West Wing Election Redux

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

Along with others, I’ve previously noted the similarities between Election 2008 and the fictional West Wing election between Matt Santos, the brown-skinned Democratic junior legislator and Arnie Vinick, the elderly, moderate Western Republican Senator.

Listening in on a blogger conference call with Senator McCain this afternoon, another parallel jumped up: his emphasis on nuclear power as a solution to our energy and environmental problems. This issue, of course, proved to be the death knell of Vinick’s campaign in the show due to an unfortunately timed accident.

The fictional Vinick and real McCain are right on the issue, I think, but the symmetry is amusing.

Tags | John McCain, James Joyner, Campaign 2008, Popular Culture

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Think Tanks and Groupthink

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

Megan McArdle has written a series of posts (here, here, and here) arguing that reports published by ideologically driven think tanks are necessarily biased, in that scholars are selected for conformity to the heterodoxy, funding is subject to continuing to agree with said worldview, and the gathering of so many like-minded people into a single building will necessarily yield groupthink. As such, she concludes, one may not adduce studies produced by said institutions as evidence.

(Full disclosure: I’m employed by a think tank, albeit a non-partisan one that would be difficult to characterize as “ideological” in any but the most expansive sense of the term.)

While I share most of Megan’s concerns, I think she carries them too far.

I, too, hesitate to link to studies by Heritage and Cato, not because I think they’re necessarily weak but because their brands create a barrier to discussion. It’s far more productive to cite government data or studies by more neutral groups, not because they’re necessarily better, but because they generate less ad hominem.

Still, on any issue worthy of public discussion, simply linking a publication and resting one’s case is unlikely to be of much value, anyway. Increasingly, we’re in a no-trust environment and even once exalted brands can’t carry the day on their own. Assertions that a report in the New England Journal of Medicine or the Harvard Law Review or the Quarterly Journal of Economics “proves” something will be greeted with mockery, not submission. One still has to make the argument in a compelling manner. The study merely provides facts and an outline for said argument.

Further, surely one can site a study from an institution typically thought of as being against your position? Indeed, for reasons Megan gives, an argument of the form “Even a report by the conservative Heritage Foundation concedes … ” can be quite powerful.

Tags | James Joyner, Education

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H.R. McMaster Leads New Crop of Generals

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

The third time is the charm for H.R. McMaster, who is the most recognizable name on the list of new one-star generals selected by a promotion board headed up by none other than David Petraeus.

An Army board headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus has selected several combat-tested counterinsurgency experts for promotion to the rank of brigadier general, sifting through more than 1,000 colonels to identify a handful of innovative leaders who will shape the future Army, according to current and former senior Army officers.

The choices suggest that the unusual decision to put the top U.S. officer in Iraq in charge of the promotions board has generated new thinking on the qualities of a successful Army officer — and also deepened Petraeus’s imprint on the Army. Petraeus, who spent nearly four of the past five years in Iraq and has seen many of the colonels in action there, faces confirmation hearings next week to take charge of Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Army Secretary Pete Geren asked Petraeus to head the board, which convened in late 2007, and instructed it to stress innovation in selecting a new generation of one-star generals, the officers said. Several of the colonels widely expected to appear on the resulting promotion list, which has not yet been released, are considered unconventional thinkers who were effective in the Iraq campaign, in many cases because they embraced a counterinsurgency doctrine that Petraeus helped craft, the officials said.

They include Special Forces Col. Ken Tovo, a veteran of multiple Iraq tours who recently led a Special Operations task force there; Col. H.R. McMaster, a senior Petraeus adviser known for leading a successful counterinsurgency effort in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar, and Col. Sean MacFarland, who created a network of patrol bases in Ramadi that helped curb violence in the capital of Anbar Province, according to the officers.

In an article published this year on the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, McMaster challenged what he called the military’s preoccupation in the 1990s with technology, to the neglect of the political and cultural dimensions of war. Military leaders must end the “self-delusion” that high-tech weapons and a “minimalist” commitment of forces can solve conflicts, he wrote.

The promotion list has attracted keen attention from younger Army officers who are weary from multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This sends a signal to the junior officers who are laboring in the trenches, literally, that the Army is trying to cast itself in a new mold,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., a defense consultant and former head of the Army War College. “The quickest way to change the Army is at the brigadier general level. That is the surest way to turn the ship, because those names are how those young officers intuit where the Army is going,” he said.

