-abortion rights, no preconditions, failed Bush policy, timetable for withdrawal, lipstick on a pig, mortgage relief, public works projects, solar and wind, health-care gradualist, Black...
Republican, hockey mom, you-betcha, young and perky, terminally fluffy, son in Iraq, son with Down syndrome, campaign- funded clothes-horse, apostate Catholic, witch-hunting church, Tina Feye; anti-abortion, drill-baby-drill, Putin rearing head over Alaska, less Rove/more rogue, 3 a.m. phone call, Katie Couric, White...
Democrat, Scranton and Wilmington, Amtrak commuter, Amtrak non-supporter, widower, avuncular, loose-lipped, Catholic; pro- abortion rights, foreign-policy wonk, 35-year Washington insider, partition Iraq, White.
Take deep breath. Push lever, touch screen, fill in bubble. Pull back curtain. Go home.
Sigh in relief. Tell no one. Buyer's remorse.
Voting in America, while a public duty, is an intensely private act. It is something akin to how the psychologist William James defined religion: "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude." When you enter the polling booth and draw the curtain, you are utterly alone.
It was not always so. In an eye-opening article in The New Yorker of October 13, Jill Lepore describes the evolution of voting procedures in the United States, from manifestly public expressions of preference by voice vote or by counting heads in a candidate's corner of the polling place — much like caucus states conduct their party elections to this day — to the secret ballot, first devised in Australia in 1856, which only became the universal norm for general elections in this country at the end of the nineteenth century. The "Australian ballot," as it was called, generated much debate at the time, both here and abroad. When Britain was considering the measure in the 1860's, the political philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that voting privately would undermine individual accountability; would you want your legislators voting on bills anonymously instead of by roll-call? "Only if a man votes ‘under the eye and criticism of the public,'" Lepore writes, quoting Mill, "will he put public interest above his own." Mill's critics contended that legislatures are qualitatively different from electorates because their members share equal power. In a general election, Lepore summarizes, "the powerless will always be prevailed upon by the powerful; only secrecy can protect them from bribery and bullying." The critics prevailed; Britain went to the secret ballot in 1872.
In at least one respect, Mill was right. Without having to stand up and be counted, voters can be most capricious; behind the curtain, anything can happen. This is why pre-election polling is so often an unreliable predictor. Put on the spot over the telephone, people will say the first thing that comes to mind, or what they think the pollster wants to hear — or they'll just hang up. In the booth, they are left with their own decision, in their own solitude.
In this election especially, there may be many more undecideds than the surveys show. They will arrive at the polling place beset by "feelings, acts, and experiences" stored up in their brains over two years-plus of constant campaigning, now compressed into a few anxious seconds. They will process all accumulated data partly rationally, partly intuitively, partly emotionally, in the stream of their consciousness:
Republican, Vietnam hero, experienced, creative, maverick, spontaneous, impetuous, old, disabled, sloganeering, "my friends," White; anti-abortion, Keaton Five, surge-is-working, hundred years in Iraq, gas-tax holiday, Bush, Country First, Joe the Plumber, change, Cindy and the seven homes, "that one," socialized medicine, suspend campaign to solve fiscal crisis, flip-flop, trickle-down, Reagan...
Democrat, Black, youthful, determined, quick of mind, inexperienced, opportunistic, demagogue, Hillary-spoiler, community organizer, Leroy Brown, Jeremiah Wright, Weatherman Bomber, White mother, Hussein, Oprah, Teddy, Caroline, "thatone," Black; yes-we-can, change, pro-abortion rights, no preconditions, failed Bush policy, timetable for withdrawal, lipstick on a pig, mortgage relief, public works projects, solar and wind, health-care gradualist, Black...
Republican, hockey mom, you-betcha, young and perky, terminally fluffy, son in Iraq, son with Down syndrome, campaign- funded clothes-horse, apostate Catholic, witch-hunting church, Tina Feye; anti-abortion, drill-baby-drill, Putin rearing head over Alaska, less Rove/more rogue, 3 a.m. phone call, Katie Couric, White...
Democrat, Scranton and Wilmington, Amtrak commuter, Amtrak non-supporter, widower, avuncular, loose-lipped, Catholic; pro- abortion rights, foreign-policy wonk, 35-year Washington insider, partition Iraq, White.
