F or the politically disenchanted, the popular view of our presidential selection process is that it was designed to hoodwink an uninterested electorate into making superficial choices and allow candidates to avoid real issues.
It’s the process that’s the problem, goes the refrain. For Naderites, hand-wringing editorialists, professors and campaign finance reform zealots, our current system is a disaster, tainted by money and lacking seriousness.
As the primaries were first lurching forward, frustrated presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich summed up the processthusly: “This is a cross between ‘The Bachelor,’ ‘American Idol’ and ‘Who’s Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader.’ … This is stunningly dangerous.”
Gingrich is looking for a process that’s more open to a different kind of candidate — say a former House speaker who likes to make sweeping policy pronouncements but isn’t very likable.
This would be like Shaquille O’Neal saying the NBA championship should be decided by a slam-dunk contest instead of a seven-game series. But even John McCain and Barack Obama (at least until he had more money and better poll numbers) have lamented the superficiality of the process. To hear them tell it, they would love nothing more than to hold long discussions on policy and issues, but that the infernal system won’t allow it.
When Obama ditched his campaign funding pledge, his claim was essentially that he needed to destroy the current system in order to save it. Obama argues that he must be allowed to use saturation bombing with glib 30-second TV spots in order to have the chance to usher in the new era of Lincoln-Douglas debates.
What Obama and others are proposing for the future (presumably sometime after 2016) amounts to picking the president of the
United States the same way we pick the president of the eighth grade. Everybody gets the same amount of time to talk to the class and a set budget for making signs and buttons, and then the teacher makes everybody vote.
Running for president and being president are two different things, but there are some important similarities. A relentless spotlight, the outsized symbolism of small moments, a grueling schedule, personnel headaches and the need to communicate complex concepts in simple terms are all part of running for and serving as president.
How one runs for office remains the best indicator of how one would lead. Bill Clinton ran as a conscientious liberal who would reform health care and reaffirm the promise of the New Deal. Not so much.
George W. Bush ran as a pragmatic conservative who would restrain our foreign policy and reduce partisan bickering in Washington. How’s that working out?
The world changed around them and because of them, so Bush and Clinton reverted to the familiar types from the campaign trail. In the way they ran, Clinton and Bush both showed exactly what kind of presidents they would be.
Clinton’s frenetic, undisciplined campaign was based on the force of his charm. Bush’s disciplined, corporate-style campaign was a famously top-down affair.
What can voters learn about how Obama and McCain might govern based on the way they’re handling this 20-month audition?
Obama is showing remarkable flexibility on principles and methodology. Public cash, veep vetters, faux presidential seals, Israel’s capital and even Iraq policy are all subject to rapid redefinition if circumstances change.
It’s heartening to supporters who were worried that the second coming of Adlai Stevenson was about to get pasted by Ike’s slightly younger brother, but worrisome to voters worried about constancy. And constancy will be a major question for voters with a young, inexperienced candidate from an international background.
McCain’s effort is quite the opposite. Almost dogmatic, McCain has showed a total commitment to his major issues. If the Iraq war were still a calamity, Republicans would be calling McCain a stubborn fool. Instead, things are improving, so McCain is being called courageous.
As an administrator, though, McCain has showed the same kind of inflexibility. After stumbling badly with a big organization in the early primaries, McCain re-emerged as an effective underdog with a lean organization.
A presidential administration, though, is never lean. And McCain’s unease as the head of a major effort as opposed to a maverick out on his own raises questions among voters about his ability to run so complicated an enterprise as the executive branch.
McCain and Obama will both complain of the shoddy way we pick a president, but, if we watch closely, we can see more about what their prospective administrations would hold than in all the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the world.