Why? Because, although Army promotions through lieutenant colonel have become almost automatic in these days of ridiculous OPSTEMPO, the math is stark: “the Army has 4,000 colonels and about 150 one-star generals.” Who gets selected to cross that chasm between field grade and flag officer sends a powerful message, indeed.

Via SWJ and Abu Muqawama

Tags | James Joyner, Military Affairs

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Clinton the Stronger Candidate?

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

Chris Cillizza examines Hillary Clinton’s claims that her demonstrated ability to appeal to white, working class voters makes her the better candidate in the Fall. Examining the state-by-state races, he figures only 14 states will truly be competitive.

A glance at these 14 states — and the polling to date in each — suggests that Clinton is clearly the stronger Democrat in three: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. That trio of states, which includes the two central battlegrounds in the 2000 and 2004 presidential contests, have 68 electoral votes between them.

Obama would seem to have a discernible edge over Clinton in six states: Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, Virginia and Washington. These states have a total of 57 electoral votes.

Neither Clinton nor Obama can make an air-tight case that she (or he) would be stronger against McCain in Maine (4 electoral votes), Michigan (17), Missouri (11), New Hampshire (4) and New Mexico (5).

Taken as a whole, Clinton’s argument that she is the stronger potential general election candidate against McCain is true — to a point. She is stronger — although not by much — if the playing field in 2008 is a mirror image of the battlegrounds of 2004 and 2000. Clinton, at the moment, is more strongly positioned to win in three states — Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio — that have decided the winner in the last two presidential contests.

One of Cillizza’s commenters actually looks at the numbers, as currently reported by RealClearPolitics, and breaks down the state-by-state numbers. The bottom line is in contrast with Cillizza’s guess:

Clinton advantage states: AR, FL, MO, NH, OH, PA, WV (94 total)

Obama advantage states: CO, IA, MN, NV, NM, NC, ND, OR, SC, VA, WA, WI (103 total)

Still, given that Clinton is more likely to win traditional large battleground states of Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania whereas Obama is looking to pick off a handful of traditional Republican states trending purple, I’d say Clinton has the slight advantage.

Cillizza concludes,

But that argument only holds if you believe two things: First, that the playing field will be essentially unchanged between 2000/2004 and 2008 and, second, that current polling is an accurate predictor of what things will look like in November.

He’s dubious of both those assumptions, as is Bernard Finel, who believes, Obama is “the better candidate and he’s likely strong enough to win. Her marginal superiority on the latter measure does not overcome his dramatic advantage in the former.”

The contrary view is expressed by Dodd Harris who, as noted previously, argued last night on OTB Radio that the Democrats will have buyers’ remorse this Fall, wishing they’d nominated Hillary Clinton rather than upstart Barack Obama. He’s of the belief that Obama’s tendency to commit gaffes on the campaign trail is likely to intensify, the his vague “hope” and “change” appeals will wear thin, and that his dismissal of all criticism as illegitimate and (via surrogates) racist will hurt him in November.

My view of Obama’s candidacy, from the beginning, has been that he started at the apex of his popularity and that it could only go down through prolonged exposure. I still believe that’s the case. He began as a tabula rasa onto whom people could project their fantasies of a candidate; he’s revealing himself to be a mere mortal.

Still, he’s ultimately the better candidate. While Obama has his problems, half the country starts out strongly disliking Clinton as a human being. Given that this sentiment has been hard won in sixteen years in the public eye, I’m confident that it will only be hardened by several more months of exposure. By contrast, even those who wouldn’t dream of voting for Obama rather like him.

The Democratic nominee has every advantage in this contest but it’s quite conceivable that John McCain could nonetheless win. He vastly outpolls the generic Republican ballot and he’s got a lot of strengths that will appeal to moderates.

Obviously, if the Democrats lose again, they’ll wish they’d nominated someone else. That’ll hardly be evidence, though, that Clinton would have done any better. I tend to agree with Finel here:

Clinton may have a marginally better chance to eke out a 270-268 victory. Obama undeniably has a much better chance to win with 350+ electoral votes.

Obama’s “hope” and “change” bubble could burst or he can continue to inspire. Clinton, by contrast, is more likely to win a nasty slugfest. The end result of that victory, though, would be another four years of partisan rancor at DEFCON 2. McCain and Obama each have the potential, at least, of ratcheting that down a couple notches.