Take deep breath. Push lever, touch screen, fill in bubble. Pull back curtain. Go home.
Sigh in relief. Tell no one. Buyer's remorse.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
THE STRAIGHT-THOUGHT EXPRESS
October 9, 2008
The presidential campaigns have been going on for so long that not only do many of us not remember when they started, we can’t imagine that they’ll ever end.
But end they will. In less than a month, the airwaves and cablewaves will take on the eerie stillness of an armistice, when the boom of cannon cease and the song of birds is heard again, when the relentless roar of the candidates’ commercials abruptly stops and the soothing tones of ads for curing erectile dysfunction and osteoporosis take their place.
Historians of polling say that most undecided voters solidify their choices about a month before an election. The candidates have been in our homes, endlessly jabbering to us through our TV sets, for so many years that they are like neighbors, and like neighbors, we size them up by gut: Can we trust them? Can we rely on them? Are we comfortable with them? Will we invite them over for dinner or keep them at arm’s length?
In the closing days of a campaign, it’s as much about personalities as about policies. In Latin, a persona was the mask that actors wore in Greek and Roman plays to represent their characters. Per-sona literally means "sound-through." What we see on our TV screens are the candidates’ masks, their personae; somehow we have to judge what’s behind them.
We’ve been seeing some interesting examples of personae of late. Barack Obama, who at an earlier stage of the campaign was giving many Democrats "buyer’s remorse" by appearing distant and hesitant when off of his fiery stump, has turned decisive and forceful — "presidential" — in recent weeks. John McCain, by contrast, has betrayed a disconcerting dithering behind his hero’s mask. Most astonishingly, Sarah Palin’s persona retrieved its scrappy, homey form at the debate with Joe Biden, not only redeeming her candidacy but making some people think it’s now a Palin/McCain ticket instead of the other way around.
What’s driven people to scrutinize personae over policies at this time more than ever is the global financial meltdown. The situation of the economy is so contorted and confusing that in the short run the voter has to choose a president based on perceived "leadership qualities" rather than solid proposals, of which there are few. It was much the same in the 1932 contest between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, in times of similar economic peril and uncertainty: Nobody was quite sure what they were voting for, but everybody was sure whom they were voting for. Roosevelt powerfully supplied the what just days after his inauguration; we can only hope against hope for something of the same.
No matter how they feel about the candidates’ personae, voters had better use that now-legendary kitchen table of theirs to lay out the range of issues and think them through on their own — call it the "Straight-Thought Express." Neither candidate nor their parties have presented the bold plans of action that are desperately needed — the Democrats are typically timid and the Republicans are simply confused — but we can develop our own wish-lists and vote for the candidate and the party that seem to offer the best chance of realizing them, however haltingly.
On the economy: What do you now believe about regulation and deregulation? How free should a free market be? How much social security (in lower case) should every person be guaranteed? Should basic saving and first-home borrowing be simple, secure, and available to all, or should people be forced to make market decisions they can’t possibly understand?
On health care: Ditto. Should everyone have equal access to a simple, universal system, or should they have to wade through endless and often deceptive "options" fabricated by insurance middlemen?
On energy and transportation: Should the government enact a comprehensive policy that favors renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, and rail transportation over highways and air?
On taxes: Should taxes be directly linked to expenditures, instead of cutting the first while increasing the second? Would you be willing to bear higher taxes for health care and transportation, for example, rather than being "taxed" by the insurance companies and oil conglomerates?
On the Supreme Court: Given that the future president will appoint several new justices, do you want a court that is ideologically lopsided, or one that has to deliberate to strike a balance in its decisions?
On foreign policy: Is Iraq a sovereign country or a vassal state? Is Afghanistan a quicksand for the U.S. as it was for the U.S.S.R.? Can Cuba best be liberated by free trade? Can the U.S. broker a just and even-handed resolution to the Israel/Palestine stalemate? Are establishing diplomatic relations, opening trade, and presenting a non-belligerent stance actually the best ways to destabilize the dictators in Iran and North Korea?
That’s hardly the end to the questions, either. You may have to add another leaf to your table.
