Party Tail Wags Candidate Dog

On Sunday, former Secretary of State General Colin Powell went on Meet the Press and said that he was endorsing Barak Obama. This seems to have raised a lot of debate: Should liberals second guess Obama if Powell is for him? What does it say about Obama as a bringer of "change"? Is Powell a traitor to the Republican Party? Does he have an axe to grind with the current President Bush? Is it racially motivated? I watched the interview (a couple of times) and his statements afterward, and while I think that the questions already mentioned are interesting bits of psychological punditry, what I actually heard was a lot more interesting, understandable and closer to how I feel myself.

A lot of people out there hardly follow politics. Regardless, every four years we are all called upon to help fill the highest office in the land. For those of us who follow closely, this can be a scary proposition as political issues are rarely black and white; it's easy to spin complex issues and decisions so that good things sound bad and bad things sound good. Among the "swing" voters who don't swear blind allegiance to a political party (and who will ultimately cast the deciding vote), one of the top concerns is the candidate's ability to lead.

There's an old saying: a dog wags its tail because its smarter than the tail - if the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog. What Powell said on Sunday can be summed up in this analogy: The tail of the neocon wing of the Republican Party is wagging the candidate dog. In other words, a candidate's race for the Whitehouse is like a microcosm - a peek into the way they will govern.

Obama is the leader of his party, this much is clear. He took on the Clinton political machine which was the party, and won. He has amended the party platform, and made wildly successful decisions. Obama has stated that he will surround himself with smart and experienced people who will challenge his way of thinking - and he has practiced that from his first decision by choosing Joe Biden as his running mate. The fact that the man who drummed up support for the war and the man outspokenly against it can respectfully disagree and find common ground is a testament to how a good leader builds confidence and coalitions and gets things done.

What we've seen with McCain is an evolution over the past eight years - especially the last four (and to an even greater extent since he announced his candidacy), as he's moved ever farther to the right and away from the real "maverick" that we all liked: a leader unencumbered by party politics. It would seem that those who know McCain personally are generally unwilling to attribute the problems with his campaign directly to him. Probably true. I don't think that he is as bad as his campaign has been, but I think that what Powell was saying about McCain is that at some level this is an overview of what his leadership will probably be like; a presidency characterized by drumming up fear and division; utilizing misrepresentation and distortion; making rash decisions or perpetually changing advisers (leading to more choices like Palin), and generally trying "anything and everything" in an effort to hold on. But that's not really McCain - that's the party tail wagging the candidate dog.

You can hold out hope that once in power the old McCain will manifest, but like Powell, I see my leader and I'm ready to cast my vote - for the head and not the tail.

Why It's Time to Reconsider Your Vote

Ask yourself this question:  Have you ever been wrong about something - but at the time you didn't even consider the possibility that you could be?  It could be absolutely anything, even something trivial.  Have you ever tried a food that you thought would be disgusting, but turned out to be delicious - or ever seen a movie that you initallially had no interest in only to find out that it was excellent?  Do you still hold every single belief that your parents did when you were growing up with no added insight or nuiance?  Are you the same person that you were when you were 17 or 18?  Every once in a while, we are semi-forced into situations that challenge us to consider things that we might not otherwise consider.  For something trivial like a movie it's comparatively easy, but for more serious matters like who should run the country - it's really not. 

So why is this relevant to reconsidering your vote?  Here's why:   A study published just a week or so ago by the non-partisan Annenberg School for Public Policy confirms that an incredible number of people are uninformed or worse yet, mis-informed about even the most basic objective facts.  Note that these are _FACTS_, no spin involved.  

More than a third of Americans were unable to identify the Supreme Court as the final judge of whether a law was constitutional or not.  More than 30% didn't know how  someone came to sit on the bench of Supreme Court.  In this election, that is a critical fact to understand.  What's more, almost 58% did not know McCain's stance of overturning Roe vs Wade and more than 15% attached that position to Obama.  

People were also wrong on the candidates stated stands on NAFTA, their support of a "cap and trade" system and positions on Guantanano.  Even on the best of the items there were significant numbers of people who were grossly misinformed - almost 9% of people identified McCain as having opposed the war in Iraq.  In fact, more than 33% also incorrectly attributed Senator John McCain's healthcare proposal to Barack Obama, and 20% identified John McCain's healthcare plan as the one that mandates coverage for all children.  15% incorrectly said that it belonged to "both" or "neither" of them.  Less than 20% correctly attributed it.  What's more is that just over 27% actually admitted that they didn't know.  This means that the majority of people actually _thought_ that they knew the answers to those questions and planned on using them in their evaluation of how to vote.  Given that many of our elections are ultimately swayed by a small number of votes this seems a bit akin to trusting the choice what medical attention that you should receive to your mechanic rather than a triage team or qualified doctors.

If this seems "elitist" to you, then consider that our founding fathers didn't totally embrace democracy, that is why they formed a republic with representative democracy and even an electoral college.   In their perspective, pure democracywas nothing more than organized "mob rule".  Thomas Jefferson put the general thrust of the conerns very simply:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,

it expects what never was and never will be.

He also argued that:

...he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.

The point is - in short:  For good or for bad, once every 4 years the citizens of this country are given the supreme responsibility of having to make an informed decision of who will represent them.  This is the person who will lead the most powerful country in the world - make no mistake - actual human lives across the planet hang in the balance.  Vote for McCain, Obama, Nader, Barr, McKinney or Baldwin - I don't really care.  But for all of our sake - please put at least as much thought and research and time into it than you do picking your cell phone plan.

How To (Legally) Cast Two Votes for President

The briefer version of my previous post.

However much you might like the positions or message of a third party candidate like Bob Barr or Ralph Nader, most people at least have some opinion as to which of the two "mainstream" candidates would be worse.  Truth be told, I think that a lot of us fit into this broad category:  We really wish that we had more choices and that we could voice our opinions with a little more expressiveness than we currently have.  

The Dream

Actually several countries already have a voting system which allows precisely this kind of expressiveness and many have been advocating the adoption of such a system here.  The general idea goes something like this:  Each candidate is listed with a series of numbers next to their name allowing voters to express how much they like or dislike them.  Assuming that a candidate passes a viability margin (for example, so many percent of voters need to at least express an opinion about the candidate), the scores are totaled up and divided by the total votes cast for them.  The candidate with the highest score wins. I would encourage people to read more about the variations, this is an excellent source: http://rangevoting.org/.  

The Reality

Personally - I think that it's a great idea, but we live and breathe in reality.  In the land of reality, even if a massive movement for this were started, it would likely take a generation to replace our current system.  Ironically, however, you can already cast a semi-preferential vote in our existing system, but no one does.  Here's how you can do it:

1. Figure out which of the major party candidates would make you less likely to want to move to Canada if elected.
2. Find someone whose selection is the opposite of yours.
3. Both of you request absentee ballots and arrange to meet up just before the deadline
4. Both fill out the ballots in one another's presence and walk them to the polling place, the recorder's office or mailbox together.

What's more, after I had this idea and blogged it once, I came across this, check it out:  http://www.votepact.org