Tags | Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, James Joyner, Campaign 2008

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Burma Air Drops

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

Barbara Stocking explains that simply dropping food into Burma is much harder than it sounds.

[A]ir drops are not the aid equivalent of smart bombs. Running a humanitarian effort from the skies, like running a purely airborne war, is fraught with problems.

For a start it requires excellent intelligence. Yet no one knows exactly where the worst affected areas are, or how many people are suffering in each place. We don’t know if people are on the move, or what diseases are starting to appear, or exactly what state their homes and infrastructure are in.

Without good intelligence it’s very hard to run an effective humanitarian operation - especially an airborne one. It would be only too easy to drop the food miles from the nearest village, or even in water or swamp. Food is perishable and leaving it outside for too long could ruin it. You can’t drop a well or a sanitation system from the sky without specialists to set it up. Communities could find themselves with aid completely inappropriate to their situation.

Of course, air drops would presumably be at least marginally better than standing by and doing nothing while waiting for the junta to allow us to help. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. That’s pretty much always the case when “Send in the military!” is proposed as a solution to some crisis.

True, we managed to overcome plenty of obstacles in a somewhat similar situation decades ago with the Berlin Airlift. But we were dealing with a rather smaller geographic area and had plenty of experienced people on the ground to deal with the sort of issues Stocking describes.

Via Andrew Sullivan

Tags | Natural Disasters, James Joyner

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Rove: Republicans Must Stand for Something

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

Karl Rove has an op-ed in today’s WSJ entitled, “The GOP Must Stand for Something.”

I followed the link to it from memeorandum mostly so as to make a “now he wants to stand for something” comment. After reading the piece, though, the thing that stands out is that it doesn’t tell us what the GOP should stand for. Or, indeed, talk about public policy in anything but the most tangential way, such as, “John McCain and Republicans will prevail only if they convince voters that there are profound consequences at stake in Iraq, and that more and better jobs will follow from the GOP’s approach of lowering taxes, opening trade, and ending earmarks and other pro-growth policies.” So, what’s important isn’t actually standing for something but, rather, drawing vague contrasts.

The string of defeats [in recent congressional elections] should cure Republicans of the habit of simply shouting “liberal! liberal! liberal!” in hopes of winning an election. They need to press a reform agenda full of sharp contrasts with the Democrats.

But, of course, Rove’s legacy is precisely the opposite of that. Indeed, the editorial advises a continuation of Rovism while denouncing it.

Tags | James Joyner, Campaign 2008, US Politics

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Sweetie-gate

James Joyner | Thursday, May 15, 2008

Barack Obama has a “bad habit” of addressing “all kinds of people” as “Sweetie” in casual conversation, although he’s trying to quit.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has apologized to WXYZ reporter Peggy Agar for calling her “sweetie” during a campaign stop Wednesday in Sterling Heights.

Obama apologized in a voicemail he left on Agar’s cell phone at 3:16 p.m:

“Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I’m calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn’t get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren’t the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.

“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next.”

Here’s a video of the incident:

My initial reaction to this is bemusement that a journalist would truly be offended by being referred to as “Sweetie.” I mean, sure, it’s gender specific and he wouldn’t call a male reporter “Sweetie,” but it’s not exactly disparaging. And maybe he calls the guys “Slick” or something.

A quick perusal of the chickosphere, though, leads me to believe this is a bigger deal than that. BDBlue snarks:

Yeah, this guy is going to wear really well for another six months. Let’s see, he’s insulted white working class voters, lectured pro-choice forces on about how they don’t understand the moral choices of abortion, and now for the second time, he’s called a woman he doesn’t know “sweetie.” I’d say not only is Obama not asking for my vote, he’s going out of his way to make sure he doesn’t get it.

She also guesses Obama wouldn’t call Mike Tyson, “Sweetie.” (Insert prison joke here.)

Ann Althouse wonders if he’ll address Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in that manner. While it would be rather amusing, I’m guessing she’s right as to the implied answer of her rhetorical question.

Kate Harding, who Obama probably would call “Sweetie” if he weren’t giving that habit up, is likewise unimpressed, entitling her post “Tell Me He Did Not Really Say This.” Sorry, Sweetie, he did.