No candidate, no party will fulfill all your wishes; they either are too paralyzed by the polls or don’t know what to think themselves.
But develop your wish-list anyway, and go with your gut about those personae. Then hold your nose and vote.
The presidential campaigns have been going on for so long that not only do many of us not remember when they started, we can’t imagine that they’ll ever end.
But end they will. In less than a month, the airwaves and cablewaves will take on the eerie stillness of an armistice, when the boom of cannon cease and the song of birds is heard again, when the relentless roar of the candidates’ commercials abruptly stops and the soothing tones of ads for curing erectile dysfunction and osteoporosis take their place.
Historians of polling say that most undecided voters solidify their choices about a month before an election. The candidates have been in our homes, endlessly jabbering to us through our TV sets, for so many years that they are like neighbors, and like neighbors, we size them up by gut: Can we trust them? Can we rely on them? Are we comfortable with them? Will we invite them over for dinner or keep them at arm’s length?
In the closing days of a campaign, it’s as much about personalities as about policies. In Latin, a persona was the mask that actors wore in Greek and Roman plays to represent their characters. Per-sona literally means "sound-through." What we see on our TV screens are the candidates’ masks, their personae; somehow we have to judge what’s behind them.
We’ve been seeing some interesting examples of personae of late. Barack Obama, who at an earlier stage of the campaign was giving many Democrats "buyer’s remorse" by appearing distant and hesitant when off of his fiery stump, has turned decisive and forceful — "presidential" — in recent weeks. John McCain, by contrast, has betrayed a disconcerting dithering behind his hero’s mask. Most astonishingly, Sarah Palin’s persona retrieved its scrappy, homey form at the debate with Joe Biden, not only redeeming her candidacy but making some people think it’s now a Palin/McCain ticket instead of the other way around.
What’s driven people to scrutinize personae over policies at this time more than ever is the global financial meltdown. The situation of the economy is so contorted and confusing that in the short run the voter has to choose a president based on perceived "leadership qualities" rather than solid proposals, of which there are few. It was much the same in the 1932 contest between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, in times of similar economic peril and uncertainty: Nobody was quite sure what they were voting for, but everybody was sure whom they were voting for. Roosevelt powerfully supplied the what just days after his inauguration; we can only hope against hope for something of the same.
No matter how they feel about the candidates’ personae, voters had better use that now-legendary kitchen table of theirs to lay out the range of issues and think them through on their own — call it the "Straight-Thought Express." Neither candidate nor their parties have presented the bold plans of action that are desperately needed — the Democrats are typically timid and the Republicans are simply confused — but we can develop our own wish-lists and vote for the candidate and the party that seem to offer the best chance of realizing them, however haltingly.
On the economy: What do you now believe about regulation and deregulation? How free should a free market be? How much social security (in lower case) should every person be guaranteed? Should basic saving and first-home borrowing be simple, secure, and available to all, or should people be forced to make market decisions they can’t possibly understand?
On health care: Ditto. Should everyone have equal access to a simple, universal system, or should they have to wade through endless and often deceptive "options" fabricated by insurance middlemen?
On energy and transportation: Should the government enact a comprehensive policy that favors renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, and rail transportation over highways and air?
On taxes: Should taxes be directly linked to expenditures, instead of cutting the first while increasing the second? Would you be willing to bear higher taxes for health care and transportation, for example, rather than being "taxed" by the insurance companies and oil conglomerates?
On the Supreme Court: Given that the future president will appoint several new justices, do you want a court that is ideologically lopsided, or one that has to deliberate to strike a balance in its decisions?
On foreign policy: Is Iraq a sovereign country or a vassal state? Is Afghanistan a quicksand for the U.S. as it was for the U.S.S.R.? Can Cuba best be liberated by free trade? Can the U.S. broker a just and even-handed resolution to the Israel/Palestine stalemate? Are establishing diplomatic relations, opening trade, and presenting a non-belligerent stance actually the best ways to destabilize the dictators in Iran and North Korea?
That’s hardly the end to the questions, either. You may have to add another leaf to your table.
No candidate, no party will fulfill all your wishes; they either are too paralyzed by the polls or don’t know what to think themselves.
But develop your wish-list anyway, and go with your gut about those personae. Then hold your nose and vote.
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