Gov. Dean has, it seems, asked his supporters to vote on whether to accept federal matching funds. It's certainly an interesting political move; there's an awful lot to be said for it on many levels. In essence, it seems to me, he is ramping up even further the image of his campaign as being a campaign of citizens with computers rather than a campaign of consultants with copybooks. A campaign of empowerment, a grass-roots campaign, a people's campaign.
I don't buy it, myself. I think the Dean campaign was very smart about using the web as a fund-raising tool, and an organizing tool; I give them that. I think that Dean's campaign people have run a good campaign so far, and I'm not knocking them. I don't particularly trust them, either; my immediate reaction was that they had already decided how the vote would come out, and that the whole thing was more or less a fraud. I have no basis for that; I don't say it's true, I say it is my gut instinct.
That's a wild-goose chase, anyway, though. The more important question it brings us is one of leadership. Is it an act of leadership to make your decision (on what is, more or less, an ethical issue, I suppose) based on the outcome of a poll of your supporters? I honestly am of two minds about this.
Before I talk about my two minds on this topic, I should point out that Sen. Kerry, for instance, will consult polls about whether to accept federal matching funds before making his decision. That's different in several ways from Gov. Dean's plan, the most obvious of which is the element of transparency in Gov. Dean's so-called election method. The questions about Gov. Dean are not unique to him, but are brought into relief by his methods, and so I'll talk about them in his case.
OK, on the down side, we get exasperated when our leaders rely too heavily on polls, both because polls are not necessarily accurate representation of how we feel, and also because that implies that the leader has no stern stuff of his own. This is a poll. It's not a scientific poll, nor a national poll, but it is a poll, and the Governor is saying he will abide by its results. If that's how he's planning to govern, I want no part of it. One aspect of leadership is knowing where you are going. I am often very nasty about books such as Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, as Shackleton is a great example of bad leadership, that is, someone you wouldn't want to follow. Donner on Leadership. McLellan on Leadership. You have to know where you are going, boys, if you want to lead.
Further, the decision about whose money to take and under what circumstances is an ethical one. On ethical decisions more than any others, you want a leader who knows what he is about and listens to his own good conscience. Ultimately, there will be many situations where the President will have to make his (or her) own choice, guided by different opinions and arguing advisors and even contradictory evidence; we want to know that when it comes down to the voice in the back of the head, Gov. Dean recognizes and trusts what it says (and, of course, that it says the right thing).
On the other hand, part of leadership is knowing what your followers want. There's no great advantage in striding off in the right direction if nobody is following. Plus, there's an element of humility in asking advice. One of the major problems (in Your Humble Blogger's opinion, the major problem with our current administration is its complete inability to understand that it might be wrong on some topics at some times. President Clinton, for all of his waffle, had a healthy respect for other people's opinions even when the differed from his; his administration used polls partly out of cheap political cynicism and partly out of a desire to represent the American People as a delegate. The ability to listen is a great one, and if this is Gov. Dean's way of listening, more power to him.
And, of course, there's the simple fact that unless his supporters do support him in declining federal matching funds, there's no point in doing it, as he won't get the money he expects them to raise. In that way, this is more of a decision about his supporters and their interests than about his ethics, and more of a tactical decision than a strategic one. He has already made the ethical decision (he wants to raise as much money as he can), and simply wants to know the best way of going about it. So why not ask the people who will be raising the money?
In other words, I find this issue complicated and confusing. It's hard enough to try to figure out what kind leaders the candidates will be, without trying to figure out what kind of leader I want. Feh.
By the way, I'm declaring open season on Election 04. Any aspects my Gentle Readers want to talk about, let me know and I'll open up discussion. I'll have my own questions, in a day or two.
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
Good discussion, and I echo your ambivalence.