Many dudes are weighing in on this one, too. Matt Bastard (which I’m guessing is a pseudonym) appears to have a degree in Women’s Studies.

Jesus tapdancing Christ. You wanna know how to better help make the case that you deserve the support of women? Step 1: DON’T BE A SEXIST ASSHAT.

Look, intent is irrelevant–habitually using reductive terms like “sweetie’ is both disrespectful and indicative that Obama may have a bigger problem with women than simply not getting their votes, regardless of whether his actions are conscious or otherwise. Not to say that this sort of thing is unique (gee, a man says something misogynistic and dismissive to a woman–film at 11!), nor is it definitive proof that Obama actively perpetuates misogyny (does anyone seriously think that Geraldine Ferraro burns crosses in her free time?)

AllahPundit thinks Obama’s main mistake was “dropp[ing] this on the one member of the media who wouldn’t coo and squeal like an infant at being addressed by him this way.” He incorrectly predicts that the Left will ignore Obama’s comments, even though they’d be all over John McCain if he’d done this.

Robert Farley observes that he couldn’t get away with doing this as a teacher.

When I say that I would face sanction for calling a woman “sweetie” in class, I’m dead serious; even if the woman weren’t offended, it would still be inappropriate and reflect a poor classroom environment. This isn’t dread “political correctness”. “Sweetie” is belittling in a way that “buddy” really isn’t, and it really shouldn’t be used in any kind of professional setting, except perhaps between those who are exceptionally familiar.

Jules Crittenden ain’t buying it but nonetheless thinks turnabout is fair play.

[W]hen you think about it, if everyone else is getting whacked for being racist on Obama no matter what they say, he might as well just take the sexist hit like a man.

Of course, the phrase “like a man” is considered sexist, too. Although maybe Jules is thinking of the ironic song of that name by Confederate Railroad. Or just being sarcastic. Who knows these days?

Frank James tries to figure Obama’s angle.

Was it an attempt by the Democratic presidential candidate to show his affinity for blue-collar folks by attempting to sound like a waitress at a diner?

In the same vein, was he trying for a little machismo in front of the male workers at a Sterling, Michigan auto manufacturing plant he visited today?

Needless to say, a lot of women and even some men aren’t going to like it. Some will interpret it as Obama being dismissive to the point of being somewhat sexist.

Apparently.

On yesterday’s installment of OTB Radio, Dodd Harris argued that the Democrats may well have buyers’ remorse at the end of this process, wishing they’d nominated Hillary Clinton instead. Why? Incidents like this. For all Obama’s brains, charm, and charisma, he’s still a rookie on the national stage. As he continues to wear down from the longest, most grueling presidential campaign in American history, we’re likely to see more of this.

I continue to wonder whether any of this will matter in the end, though. The GOP brand is in its worst shape since Watergate and John McCain isn’t exactly Ronald Reagan. Then again, it’s increasingly clear that Obama isn’t exactly Jack Kennedy, either.

___________

A tangential aside: Almost every account of this I’ve seen has it as “sweetie” rather than “Sweetie.” But isn’t Obama using it as a nickname rather than a descriptive? He’s not saying, “You sure are a sweetie” but rather using “Sweetie” as a substitute for a proper noun. Shouldn’t it therefore be rendered in the upper case?

Tags | Barack Obama, Gender Issues, James Joyner, Campaign 2008

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Broder and Kornheiser take WaPo Buyouts

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Washington Post has offered another round of buyouts to its staff and two of their biggest names, David Broder and Tony Kornheiser, have opted for the cash.

In Broder’s case, it appears to be mostly an accounting move, as he’ll still be doing what he does now, just on a contract basis.

The column you have been running will not change at all, and you will continue to receive it from The Washington Post Writers Group. I will continue to write from the same office in the Post newsroom and will continue to travel the country to wherever politics is happening. You will find me at the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer and on the campaign trail this fall, just as I have been this winter and spring.

As of Jan. 1, I will become a contract employee of The Washington Post Company. For the last two years, the bulk of my reporting has gone into the column, rather than the news pages of the Post. This change will allow me to focus entirely on the column, while freeing up the Post to use its budget for other news-section salaries and expenses.

