February 6, 2008
Peddling dreams, hope and change but no beef
Voting, like jury service, is a civic duty. Unless you get a warm glow inside from doing your civic duty, it is not individually rational to vote, as the odds that your vote will matter for the outcome are just about zero. So voting should be mandatory, or at least turning up at the ballot box ought to be - the right to tick the box marked: ‘none of the above’ should also be guaranteed. Unfortunately, only a few enlightened countries like Belgium still have mandatory voting. The result of leaving it to individual discretion is too often a pathetic turnout rate. Twenty percent or less of the eligible population in some European Parliament elections. Fifty percent or less in US presidential elections. Such poor turnouts undermine the legitimacy of whoever gets elected and of the political system that puts up with it.
So I will vote, or at least turn up to vote, in the coming US presidential elections. Will it be any of the above?
On the Republican side, I could not under any circumstances vote for Mike Huckabee. That is simply because I don’t support the Taleban. Mitt Romney is an unprincipled political weather vane - a social liberal when it might get him elected to the US Senate for Massachusetts or to the Governorship of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a social conservative when it may get him the nomination. Quite happy to peddle populist protectionist poison when it may help him in Michigan. It’s good that his religion no longer appears to be much of an issue. It would be worrying if the US electorate could elect a moron but not a Mormon. I’d take Romney over Huckabee but I’d rather settle for McCain. McCain is long on personal integrity and character. For someone who doesn’t know any economics, he has the right market-oriented liberal instincts. With the right advisers he could make an acceptable President.
On the Democratic side it’s slim pickings. Hilary Rodham Clinton I cannot forgive for botching the best opportunity for US health care reform during the past fifty years - in 1993 during Bill Clinton’s first administration. I am also deeply underwhelmed by the personal honesty and integrity of the Clinton Duo - and in the integrity stakes it really is not possible to see where one ends and the other begins. Her populist economic instincts (different from those of Bill Clinton who was a dedicated defender of free multilateral trade) are also ugly. It would be good, even other things being not quite equal, to have a woman as US president for a change. On the other hand, having lived through Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and having observed Sirimavo Banderanaika, Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto from a distance, the quality of political governance looks to be gender-independent.
What about Barack Obama? If there is one thing I dislike and mistrust it is a charismatic politician. At its worst and most dangerous, charisma is the stuff of demagogues and rabble rousers, who appeal to child-like fears and emotions rather than to reason. Charisma is a preferred weapon of anti-democratic politics. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were among the great charismatic leaders. May their likes never return. Obama is charismatic in a lighter, more professional PR- and Hollywood-honed way. My dislike for the triumph of style over substance, form over content and appearance over reality dates right back to my first exposure to US presidential elections - the victorious campaign of John F Kennedy in 1960. I want character and policies. With Obama it is impossible to get a sense of the first. We have seen all but nought of the latter. Any politician who bangs on about dreams, hope and change must be covering up a terrifying vacuum of substance.
As far as I can see, Barack Obama has only two recognisable policies. The first is for the US to get out of Iraq immediately. Regardless of what one thinks of the reasons for the US going into Iraq, and regardless of what one thinks of the design and implementation of the US strategy in Iraq since 2003, rushing out now would be lunacy. Barack Obama’s second policy concerns health reform. Unfortunately it is fatally flawed, because it does not de-couple health insurance from employment. Having health insurance cover should be conditioned on being alive, not on being employed. As for the rest of Obama’s plans, there is hope and change and bipartisanship and quite a bit of the vision thing, but not a single darn thing with a price tag. Nothing substantive on the Palestinian problem, on Afghanistan, on the environment, on social security, on tax and benefit reform, on gun control, on the US incarceration rate, on the Doha round, on international approaches to financial regulation …. The list of unaddressed issues is awe-inspiring and comprehensive.
Would I vote for Barack Obama because of his race? After 43 white males as US president, it would be an encouraging sign of political maturity to elect a female or a non-white for a change. Barack Obama’s election would do nothing, however, to address the two great racial legacy problems within the territory of the US. The first of these is the plight of the native Americans who were dispossessed through deceit, conquest and genocide, often after first being weakened by pandemics. The second is the still unresolved legacy of black African slavery in the US. Why would a mixed-race child of privilege like Barack Obama, with a black Kenyan father and a white American mother, be more likely than any other candidate to make a difference to the condition of descendants of black African American slaves, in particular those who remain caught in a vicious circle of underachievement and discrimination?
Unfortunate indeed is the country that feels in need of a charismatic leader to solve its problems. Blessed indeed is the country whose institutions are so strong that it can get by with boring, reasonably competent public administrators. Have the key economic, political and social institutions of the US now been hollowed out and corrupted to such a degree that hapless hope may triumph over reason?
I hope McCain gets the Republican nomination. That way I won’t have to spoil my ballot in November.
Excellent!
