Policymaking vs. Personality
Ross writes:
[There are] limits [to] what Steve Sailer likes to call Obama’s “I have understood you” appeal to people with whom he disagrees. It’s an approach to politics that’s sustainable only up till the moment when platitudes have to give way to actual policymaking, and as such it has the capacity to breed even greater disillusionment with government (by raising expectations and then dashing them) than the up-front partisanship it seeks to vanquish.
Matt Yglesias responds:
That sounds to me like the kind of thing a liberal would have said before getting pummeled by Ronald Reagan. Realistically, the number of people who have any awareness of “actual policymaking” is pretty tiny and I think most people mostly want to stay in the dark. People want to put in office people who they feel understand them and then forget about it.
I am strongly inclined toward Yglesias’ position, but I’m not sure it really means that Ross is wrong. In the main, Yglesias is probably right. The majority of voters are not terribly concerned with the details of policy (resulting in endless frustration for the small minority of us who pay some attention to it). But amongst the political elite, the geeks and the wonks and the Beltway bruisers, there exists a strain of voter who often confuses his or her personal preference for a politician as a person with his or her preference for a politicians as a policymaker. The two are, quite obviously, not the same thing. So I think Ross’ point stands that quite a few of Obama’s supporters who are concerned with policy details yet have glommed onto him largely due to his personality will be disappointed, or at least somewhat frustrated. Amongst the majority of voters, it may be that Obama’s policies never affect their opinion of him. But many of his most vocal public supporters do worry about specific policies, and, as Ross points out, inspiration works tremendously well in speeches and on the campaign trail, but sooner or later, any successful politician will have to start signing (or refusing to sign) legislation — and for a lot of people, that will more or less inevitably be a letdown.
many of his most vocal public supporters do worry about specific policies, and, as Ross points out, inspiration works tremendously well in speeches and on the campaign trail, but sooner or later, any successful politician will have to start signing (or refusing to sign) legislation — and for a lot of people, that will more or less inevitably be a letdown.
Okay, but how does Obama differ from McCain or Clinton in this sense at all? I don’t see any evidence that Obama has less developed policy positions than those two, or lacks a policy apparatus. In fact, I think his policy positions are much more developed and clear than those of McCain. It’s like people are caught in this binary— he’s inspiring, so therefore he must lack policy. But I don’t think the evidence supports that at all.
— Freddie · Apr 25, 10:03 PM · #
I agree that Douthat and Yglesias are talking about two different sets of voters. I think, though, that there’s a third set comprising voters who are under no illusions about Obama’s likely policy decisions but who have decided that they want to use their vote to signal their preference for his political style rather than for a set of specific policies, in the hopes of encouraging current and future politicians to adopt a similar style. The idea that a candidate can express some openmindedness towards arguments from the “other side” and occasionally market himself to the educated & informed minority instead of pandering exclusively to the ignorant masses and yet still have a good shot at the presidency is nothing short of miraculous.
This group too may encounter some buyer’s remorse when the policy decisions are made, but if so, it won’t be because they “confused personality and policy,” but because they will have discovered that the policy stuff actually mattered to them more than they thought it would.
— kenB · Apr 26, 04:26 AM · #
Freddie,
I basically agree with you. I didn’t mean to imply that Obama was weak or shallow on policy. At least as compared to McCain, he’s not. But some of Obama’s most public supporters 1) care a lot about policy and 2) support him for personality reasons despite plenty of policy reasons not to. This disconnect will make it difficult for them to maintain this support, I think, once he actually starts actually making policy.
— Peter Suderman · Apr 26, 03:34 PM · #
“But some of Obama’s most public supporters 1) care a lot about policy and 2) support him for personality reasons despite plenty of policy reasons not to.”
This is really no answer to Freddie’s point. Some (lots!) of McCain’s most public supporters (1) care a lot about policy and (2) support him for partisan/personal reasons despite plenty of policy reasons not to.
The only difference with McCain is that many (though I suspect not nearly all) of these policy disagreements with his supporters have already found expression during his senate career, and McCain’s response has tended to be deeply alienating and disrespectful. Obama, too, will inevitably alienate some of his current supporters, and though he promises to do so in a somewhat more civil manner, it’s undoubtedly true that he would—as president—piss some people off.
Every politician, in fact, tends to piss his supporters off—to campaign in poetry and govern in prose. All politicians have election day honeymoons, and those honeymoons all end. To single Obama out for possessing this common trait is bizarre, and it requires more justification than you’ve provided.
— southpaw · Apr 26, 10:28 PM · #