Kornheiser, it appears, will be gone. He made the announcement on his radio show:

“All I ever wanted to be was a newspaper writer,” he said, which is likely not something that anyone under the age of 30 will ever say again. “This other stuff is great, but I don’t care about it,” he continued. “In my mind that’s what it says on the headstone, it says ‘newspaper guy.’ “

He’s been joking about the possibility on PTI for weeks now, so no real surprise. And, really, while he was a terrific writer in his day, he’s been phoning it in for quite some time. He’s stretched amazingly thin, with numerous TV and radio gigs, and just doesn’t do reporting anymore.

One wonders what other big names will be on the list? The buyout offer ends today. Executive editor Len Downie and ace military correspondent Thomas Ricks are widely rumored to be taking the Post up on it, too.

White House correspondent Peter Baker just jumped ship, too, although for reasons apparently unrelated to the buyout.

Tags | James Joyner, Media

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Public Transit Realities

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Matt Yglesias reviews Sim City 4 and laments the fact that “the game is curiously optimistic about middle class people’s willingness to ride a bus to a subway station then take a subway then get on another bus and take that to work. Maybe when gas costs $20 a gallon, but in the real world I think people who aren’t in desperate financial straits are only going to use transit if it’s reasonably convenient.”

Damn straight. And that’s as it should be.

There are plenty of reasons to desire as a society that more people use mass transit. But we shouldn’t expect that this will happen out of some sense of altruism. Rather, we should get about the business of figuring out how to make it reasonably desirable, preferably directly rather than by penalizing driving. My instinct is that, aside from people living in a handful of metropolitan areas, it’s just not feasible. But that would still cover a whole lot more people than it does now.

The DC Metro rail system is reasonably clean and safe and I’d use it a lot more than I do now if 1) there were a stop within walking distance of my house, 2) trains ran with sufficient frequency, 3) I were able to get to my destination with reasonable speed and undue fuss. And, yes, I realize goals 1 and 3 are difficult to realize given the existence of non-me ridership.

The generally touted quick fix is some sort of rapid transit bus system which has all manner of advantages over rail. Unfortunately, for reasons that I don’t at all understand, bus systems almost immediately degenerate into lowest common denominator experiences. The DC Metro bus system, certainly, is a relative nightmare as compared to MetroRail.

Tags | James Joyner, Economics and Business

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Marines Winning Recruiting Wars

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Phil Carter, noting yet another month when the Marine Corps easily exceeded its recruiting goals, asks, “What is the Marine Corps doing that enables it to recruit so well during wartime — and can the other services do the same?”

My immediate answer was although that many of his commenters suggested: The Marine Corps brands itself as a fighting force and an awesome challenge for those who are up to being one of The Few, The Proud whereas the other services try to sell themselves as a place where you can learn valuable technical skills and money for college.

Sure, the Army does more before 9 am than most of us do all day but, thankfully, you’ll only have to do it for 3-4 years and then you can get out and go to college! Or put those awesome technical skills you’ve learned to use in a real job!

This is perfectly natural since, after all, the Army is massively larger and has a more varied mission set than the Marines. And it works well under normal circumstances. The Army generally manages to recruit plenty of high quality people and, whatever their attention upon signing up, plenty of them will decide that it’s a pretty good way to earn a living and re-up. But, when there’s a long, unpopular war on, that message rings hollow. The risk-reward calculus has changed dramatically and the Marine Corps has first mover advantage in recruiting those who sign up specifically because they want to face the challenges of combat.

Tags | James Joyner, Military Affairs

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Pin-Ups for Vets

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Chris Short, a blogger and Air Force NCO, put me in contact with Gina Elise, a model and aspiring actress best known in blog circles for the Pin-Ups for Vets project.

Inspired by her grandfather, a WWII vet, and news of wounded veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she has been making 1940s-style pinup photos of herself, dressed in various period costumes, into calendars and donating the proceeds of their sale to wounded vet hospitals in California. Specifically,

1. The calendars would be sold to raise funds for our hospitalized Veterans.

2. The calendars would be delivered as gifts to our ill and injured Veterans with messages of appreciation from the donors.

3. The calendars would be sent to our deployed troops to help boost morale and to let them know that Americans back home are thinking of them.

She’s also visiting wounded veterans across the country, dressed in said costumes, and handing out calendars. She’s touring Walter Reed and Bethesda over the next couple of days

It’s a little late to be buying a calendar, what with being a third of the way through the year, but presumably keeping track of the date would be no higher than third on your list of reasons to buy one of these. So, if you’re interesting in donating to a worthy cause, stop on by to purchase one for yourself or to donate one or several to wounded vets.

