Why Don’t Campaigns Focus on the Right Issues
Josh Patashnik says I shouldn’t call the presidency a weird institution, the real issue is that we have weird campaigns:
In a more rational world, presidential campaigns would focus exclusively on questions of foreign affairs, judicial appointments, how to run the administrative state, and so forth. Voters would laugh off the stage any presidential candidate pledging to reform entitlement programs or labeling herself the “commander in chief of the economy,” and no campaign would bother putting out, say, detailed proposals for health care reform. It would be almost as ridiculous as a candidate running for the House of Representatives on a platform of overturning Roe v. Wade (though, come to think of it, I guess that happens a fair amount too).
I think this goes a little bit too far, but I basically agree. In particular, when it comes to domestic policy we spend way too much time discussing the ins-and-outs of candidates “plans” and too little time talking about how they envision interacting with congress. During the general election, it was extremely difficult to picture what a McCain administration would actually look like given that a Democratic Congress was essentially inevitable. And during the Democratic primary, debates between the candidates often seemed to presuppose that sheer force of will could get a health reform bill enacted. Meanwhile, I don’t recall the candidates in either the primary or the general having anything interesting to say about minor things like China.
That said, I’ll stand up for the view that the presidency is, objectively, a weird institution. There are lots of other prosperous democracies out there, and nobody else sets their institutions up like this.
19 Responses to “Why Don’t Campaigns Focus on the Right Issues”
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June 16th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
“That said, I’ll stand up for the view that the presidency is, objectively, a weird institution. There are lots of other prosperous democracies out there, and nobody else sets their institutions up like this.”
Yes, but they’re full of foreigners, and everyone knows you can’t trust people from other countries. I mean, most of them don’t even speak English–how could they possibly teach us anything about good governance?
June 16th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
“There are lots of other prosperous democracies out there, and nobody else sets their institutions up like this.”
Not to mention the fact that all of them were founded after ours were and none of them followed our example.
That said, it’s a PJ O’Reourke thing, you get the presidents, and governments, you deserve. If the populis only wanted to hear the candidates discuss cottage cheese, that’s what they would campaign on. Democrats would be large curd, Republicans small curd.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
The problem is that our president plays the double role of state figurehead (as in France & Israel) and executive (as in parliamentary democracies). Back in the Reagan era, I thought that we should establish a UK-style monarchy, with Reagan as our first (elected) king, greeting foreign dignitaries, cutting ribbons at new schools, etc., while putting all the real power in the hands of the house speaker (or some new elective office).
Admittedly, this idea wasn’t fully baked, but it would have helped us escape from the trap of having a pres. like Reagan who got elected mostly on likability rather than competence. Hell, I would have voted for him for figurehead king.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
OT: Montazeri has just weighed in.
Looks like a rush translation:
So, two out of four points directly equate Ahmedinejad’s crackdown policies with apostasy and/or its causes.
Nice.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Americans really want a king. Albeit one who will command every single thing they want. Americans are tired with democracy. In a way this is what the obsession with bipartisanship is all about. It isn’t thought of in that way, an authoritarian taking total charge and somehow making everything good, but that is what it amounts to.
The institutions are tired, especially the legislative ones. Corrupt and obsessed with trivia and make believe.
The financial crisis which is an economic crisis is actually deeper. It is a political crisis. Before there was economics there was the political economy. Politics cannot be separated from economics. Admittedly it is difficult to lay the blame for the Great Depression on a domestic US political failure but that is mostly because it is never looked at in that way. Also that crisis was a world crisis and there it is obvious how political institutions were in near of total failure around the globe.
Liberals and progressives still want to fight political fights in the arena of ideas but a much larger minority just want to fight. They want blood. Iranian or Korean, Iraqi or the presidents. They want final showdowns.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
@3 Foster Boondoggle: “Hell, I would have voted for him (Reagan) for figurehead king.”
I would have too. Reagan was ideally suited to the role, and basically performed it toward the end of his administration.
Ok…we have a weird institution in the presidency, a superfluous body, the senate, and a giant, unwieldy mass called the congress. State governments are broken, local governments are corrupt. What are we doing right?
June 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“That said, I’ll stand up for the view that the presidency is, objectively, a weird institution. There are lots of other prosperous democracies out there, and nobody else sets their institutions up like this.”
Matt, you’ve repeatedly expressed your desire for the U.S. government to look and act more like foreign governments. It would be nice if you could post something that indicates you’ve given ANY serious thought to the subject beyond knee-jerk preference.
Mike
June 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
MBunge–
Nice try, but Matt has written eloquently on the merits and deficiencies of many of our governmental institutions (Presidency, Vice Presidency, Senate) and critiqued them in detail. None of that constitutes “knee-jerk preference.”
June 16th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“Nice try, but Matt has written eloquently on the merits and deficiencies of many of our governmental institutions (Presidency, Vice Presidency, Senate) and critiqued them in detail. None of that constitutes “knee-jerk preference.””
