signalnoise

Let's talk about running for President!

Item #1: Holy Shit, The Kid's Got Legs

So, Barack Obama totally kicked some ass in fund raising, and basically tied Hillary Clinton in terms of the amount of money raised. Furthermore, he did it with more donors giving smaller amounts of money, suggesting he has a strong grassroots campaign. What does this all mean? First, a couple of caveats. For starters, we need to be careful about saying *how* important money is at this stage in the campaign. Money doesn't really win election. I'm sort of convinced that money, really, is more a proxy for the strength of a campaign - is it organized, mobilized etc - than it is anything else. Really, this focus on fund raising is more about the horse race and the press' need to cover *something.* In fact, money has sort of a diminishing returns effect past a certain point: you need so much to get in and get your message out there, but additional money beyond that gets you less bang. Second, we shouldn't write off too much that Hillary had fewer big money (and presumably higher profile) donors. These are the kind of people who make opinions and can mobilize large organizations in her favor. That could be a powerful advantage.

All that crap said, it's still fucking impressive that Obama raised that much money. He went from being a junior Midwestern senator that no one had heard of and was more wunderkid than anything to else to a goddamn "serious as a heart attack" candidate over night. He was *legitimized.* All Obama had to do was do "all right" at fund raising - say, rack up $10 million (his original goal) and he would be perceived as a threat.

The funny thing about the primary season is that the winner is not *always* the winner. If you're the front runner, and someone even makes you break a sweat - by raising a lot of money, showing strongly in the polls, or doing better than expected in a primary - chances are you (the front runner) will be perceived as losing ground. Obama's fund raising bombshell I think, pretty much, swept a lot of ground right out from under Hillary. If, in a few months, Obama even comes *close* to winning something like Iowa - Hillary might be done. Pretty much, I'm sure her and her organization are shitting a brick right now (that's a technical term by the way).

Item #2: Seriously, What the Fuck is Up with Mitt Romney?

So, the story on Mitt is that (besides having a stupid name) he used to a pretty moderate Republican when he was chilling in Massachusetts. Now he talks like some mad-eyed Ann Coulter leg humper. So what happened? I suppose "What happened?" is pretty obvious: he's trying to court the conservative wing of the party (the wing that turns out for the primaries), and it's sort of working. While his name recognition is low, he's raising way more money than the other Republican hopefuls. But I don't *get it.*

Now, I understand shifting *some* of your positions *somewhat.* That makes sense, and really that's good democracy in some ways - reflecting the will of the people and all that. I understand even better why candidates try to focus campaigns on place where they are strong, while avoiding the more problematic aspects of their record. What I don't get is totally re-writing your whole damn platform.

Presumably, one runs for president for two reasons. Now, I totally dismiss that it's about money or screwing people or whatever - there's much easier ways to get rich than being in politics (and without the dangers of ethical barriers that get you fired for life). People run for president either A) because they have some vision of the world they want to enact ("the public servant model") or B) because they are insane egoists ("the mad power trip model"). These are not mutually exclusive categories, and most presidents probably have a foot in both camps. In fact, I think, you *have* to have both motivations - if you just had A, you'd be a political activist; with B, you'd become a preacher or join the army or whatever. So, I think we can safely assume that presidents really *do* want to pursue some legislative agenda to which they are legitimately committed.

But Romney is campaigning on a bunch of issues that he's *switched* his position on. Now, not every campaign promise is going to be kept ... but at least *some* of them have to be. After all, there has to be a credible commitment, or you're in danger of not winning re-election. So, Romney will have to pursue these goals - or, at the very least, frustrate Democratic efforts to move these policies (even if those policies are closer to his *original,* pre-makeover positions - 'cause of the credible commitment problem). So, assuming that his *original* positions were his real positions - well, now he's hosed and can't pursue those items because he's bound by campaign promises and the reality of the next election cycle.

Of course, it could be that his original positions were *not* his real positions and just a sham to get him elected governor of Massachusetts so that he could then launch his presidential campaign and be the "true" Romney. I mean, that's possible .... But I don't buy it. Even an egoist with a macro-historical world view (the kind of person who runs for president) would have a really hard time predicting their odds of successfully running for the Republican primary (much less winning the national election in November 2008) four years outside of those events. So, it's a bit political/personal risk to put forth your *fake* ideas first - it would permanently label you, and make it harder to ever pursue those goals in any other context. With this kind of uncertainty, you'd have to go with the short-term benefit of being (relatively) honest about your political agenda - in order do what you could to accomplish your goals. Further, I'm not even sure that going "Governor of Massachusetts --> Running for President" is even that great of a strategy - or, he certainly didn't play that strategy well. I mean, just look at his name recognition.

This leads me to believe that Romney is probably *insane* - and only wants to be president because he wants to be president. He's indifferent to any actual policy agenda, or willing to give it up *just to be president.* I find that sort of scary - b/c how do you negotiate with someone like that? Similarly, what is the *character* of a person like that? I'm not naive - presidents can be nasty and ruthless. But at least they - mostly - have some kind of ideals. It's a bit frightening to think of such a malleable, evilly ambitious person as president. Maybe he does have some loftier goals - vis-a-vis managing the economy or security or some such. But that doesn't seem to have come up so far. Really, I prefer to think he's just power mad and a slippery son of a bitch.