Tags | James Joyner, Military Affairs

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Landline Phones Going Extinct

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The landline telephone is going the way of the dinosaur, with many households doing away with them entirely and others using them only as FAX lines.

For nearly three in 10 households, don’t even bother trying to call them on a landline phone. They either only have a cell phone or seldom if ever take calls on their traditional phone. The federal figures, released Wednesday, showed that reliance on cells is continuing to rise at the expense of wired telephones. In the second half of last year, 16 percent of households only had cell phones, while 13 percent also had landlines but got all or nearly all their calls on their cells.

The number of wireless-only households grew by 2 percent since the first half of last year. Underscoring the rapid growth, in early 2004 just 5 percent had only cell phones. Households with cell phones who rarely if ever use their landlines grew by 1 percent since the first half of last year.

[…]

The survey also found that:

_Low-income people are likelier than the more affluent to have only cell phones.

_Those with only cells tend to be living with unrelated roommates, renters rather than homeowners, and Hispanics and blacks rather than whites.

_About a third of those under age 30 only have cell phones.

_Households with both cell and landline phones who rarely or never get calls on their landlines tend to be better educated and have higher incomes.

_About 2 percent of households reported having no telephones.

Since a cell phone is moving into the range of necessity rather than luxury, it makes sense that the poor are the first to give up their landlines and that the affluent would be most likely to hang onto them even while rarely using them. I suspect the other demographic information (age and race/ethnicity) merely restates those trends rather than providing separate information.

My wife and I are certainly in the own both but seldom use landline camp. We need a phone line for FAX transmissions and because we subscribe to fiberoptic Internet and television transmission (FiOS). We’d likely have it anyway, though, for peace of mind, 911 calls, and convenience.

Tags | James Joyner, Science & Technology

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China Earthquake Tragedy: People Don’t Really Matter

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Dave Schuler rounds up several press accounts of the massive earthquake damage in China, which has killed untold tens of thousands of people. Most notable is the number of schools that collapsed, dooming the children inside. He concludes,

It’s not for a lack of money: China is holding nearly a half trillion dollars worth of U. S. Treasury bonds. Why don’t they spend it? I think it’s because of a widespread belief in Chinese officialdom that the people don’t really matter.

Harsh but, I strongly suspect, exactly right.

Tags | China, Natural Disasters, James Joyner

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Third Party Candidates and Wasting Your Vote

James Joyner | Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Doug Mataconis rejects the idea that Bob Barr and other third party candidates should defer to the major party candidate most closely aligned with them ideologically.

If McCain loses, it won’t be Bob Barr’s fault anymore than Al Gore losing Florida in 2000 was Ralph Nader’s fault. It will be because he didn’t convince enough people to vote for him.

Well, “fault” is certainly the wrong word. These oddball candidates have a right to put themselves up for a vote, after all. But their vanity runs have foreseeable consequences and they have some responsibility for helping bring them about.

Splitting the vote results in skewed allocation of preferences. Presumably, most Nader voters would have preferred Gore to Bush in 2000 even though they preferred Nader to Gore. By voting for Nader, though, they got their distant third choice instead of their relatively close second choice. That’s not an ideal outcome, I’d say. (For them, anyway. Those of us who preferred Bush to Gore and Nader were quite pleased.)

Clearly, some sizable portion of the Republican base is less than thrilled with McCain as their nominee. Ironically, in this context, they face this choice partly because the social conservative vote was split among many candidates, most prominently Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, allowing the “moderate” McCain to win.

Regardless, however, only McCain and Obama are plausible winners in November. Barring tragic circumstances, one of them will be our next president. It’s therefore irrelevant if one would actually prefer some third alternative.

The only way it makes sense, then, to vote for a Bob Barr or Alan Keyes or Ralph Nader or some other person who will not be our next president is if you honestly have no preference whatsoever as to whether McCain or Obama prevails. Otherwise, even if it’s a 1 percent, hold-your-nose difference, you should vote for that guy.

(In reality of course, it’s a bit more complicated because most states will be uncompetitive in the Fall, with all its electors preordained for either the Democrat or the Republican. If you vote in one of those states, a “protest vote” is perfectly reasonable. And, of course, this all presumes that thinking your one vote will matter is rational, anyway.)