December 31, 2003
Politically Useful Reporting
Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal: The citizen's job? Shut up and watch...Dr. Cline at the very excellent rhetorica makes a point about useless political reporting - that the focus on process and electability in favor of issues is completely counter to the aim of our democracy.
And here's where I disagree. What's interesting about this is that the way it's written, it's extremely easy to agree with his point. But there's something about it that gets stuck in my brain. And that is my belief that if our elections were all based entirely on issues and if we the citizens knew nothing about momentum and electability, the election results, using our voting system, would not be ideal.
Our voting system requires us to judge electability as well as issues. I can guarantee that when I compare myself to Dean, I am probably a better fit to many that will end up voting for Dean. But, it's wiser for them to vote for Dean, because he's got more of a shot of winning than I do - and people find that out by reading press articles such as the one that Dr. Cline criticizes.
Focusing on issues only is an ideal, and an honorable one. But we also have to submit to a voting system. And as soon as an idealistic person submits to a system, they have to submit to the pragmatism that that system requires. And until we have a voting system that can accurately interpret the detailed preferences of a voting population, we have to submit to the requirements of our current voting system: making coalitions before we vote. Relevant to the judgments of making effective coalitions are the data about how electable someone is.
These "politically useless" articles are actually quite useful. In this case, I agree with Dr. Cline's ideal, but in practice he is wrong.