Some further musings without conclusions:
I just finished reading the first of David Weber’s Honor Harrington books, and it occurred to me (I’ll be talking about this more in my journal at some point) that one of the stories/narratives the military likes to tell is the story of Leadership that inspires — a leader who is decisive, skillful, always right, and (perhaps most importantly) so charismatic and so good at leading by example that they inspire total and absolute loyalty in their followers. It’s not a blind loyalty; it’s an earned loyalty, given only to those who have proven that they deserve it. And yeah, certainly leadership in that context requires relying on your subordinates to be extremely good at their jobs, too — high expectations, from the right kind of leader, result in high performance, or so the story goes. (In real life, I find that that’s sometimes true and sometimes not.)
The whole idea of leadership, and the question of what makes a good leader, continues to fascinate me. I think my ideal tends to be, more or less, someone who carefully listens to and thoroughly considers input from all the relevant people, and then makes a firm decision and executes it well. The decisions don’t have to agree with the input from subordinates, but if there’s too much disagreement too often, I start to wonder why they ask for subordinates’ opinions in the first place.
I think it’s very clearly a tactical move; he’s generating untold amounts of money from the internet, and he needs to keep doing that to have any shot at winning the primary, let alone the election. (Bush has out-raised the entire Democratic field, I believe.)
Is it possible that he just doesn’t have an opinion about federal matching funds? As a governor, is this something he would’ve had to address?
(And, BTW, Jed, I’ve got the other Honor books on a CD (fully legal, I assure you ;-), I’ll give them to you next time I see you. They may also be available for free on Baen’s web site.)
After reading a couple of the news articles on the subject this morning, now that Dean’s made the decision, I’m inclined to agree about the tactical move. One of the articles noted that Bush isn’t accepting matching funds (and concomitant spending limits), and has indeed obtained a huge amount of money, so the Dems are worried that they’ll run out of money by the end of the primaries, while Bush will still be going strong.
As for the Honor books, yeah, I’d always intended to download the first one from the Baen free library and read it onscreen, but I got a free copy of the paperback from—well, actually, from Vardibidian himself and his Best Reader. I’m not sure whether I want to read the rest of ’em—I thought the first one was fun, engaging, and worth reading, but various aspects of it were annoying enough that I don’t know if I want to spend time on the rest of the series.
Jed, I’d have to agree with you about the Honor books. I read a couple in preparation for a paper in library school, and was so annoyed by parts of them that I ended up deciding to write on a different topic.
Fred:
I don’t recall him addressing this or needing to address this while he was governor (er, yah, I live in his state, or he in mine…). I’d be surprised if he *didn’t* have a personal opinion, but it might not be a strong one, it might be something he holds “subject to having more info”. He’s that kind of guy. (Although when he does feel he has enough data to hold his opinon, he sticks to ’em rather firmly, in my memory.)
the one time i called president clinton’s phone number to voice an opinion, i got a voice mail system, a series of questions very much like a poll, except that the language was thick and multi-layered in such a way that despite my strong, clear opinion, there was no particular answer to any question that i could choose without reservation.
i’m making this up but it’s similar to the experience. instead of “do you support drilling for oil in the arctic national wildlife refuge,” you might have heard:
do you believe that the mediation of national oil supply concerns presents an obstacle to environmental damage? 1 for yes, 2 for no, 3 for “what the hell are you talking about”
[3]
does the current health of the medicare system require inquiry into maintaining discretionary budget authority? 1 for yes, 2 for “are you making fun of me”
[2]
do you believe that a woman’s right to choose opposes the death penalty? 1 for no, 2 for “please tell me i’m adopted”
[2]
would you support a constitutional amendment to eliminate the tax deduction for seizure of semi-automatic weapons, in some cases? 1 for no, 2 for yes, 3 for “you’re killing me here”
[3]
recent studies show that education remains a strong american goal. do you support a national school quality assessment program that supplies children with fundamental dignity? 1 for yes, 2 for no
[2]
on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the most and 5 being the least, how many federal entitlement programs affect you on a daily basis?
[3]
there are currently two plans for restructuring federal welfare programs. which do you support? 1 for the first one, 2 for the second one
[…]
i’m sorry, i didn’t understand your choice. there are currently two plans for restructuring federal welfare programs. which do you support? 1 for the first one, 2 for the second one
[click]