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coalitions & the 'local maximum' trap

Submitted by philosopher on Sun, 06/22/2008 - 21:34
in

Suppose that you are playing a game in a hilly landscape, and the object of the game is reach a higher altitude than any other player, and all you've got is your own feet & eyes (no GPS, etc.)  What do you do?  Well, presumably you try to find the highest hill you can spot, and head straight for the top.  But what if you're playing in a thick fog, and can only see a few dozen feet in any direction?  In such conditions, you can determine what your local slope looks like, and climb up it.  And you can reach the top of whatever hill you're on that way, just by always climbing higher and higher until you run out of up.  But... what if that hill is not, in fact, the highest hill?  You'll be at a top, but not the tallest top.  What then?

If you're on top of a hill, but it isn't the highest hill, then you are at what AI researchers (among many others) call a local maximum.  Many problem-solving tasks can be modeled as playing this sort of foggy hill-climbing game.  And one always runs into this basic dilemma: make your problem-solver too risk-seeking, and it'll trade away a perfectly good hilltop for bupkis; but make your problem-solver too risk-averse, and it'll trap itself in a local maximum, unwilling to climb a little bit down in order to have a chance at finding an even higher hill to reach the top of. 

From the conversations that have been going on on this site, it seems to me that the right today is in a real danger of being caught in a local maximum.  We know that the coalition that has worked at least since Reagan is no longer working.  After Bush and Rove and Iraq and Katrina and... well, the independents just don't seem to trust the right anymore.  To the extent that they are interested in McCain, it's because they accept that he's not really a right-winger (as many around here are happy to agree.)  And the demographics are against the right, too, in terms of the youth vote, Latinos, etc.  Trying to just keep pushing forward with this coalition -- staying put on top of this particular hill -- is a recipe for short-term electoral suicide.  Maybe the left will burn itself out in a few cycles, but I wouldn't count on it; they've learned from their losses in the mid-90s, and from watching the GOP meltdown in this century.

And it's worse than that, even, because the current coalition is fraying.  There are too many tensions that have become too clear in the last decade.  We can't have both lower taxes and an invasion of Iran.  We can't have a smaller, less intrusive government and unlimited domestic security powers.  We can't have a laissez-faire government and a government that continually helps out agribusiness, or the airline industry, or the banking industry.  Yet all of these are elements that have been crucial to GOP electoral success thus far.

The right needs to climb down a little, before it can climb higher.  And what that means, in cashing out the metaphor, is that some elements of the current coalition are probably going to get jettisoned in order to better pursue new voters that haven't been reached before, or who have recently been lost.  Some might think that "just return to our conservative roots!" is a solution that avoids this difficulty, but that's an illusion -- much of the reason that GOP legislators vote for government- and deficit-expanding measures is that there are some voters that these actions keep in the GOP fold.  Ditto with, e.g., Medicare D.  To propose more small-government conservatism is to propose to lose those voters.  Maybe the true-blood conservatives whose votes will be gained will more than compensate for the kitchen-counter voters who will be lost.  But it's a hard answer to determine one way or another, in the current fog.

Let me be clear that I am not advocating here any particular rejiggering of the conservative coalition, nor am I making any suggestions as to which groups of voters are those that are not currently in the coalition but which should be pursued.  But I think it's important to face up, as clearly as possible, to the difficulties being faced standing here at the top of this no-longer-dominant hilltop. 

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If there is hope, it lies with the proles. ~ Winston Smith, 1984

Submitted by lagomorph on Mon, 06/23/2008 - 00:06.

For those who've not yet read George Orwell's 1984, that's a reference to the protagonist's hope that if the working class revolted,  a better world would emerge from the fascist and totalitarian government ruled by the Inner and Outer Parties with the aid of the Toughtpolice. At the same time that the hoped for them to redeem society, Smith knew that the working class was the least likely to do so because "proles remain human" and their interests lie not in politics or in world rulership but in raising their families, gossiping about their neighbors, watching their movies and football, drinking beer and buying lottery tickets. 