Posted by: Ron Cohen-Seban | February 6th, 2008 at 6:39 pm | Report this commentThis “moron but not Mormon” thing is very tired, isn’t funny at all, and is really offensive to those of us who are LDS.
Mr Buiter, can you please stop trying (unsuccessfully, in my view) to be a comedian at others’ expense and stick to what you’re supposed to be good at?
Posted by: Dave the Mormon | February 6th, 2008 at 8:08 pm | Report this commentTo Dave the Mormon. I don’t mind giving offence where it is intended, but I regret giving offence where it was unintended. So just to be sure, the ‘moron’ epiteth did not refer to the LDS candidate for the Republican nomination for the US presidency. It referred (self-evidently, I assumed) to the current president of the USA. I recognise this may not necessarily constitute mitigation, but just in case there was any misunderstanding…
Posted by: Willem H. Buiter | February 6th, 2008 at 10:45 pm | Report this commentBy what mad logic does a pressed crew of voters instil legitimacy in whichever gang of crooks wins an election?
Posted by: dearieme | February 7th, 2008 at 12:17 am | Report this commentWhilst a ‘none of the above’ option allows the public to express disapproval of all the available candidates, it implicitly lends legitimacy to the political/electoral system itself. In my view, abstention is thus an essential alternative option, in allowing members of the public to express dissatisfaction with constitutional arrangements for selecting the government.
Three cases where I would consider abstaining, for example, are: (i) a system offering only one candidate (even if I happen to like the candidate); (ii) a majoritarian system, under which votes are effectively transferred to the plurality candidate, and particularly in a non-marginal constituency (examples are first-past-the-post used to elect MPs in the United Kingdom, and the electoral college used to elect the president in the United States); (iii) a system with excessively high thresholds for parliamentary representation (I would certainly not be comfortable with anything above the 5 per cent level used in elections to the German Bundestag, for example).
In each of the above cases, the quality of the candidates, as such, is not the issue; the issue is rather that large numbers of voters are systematically disenfranchised. Even if their combined votes are sufficient to produce popular support for an alternative to the winning government, they will be unable to change the outcome. This is very different to the marginal effect of voting under a purely proportional system, which approaches zero for an individual voter, but rapidly increases with the number of voters supporting a particular party/candidate.
Posted by: Thomas Stephens | February 7th, 2008 at 9:11 am | Report this commentFair enough, and my apologies for being reactive. I suppose I, like many others, am a little touchy after some of the (perceived?) negative coverage we’ve received in the wake of the Romney/Huckabee slugfest.
Posted by: Dave the Mormon | February 7th, 2008 at 9:31 am | Report this commentYou distrust charisma, and list its worst examples. But can’t it also get good things done? As I think Hilary said, good policies are no good if you don’t get to implement them, and that means getting elected and then using your political capital, and charm, to make them law.
Having said that in favour of Obama, I’d still go for McCain.
Posted by: JonA | February 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am | Report this commentI read the FT teaser in the paper copy. I became interested in the possibility of a serious article. I have read through this blog [7 February] and find it light and airy.
Posted by: James A. Glasscock | February 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm | Report this commentI understand why you are a professor.
James A. Glasscock
Longdrycreek Ranch
Shamrock, Texas
Sorry to contradict you, but you are extremely unfair to at least Obama.
His site has details on his Foreign Policy:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/#onisrael
It’s a shame that American voters are so self-centred that mentioning international issues is a sure way not to get elected–but you cannot blame Obama for that: thanks to personal history, he clearly is the most aware about these.
> Why would a mixed-race child of privilege […] make a difference to […] those who remain caught in a vicious circle of underachievement and discrimination?
Because he is not just “a mixed-race”, but a human being with more than his skin: prior to hold elected office, he dedicated time & energy to people in need in America. Why point out to elements that *you* deem irrelevant?
> Hitler, Stalin and Mao
Wow. Nothing less. You forgot to include George Bush Jr. among the charismatic leaders of our time. You also forgot to say that these three major ‘humanists’ were also elected after an economic downturn, and on a strongly nationalist platform. As the only reason you mention them is because they committed crime against humanity, why don’t you investigate what candidates supported such crimes?
But I’m assuming that you only blame him for “style over substance” because you know about that so well your self. . .
Posted by: Bertil | February 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm | Report this commentMcCain? Another in the parade of right wingers who hold the welfare of the American people in contempt. I am tired of foreigners e.g. Buiter, The Economist, lending their voices to the continued decline in welfare of the mass of the American people, and continued endless war. I am sick beyond words of the folksy faux ‘integrity’ of Bush, McCain, etc. It isn’t a sort of stage you fill with competent advisors. It is sign of deep disrespect to the country and its people that competence is not valued. This editorial shows more than I wanted to know about Buiter’s integrity and judgement that he falls for McCain. For shame!
