Campaign Philosopher
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 11:03The other night, I was at a fundraiser for Jim Himes who is running for Congress in Connecticut’s Fourth Congressional District. After the event, we were talking about his speech and some of the issues of the day, such as education and immigration. Part way through the discussion he asked if I had ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I was surprised at his question, since I am in the middle of rereading it. I wondered later if he had seen me reading it, read a blog post I’ve written recently about it, or if someone else had suggested he ask me about it. At some point, we’ll get together and talk about some of my thoughts about how it applies to campaigns.
I had recently read the section where Pirsig asked his class to write an essay defining quality. The class became outraged and indignant when they found out that Pirsig didn’t have a good definition of quality and was hoping that someone in the class would come up with a good definition. It made me sit back and think. What would it be like if a candidate admitted he didn’t have all the answers and asked his constituents to help him find solutions to the problems our nation faces? Most people suggest that such an approach would be political suicide. There would be similar outrage and indignation as Pirsig’s students expressed, but unlike a required English course, the voters would probably drop the candidate pretty quickly.
Nonetheless, it seems a laudable goal, to find politicians that admit they don’t know it all and are willing to learn from their constituents, for I do believe that there are a lot of smart constituents that are not involved in the political process, either as activists or lobbyists. I do think that citizen councils could bring a lot of valuable new ideas to the political process.
Yet this would require a special sort of politician, one who is more interested in solving our countries problems than simply being an elected official, and who could still get elected nonetheless.
I’ve often wondered how any of our current politicians would stand up. There are only a few that I think could stand the test. If Gore were asked if he would rather be President or see an end to global warming, I bet he would chose an end to global warming. If Edwards was asked if he would rather be President or see an end to poverty, I think he would chose an end to poverty. If Kucinich were asked if he would rather be President or would want to see World Peace, I suspect he would quickly choose World Peace. I’m just not sure about any of the other candidates, or what various people in races further down the ticket would say.
In our current political climate there doesn’t seem to be much room for idealists or philosophers. Perhaps one day, that will change, but until then, I keep most of my philosophical questions reserved for the blogs.
Frames and frameworks
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/16/2007 - 10:05Wikipedia’s definition of a Software framework is: a reusable design for a software system… Software frameworks can be object-oriented designs.
In the political world, George Lakoff has been trying to get progressives to think about a different type of frame, as illustrated in his book, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate. Jeffrey Feldman takes this further in his website, Frameshop, where he talks framing the debate.
All of this harkens back psychological frames. Working Psychology defines a frame as ”a psychological device that offers a perspective and manipulates salience in order to influence subsequent judgment..”
It seems as if there are some interesting parallels between psychological terms and technology terms and thinking about technology from a psychological frame is a useful task that isn’t done frequently enough.
One interesting place to explore this is in Marc Andreessen’s blog post, Why there's no such thing as Web 2.0. In the post, Andreessen, criticizes O’Reilly’s short definition of Web 2.0 as lacking crispness. Yet he does talk about O’Reilly’s phrase describing Web 2.0 as an “architecture of participation”.
Well, there are technological design considerations that can help websites facilitate participation. Using forms on a webpage so that people visiting the webpage can contribute content as text, or even upload sounds and pictures to incorporate into the website can facilitate participation. Adding the ability to rate and/or link to other content also facilitates participation. Making the content available as widgets so it can easily be incorporated into other websites facilitates participation.
Yet what are the psychological components that facilitate or inhibit participation online? How do fears about conflict and the persistence of online content inhibit participation? How does the desire to establish relationships and to be heard encourage people to participate? How can people running websites use ideas from psychology to foster participation that will make the website attractive and successful?
I think Andreessen is partially right and partially wrong. Too many of the people talking about Web 2.0 seem to think of it in terms of the underlying technological tools. Yet what really facilitates an architecture of participation isn’t the technology, but an understanding of group dynamics online, and so far, I am not seeing people sufficiently explore these dynamics.
Bloody Hands
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/15/2007 - 14:24Tell Burger King: "Farmers Deserve Fair Wages"
(Also available on Blip.TV)
Where will the first vote in the 2008 Primary be cast?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/15/2007 - 11:12I must admit, I don't know all the nuances of how voting in the 2008 primary works. As I understand things, New Hampshire is required, by state law to have the first primary, right? So, should we assume that the first vote in the 2008 primaries will be cast in New Hampshire? Perhaps not
New Hampshire does not have early voting, so the first vote in the New Hampshire primary will be January 22nd, with perhaps a few possible exceptions for absentee ballots.
