Clinton the Manager vs. Obama the Leader? Who cares?

You’ve probably been seeing a lot of stories that distill the Democratic presidential race down to this: because there are so few policy differences between the candidates, the relevant question is whether you looking for an effective manager (where Clinton would like to be perceived as stronger) or an inspirational leader (where Obama looks stronger). Never mind the actual accuracy of this alignment… we all know that is irrelevant.

But really, does any of this matter? At the end of the day, people tend to vote by identity politics and by intangibles, while policy positions or even managerial style be damned.

There’s no doubt a large percentage of people support candidates they identify with. Thus, the depressing reality is that a significant portion of women who support Clinton do so primarily because she is female, and significant portion of blacks who support Obama do so primarily because they share his race. (As an aside, this clearly applies in all directions; a lot of old white men will vote for an old white guy primarily because he’s NOT black or female, especially in a general election against Clinton or Obama.)

For those whose support is not already locked in by identity, another significant chunk of voters make their decisions based on meaningless soft intangibles; appearance, tone of voice, mannerisms. I suspect Ms. Clinton is at a serious disadvantage within this group, and this group alone may prove her undoing.

However, over-emphasizing these “identity and intangibles” drivers is also a risk. The unfortunate result of the above is that the media absorbs and assumes these factors as not just a tendency, but a total reality. The soft underbelly of this blanket assumption has been exposed in the media handling of black women voters, who are ALL portrayed as being helplessly torn between supporting one or the other of their political identities for its own sake (“are you black first or a woman first?”). These stories often are presented with nary a whiff of expectation that ANY African-American women might actually be concerned with whatever policy or governance style differences may be found to exist between the Democratic candidates.

It’s a disgrace that there are indeed way too many voters who think no further than their own race, gender, and irrelevant superficialities; but perhaps a bigger disgrace is that all voters (especially black women voters) are being painted by the media with the same brush.

Refraining from war does not ensure peace.

In the arguments that constantly rage about the use of military force, I’ve noticed a curious misrepresentation related to arguments against particular military engagements. There are many examples touting “peace” as the alternative to war, as if the discussion were totally binary with war as one choice, and peace as the other. Deciding to refrain from war does not ipso facto create peace, or even preserve it over a period of time; it instead leaves things exactly as they are for the moment.

Understandably, much has been written about the decision to go to war in Iraq, as an example. I’m not going into that one in any detail here, other than the say that if one is going to attempt to pragmatically judge whether or not any party is better off for having gone to war, the fair question is not (to use an example from the typically self-focused American case) “are we safer in 2007 than we were before the war”, but rather “are we safer in 2007 than we would now be if we hadn’t gone to war”. While there are some valid arguments in favor of both potential answers to that question, the point here is that time moves forward in any case after such a decision point; the world of 2007 is different than that of 2003, and many of those differences are the result of Iraq war. However, if the Iraq war had NOT happened, the world of 2007 would also be different than that of 2003, but in different ways. It is the present in both cases that must be used as the comparison point, not the present vs. the point in time before the decision.

What does this mean in practical terms? It simply means that when engaging in the necessary and healthy debate about the use of force, remember that choosing NOT to intervene with force is also a choice with consequences that continue into the future. A relevant case where this awareness could be employed might be the current situation in Darfur.

Note that the same point is applicable when examining the impact of any decision on subsequent circumstances; examples would be diplomatic actions, or even decisions at a very small scale such as personal relationships.

Laws are blunt instruments; they always bring unintended consequences.

Laws start with intent; e.g. to limit an undesirable behavior, or encourage a desired behavior. However, in order to create the law, and subsequently enforce it, that original intent must be translated into written language. Because translation is virtually always a “lossy” process, the inevitable difference between original intent and resultant language becomes the soil from which unintended consequences grow. The unintended consequences are usually initially seen in the form of criminal or civil court actions based on a novel interpretation and application of the law as written, which was not a part of the original lawmaker’s intent.

An example of this can be found in the way RICO laws (originally created as a basis for prosecution of racketeering by organized crime) have since been used to prosecute a myriad of other activities such as insurance fraud, tobacco company collusion, and small-time drug dealing.

The point is this: anyone responsible for any portion of content of a proposed law must be cognizant of, and on guard for, the likely interpretation and application of the law in ways other than those consistent with the original intent.

According to Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as quoted by William L. Anderson and Candice E. Jackson in Law as a Weapon: How RICO Subverts Liberty and the True Purpose of Law

“The draftsmen of this bill have made changes which sweep far beyond the field of organized crime. . . . [M]any of these changes have not been adequately thought through. The bill as presently drafted frequently hits targets which were not intended and misses those which were. . . . Even more disturbing . . . is the impatience which [the bill] shows for constitutional and procedural safeguards” (1970).

Note that this is not intended to single out the particular issue of RICO in and of itself; the same pattern of unintended consequences occurs in all sorts of legislation, from every point in the political spectrum.