Posted by: dissent | February 7th, 2008 at 6:12 pm | Report this commentYou apparently love wars as lonf as someone else gets bombed, killed or maimed. Mr. McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years
Posted by: B. T. Doumas | February 8th, 2008 at 5:45 am | Report this commentand “Bomb,Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” (Yes he was singing this in public not too long ago). When it comes to Palestinians, he has approved every atrocity inflicted on these people by the Israelis,
and during the republican debates he sounded more like an agent of Israel than an American. As regards “character and integrity” it seems that you have not followed him closely. He has licked the boots of all the right wing fundamentalists. I would rather have for 4 more years the current occupant of the White House than the ‘unhinged” McCain
I just discovered your blog and I am quickly going to undiscover it.
As to Obama, it’s obviously that you don’t WANT to know what he’s about. I was always taught that a non-conformist (someone who intentionally goes against the crowd) is as narrow-minded as a conformist; you appear to oppose him simply because he is charismatic. His policies and his voting record are readily available to anyone willing to do some homework; if “We have seen all but nought” of his policy, it is because “we” are lazy, preferring simply to listen to his non-wonkish speeches and conclude that there is no beef. As to his character, it is on display in this campaign, it is in his record (not just his voting), and it is in two books he has written. His early autobiography, NOT ghost-written, shows a depth of thought and character that I have never seen in a candidate for high office.
You are also clearly ignorant about his stance on Iraq. Please produce one shred of evidence that he plans to “get out of Iraq immediately.” You can’t. He opposed the war early, strongly, and presciently, but he (like you) fully understands that we can’t get out immediately.
Your blog is a disappointment. I expect better from the FT.
Posted by: Dan Jaffe | February 8th, 2008 at 1:15 pm | Report this comment“That way I won’t have to spoil my ballot in November.”
…and all that time I thought you were Dutch. Well, I guess nobody is perfect.
Posted by: Martin H. | February 8th, 2008 at 7:30 pm | Report this commentDuring 2005, Barack Obama was still hedging his bets on the modalities of US disengagement and withdrawal from Iraq. On Tuesday, November 22, he said, in a luncheon speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, “During the course of the next year, we need to focus our attention on how to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Iraq,” “Notice that I say `reduce,’ and not `fully withdraw.’”
Since then, Senator Obama has shifted his position; he now advocates a timetable for combat troop withdrawal. It is effectively a fixed timetable, not contingent on any realistically achievable military, political or diplomatic developments. Barack Obama has proposed legislation, offered on the Senate floor January 30, 2007, and fortunately rejected, that would have removed all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008.
From Barack Obama’s own Senatorial website ( http://obama.senate.gov/news/051123-obama_pull_gis/ ), we learn that “… Senator Obama introduced the Iraq War De-escalation Act in January 2007. The legislation begins redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008, a date that is consistent with the expectation of the Iraq Study Group. The Obama plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism, and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. If the Iraqis are successful in meeting the 13 benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration, this plan also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met and that the suspension is in the national security interest of the United States.”
There is no doubt that Obama is in the cut-and-run camp. He appears unfamiliar with the dictum ‘you break it, you own it’. This should only be violated if adhering to it would do more harm than good. This is clearly not the case. His proposal is cowardly and irresponsible.
Posted by: Willem H. Buiter | February 8th, 2008 at 11:38 pm | Report this commentSadly, Prof Buiter’s blog rings so true… To play devil’s advocate, Obama is drawing out crowds who were previously politically apathetic. And let’s not underestimate what a smart and educated president might be able to do once he is done with fundraising and campaining. It is quite refreshing to have someone of the caliber of Kevin Rudd on the international scene… Who knows, with a bit of luck Obama could turn out to be yet another Kevin Rudd. But I agree, better McCain than Clinton…
Posted by: domi | February 10th, 2008 at 5:55 am | Report this commentCalling Obama, the son of a single mother who relied on scholarships to get into all of his schools a “child of privilege” is a pretty ridiculous distortion of the truth.
It is true that Obama has a lot of charisma, and as a result he gives emotive and moving speeches that are short of policy details. But please don’t confuse a lack of policy in his speeches with an actual lack of policy: it’s not that he doesn’t have good policies, it’s just that he knows they don’t make for good speeches.
His website lists all of his policies and goes into sometimes surprisingly deep detail. I am a particular fan of his technology policies, which are excellent and far in advance of anything presented by the other candidates.
Posted by: Laurie | February 10th, 2008 at 9:47 am | Report this commenthttp://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html
Hilzoy, of Obsidian Wings, gives a good run down of why your impression of Obama is mistaken. Your general skepticism of charisma is worthy (as someone else pointed out think GWB) - however, she points to an admirable legacy opf achievements - facilitated by a charismatic ability to make people agree with him.
Posted by: Tadhg | February 11th, 2008 at 8:50 am | Report this comment