Uh, “serious thought” about a subject includes a lot more than criticism. For instance, in terms of diversity, America is a more like India than it is most European countries. Has Matt ever written on what parliamentary experience in India might tell us about how such a system would work in the U.S.? Has he EVER addressed how his new and improved U.S. government would actually work when exposed to the political realities that exist in this country? Has he EVER analyzed what good things about our present system would not exist under his preferred set up?
I haven’t seen anything like that from him.
Mike
June 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
[...] Matt responds to Josh: I think this goes a little bit too far, but I basically agree. In particular, when it comes to domestic policy we spend way too much time discussing the ins-and-outs of candidates “plans” and too little time talking about how they envision interacting with congress. During the general election, it was extremely difficult to picture what a McCain administration would actually look like given that a Democratic Congress was essentially inevitable. And during the Democratic primary, debates between the candidates often seemed to presuppose that sheer force of will could get a health reform bill enacted. Meanwhile, I don’t recall the candidates in either the primary or the general having anything interesting to say about minor things like China. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
And during the Democratic primary, debates between the candidates often seemed to presuppose that sheer force of will could get a health reform bill enacted.
To the extent that this happened, it is indeed weird and irrational, but some focus on legislative priorities makes sense just fine. The president can’t write legislation but he or she can veto it, and has plenty of horses to trade if he wants to get something passed. And any health care plan (for example) will be implemented by government agencies that fall under the executive branch, so it’s up to the president whether Medicare for All is placed in the hands of another James Lee Witt or another Michael Brown.
As for foreign policy, which actually is the president’s domain, are you really complaining that you didn’t hear candidates talking about it? There was a lot of stupid and non-substantive talk about it, of course, but when John McCain is half the debate, what do you expect? No, I don’t remember anything about China specifically in the debates, but I don’t remember anything about China specifically in the news either at the time.
It seems like Matt and/or Josh Patashnik here is just being contrarian for the sake of having something to say. “The problem is the Senate.” “No, the problem is what presidents can do.” “No, the problem is what they promise to do, whether or not they actually can do it.” OK, granted, so…?
June 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Bunge–
Your follow up is more ignorant than your original post. Yes, India is a parliamentary system, America is much moire like most European nations than India in that we do not have a dozen and a half regional languages, strong cleavages in class structure, and regional political parties. There is no reason to believe any of these things would come to fruition in a parliamentary democracy, unless Rick Perry and the like mean what they say about secession (N.B, they don’t), in which case a neo-Dixiecrat-like party might arise.
India is already alike the United States in its elections in one crucial way: it’s elections are single-district, first-past-the-post affairs, so you’re also conflating the problem of electoral systems with the problem of governance systems.
The fact that you do not agree with Yglesias and prefer presidential, rather than parliamentary republicanism does not render MattY’s work knee-jerk. I think you’re projecting with you’re own love-it-or-leave rhetoric, which is highly visceral in nature. Such rhetoric is demagogic in the context of national security debates, but in the context of debating the attributes of various structure of government, it’s just plain stupid.
Better, more informed Yglesias bashers, please.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I’m not an expert on Latin American comparative politics, but given that much of Latin America uses American-style presidential systems, wouldn’t many of the same issues be present?
Also, the French system can be quite similar, in that if a president has an opposition-controlled parliament, he’s basically a figurehead on domestic policy no matter what he or she says they’ll do.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
There is actually a quality called “leadership”. The concept is much abused and too many people claim to exert way too much of it, but it does exist and is vital to organizational progress and change. It is missing from the post and, as far as I have seen, from the Obama Administration.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
damn good thing that crash mccain isn’t president right now.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
It seems we need something wierd like a President, to balance something wierd like our Senate. Think of slavery and Lincoln. Nothing would have changed without a very strong, stubborn President forcing change upon an institution that resists change. And think of post-Lincoln reconstruction. For decades we had no strong President who could disrupt the change-averse Senate or rabble House members.
For progressive change, our government is almost dysfunctional, until a rare president comes along.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
A few more structural things that ought to be changed:
*Lifetime Supreme Court appointments
*Equal representation in the Senate (should be population-based)
*Electoral College
*Filibuster–should be eliminated
June 16th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
It was Reagan making deals with Rostenkowski over poker and drinks that led to the last great instance of entitlement progress, the Social Security Reform Act of 1983, yes? Reagan might not have done the wonky prep work, but he sure was the guy doing the glad-handing. Perhaps in a less mobile era, where Congresspeople didn’t fly home every weekend, the President as titular head of the party had a much bigger impact on how legislative stuff got done in DC.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Image what will happen in the future as the U.S. becomes a one party state. The Presidential election will occur during the Democratic party primary season and will end sometime between Iowa and the SuperTuesday primary. Does anyone the candidates will be talking about dealing with Congress or foreign policy while they roam around Iowa or New Hampshire looking for votes.