Issues, People, Character
I used to try to focus almost exclusively on issues, and have disdain for those who didn't. But I think I may have done a 180 on that. I mean, look: I read a good bit about politics and policy, but, frankly, I don't really understand very much of it. I'm fairly certain that I don't have the right kind of mind for it, and I'm also pretty sure that I don't have the requisite background knowledge. I come out feeling like I've traded in one set of ill-informed prejudices for another. So, for awhile I just backed away from politics entirely, concluding that it was irresponsible of me to participate. Then I thought about how ill-informed the average voter is...
One thing I think that the Reagan folks got right was this: character matters. Now, I wasn't wild about Reagan's character, but that's a separate point. Currently, I'm laboring under the following conjecture: that, within reason, it's better to have a president with a good character, reliable instincts and sound judgment than it is to have one who's policy commitments are better. Now, of course, they can't have terrible policies, but for my purposes I can ignore extreme cases.As far as I'm concerned, most of the Democratic candidates are roughly in the ballpark policy-wise: I could probably live with any of them. Since I won't be voting for a Republican this time pretty much no matter what, I'm not attending to them very much.
But if, then, I'm left to pick a candidate on the basis of judgment...that means this is going to be a labor-intensive task. I don't know the details about that many decisions any of them has made. Obama and Kucinich look best, of course, on the prominent issue of voting on the invasion...an important case, but just one case.
As for character and general intellectual/moral orientation...there I'm currently strongly inclined toward Obama. And I'm not sure how much one can reason about such things. He just resonates with me. I hear him talk, and I think here is a good man, an intelligent man, an honest and sensible man. He strikes me as a real person, a person of the kind I'm used to dealing with, whereas most politicians strike me as...Martians or something. Robots programmed to emit bullshit. My attraction to Obama is about as strong as my natural revulsion at Bush--and that's saying something.
I often wonder to what extent even policy wonks are driven by this sort of thing. There's this common view that deciding on such grounds is less rational than deciding on policy grounds, but I'm just not sure about that any more. I may be a bad judge of policy, but I'm a pretty good judge of people. Of course, everybody thinks that, even people who are terrible at it... And of course one worries that going down this road makes electoral politics into nothing more than a popularity contest. So don't take any of these reflections too seriously.
I used to try to focus almost exclusively on issues, and have disdain for those who didn't. But I think I may have done a 180 on that. I mean, look: I read a good bit about politics and policy, but, frankly, I don't really understand very much of it. I'm fairly certain that I don't have the right kind of mind for it, and I'm also pretty sure that I don't have the requisite background knowledge. I come out feeling like I've traded in one set of ill-informed prejudices for another. So, for awhile I just backed away from politics entirely, concluding that it was irresponsible of me to participate. Then I thought about how ill-informed the average voter is...
One thing I think that the Reagan folks got right was this: character matters. Now, I wasn't wild about Reagan's character, but that's a separate point. Currently, I'm laboring under the following conjecture: that, within reason, it's better to have a president with a good character, reliable instincts and sound judgment than it is to have one who's policy commitments are better. Now, of course, they can't have terrible policies, but for my purposes I can ignore extreme cases.As far as I'm concerned, most of the Democratic candidates are roughly in the ballpark policy-wise: I could probably live with any of them. Since I won't be voting for a Republican this time pretty much no matter what, I'm not attending to them very much.
But if, then, I'm left to pick a candidate on the basis of judgment...that means this is going to be a labor-intensive task. I don't know the details about that many decisions any of them has made. Obama and Kucinich look best, of course, on the prominent issue of voting on the invasion...an important case, but just one case.
As for character and general intellectual/moral orientation...there I'm currently strongly inclined toward Obama. And I'm not sure how much one can reason about such things. He just resonates with me. I hear him talk, and I think here is a good man, an intelligent man, an honest and sensible man. He strikes me as a real person, a person of the kind I'm used to dealing with, whereas most politicians strike me as...Martians or something. Robots programmed to emit bullshit. My attraction to Obama is about as strong as my natural revulsion at Bush--and that's saying something.
I often wonder to what extent even policy wonks are driven by this sort of thing. There's this common view that deciding on such grounds is less rational than deciding on policy grounds, but I'm just not sure about that any more. I may be a bad judge of policy, but I'm a pretty good judge of people. Of course, everybody thinks that, even people who are terrible at it... And of course one worries that going down this road makes electoral politics into nothing more than a popularity contest. So don't take any of these reflections too seriously.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:25 AM
2 Comments:
About that character thing... To quote something that I read somewhere recently:
"A study indicates that many people trust gossip more than facts. In a rotating money game, participants were stingy with partners who had been called stingy by a third party, and generous with partners who had been called generous by a third party, even when 1) the participant saw extensive evidence that the "stingy" partner had actually behaved generously (and that the "generous" partner was stingy) and 2) participants were told that the gossip was not based on evidence beyond what they had seen."
'Character' is extremely hard to judge on what you read in the paper.
However, if there are hard stories about sombody's companies getting bailed out by sugar daddies, and somebody getting in drunken fights with his father at age 30, you can probably take the bad character stories to the bank.
-mac
Prudence is the highest virtue in a statesman, and it's entirely proper to vote for the most statesmanlike candidate. [Analogous to character, but not synonymous. A combination of character, intelligence, and temperament, I'd say.]
In fact, on the issues, I'm probably closest to Newt Gingrich, and so are many other conservatives.
But Newt proved himself quite lacking in the prudence/statesmanship department, and so, enjoys little support as a candidate.
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