California is scheduled to have its primary on February 5th, and has early voting, which begins on January 7th.
Over on MyDD, there is a diary entitled, Vote Hope's California Challenge: Beat Iowa.
Early voting in California will begin Jan. 7, and we will be running a sophisticated, voter-file-driven program to turn out our early votes before the Iowa caucuses even begin.
Their goal is to get 500,000 Obama supporters to vote in the California primary before the Iowa caucuses (let alone the New Hampshire primary).
(Cross posted at BlueHampshire)
Politics and change
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/15/2007 - 09:38I’ve never been a big fan of polls and handicapping political races. It somehow seems that besides not being particularly accurate, it promotes an approach to politics and leadership that isn’t particularly beneficial for our country. Today, I read a few blog posts and a bunch of emails that has gotten me to think a lot more about this.
First, Jerome Armstrong has a post up suggesting the 2008 Democratic Nomination is Hillary's race to lose. Mostly, Armstrong was talking about the fake self-proclaimed "movement" that exhausts me of Obama. Is the race really already over?
One of the things that everyone talks about is how the polls, this far out, don’t really mean much. There are the standard comments about how well Lieberman was doing in the polls at this point in the cycle.
Well, I thought I would go and try to find some polls from around June 2003. I haven’t found any good national polls from June 2003, but one set of polls particularly caught my attention. It was the American Research Group’s New Hampshire polls for 2003. From January through July of 2003, John Kerry was in first place in the polls, with Howard Dean second. Some of this may well have been because they were both from neighboring states. During August through December, Gov. Dean passed Sen. Kerry, but when the votes were counted after the primary, Kerry won and Dean came in second. They were the only two that got delegates out of the primary.
Some of this may have been the results of Iowa, and ‘fladem’ has a diary up on MyDD about Iowa's impact on New Hampshire.
All of this takes me to a bigger question. What is it that we want out of our leaders? Some of this may have to do with looking at the polls and the results of caucuses. We want our leaders to be ‘winners’. Some of this may have to do with Obama’s movement. People want to be part of a winning team, a movement, a community, of some sort of group that they feel strong affinity to. Yet as others have pointed out, what some people really want, is to be part of a group bringing about meaningful change, and not just a ‘feel-good’ movement as Armstrong suggests.
This takes us to the issue of change. On a mailing list of group psychotherapists, I posed the question, "What happens when leaders admit their own failings? What would it be like if political candidates admitted they didn't know everything?" One person responded,
If they admitted this, as well as how they plan on compensating for it, such as an expert in the area they are not, proposed for their staff...I would feel more comfortable with my vote. However, I believe the old saying is true for most of the population...ignorance is bliss.
David Glyn went further,
Leaders don't create the posture of infallibiity - they fall in with, or succumb to it, because of the sense that stepping outside it is tantamount to stepping out of the recognisable field of political life. To create leadership in a different mold involves, not just leaders, but substantial parts of the groups they are seeking to lead achieving a shift of culture; to suggest otherwise, paradoxically, throws all responsibility and power back onto leaders.
This takes me back to the whole idea of transformational politics. In the 2004 Presidential Primary cycle, Gov. Dean frequently told his supporters, “You have the power.” His message of political empowerment changed many people and some would suggest the course of U.S. politics. He didn’t end up getting elected President, but he is now chairman of the Democratic Party.
In the 2008 cycle, it seems as if Sen. Edwards comes the closest to ‘stepping out of the recognisable field of political life’. He has admitted that he was wrong in voting for the Iraq War Resolution and is working hard to make amends for it. He is running a campaign that echoes Gov. Dean’s message of empowerment, urging his supporters to take concrete action now to change our country and not simply waiting for some new leader to get elected in 2008.
Has he stepped too far outside, or not far enough? Are there enough people seeking a shift in our political discourse? Will he follow Gov. Dean’s footsteps and change many people but not get elected, or will his efforts towards change, combined with Gov. Dean’s efforts and perhaps other subcurrents in our culture be enough to get him elected and bring about meaningful change?
By focusing on the horserace component of the political campaigns, we miss the opportunity to explore real change, which starts with each one of us.
(Cross posted at MyDD.)