Historically, proles have been locked out of the Republican Party by virtue of the fact that the Party used to represent an elite, Ivy League-educated professional and aristocratic class - what we once referred to as "the gentry" or "bluebloods".  But here in the U.S. more than anywhere else in the world, something happened to the bluebloods when, through the avenues of great opportunity afforded by free market Capitalism, their ranks were joined and diluted by hard working Opportunists.  Thus the Unsinkable Molly Browns broke through the Blue Blood barriers with their "noveau riche" money, lifestyle and egalitarian sensibilities.  Typically the tensions between "working class" and "rich" have played out in the tensions between the liberal and conservative parties. 

This year, we watched a tectonic shift in those dynamics during the Democratic Primary. Today if we review the 100 Wealthiest Billionaires in the world, the vast majority of Americans in that category define themselves as "Liberal".  Colleges have become both more accessible and more likely to grant tenure to Liberal academics, and are producing a largely Liberal group of graduates who, this year, were far more likely to register as Democrats to vote for Barack Obama than to become Young Republicans.  This great opportunity has prompted a shift in what is generally known as the "elite" and "professional" classes toward Liberalism.  At the same time, greater wealth seems to have spurred a sense of guilt and unworthiness among many Liberals, prompting a desire on their part to give the less fortunate in the world a "leg up" so that they, too can share fairly in the prosperity, health, longevity, comfort, nutrition and security that we often take for granted.  In and of itself that is a noble cause, and many Conservatives would certainly like to see the world made a better place through development, trade, and opportunity rather than simple wealth redistribution and cradle-to-grave entitlements. 

The problem seems to be that in seeking some worthy Liberal goals, the pendulum has swung so far to the Left that the unexpected effects of hedonism, narcicissism, entitlement, isolationism, depression, guilt, overreaching political correctness and insecurity have resulted.  These are as much anathema to traditional-minded proles as are the equally overreaching, arrogant, greedy, morally bankrupt excesses of formerly powerful Republicans.  A best of both worlds does exist, and it seems to lie somewhere in the moderate middle. 

And therein lies not only the appeal of John McCain, the imperfect reformer, the anti-Republican Republican, but very possibly also his choice of running mates in Tim Pawlenty, the boy-next-door who possesses what the London Times refers to as "Prole Chic":

Pawlenty has already pioneered the concept of “Sam’s Club conservatism”, named after the popular discount stores founded by Sam Walton of the giant Wal-Mart retail chain, which holds out the promise of good value, small government catering to working people.

“I believe the Republican brand needs refreshment,” he said. “Our principles haven’t changed but the country is changing in terms of demographics, culture and technology and we need to make sure the Republican messenger has a modern message.”

Pawlenty is a firm believer in the heroic age of Republicanism, but his role models are presidents who brought their party into the modern era. “I consider myself a common sense, main-stream conservative in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln,” he said.

However, Pawlenty has sound relations with the conservative wing of the Republican party without being a perfect fit. He admires Ronald Reagan more for his flexibility than his ideological certitude. “He had an independent, pragmatic streak and I believe I have some of those characteristics as well,” he said.

Winston Smith was right.  If there is hope, it really does lie with the proles who embrace core conservative, traditional values and can relate to Republicans like Tim Pawlenty, son of a milk truck driver and graduate of the University of Minnesota, and Sarah Palin, daughter of two school teachers and graduate of the University of Idaho.  Somehow, it seems that McCain has cracked the door open for them.  It's up to us to kick it all the way open and welcome those who are truly capable of  "refreshing" the Republican brand. 

Well, I suppose if your are in a fog this all makes sense

Submitted by Ironman on Mon, 06/23/2008 - 06:03.

The Republican Party is the equivalent of a public utility. If suddenly oil becomes too expensive to burn in a power plant you don;t have the luxury of shutting everything down, leaving people in the dark, and spending 5-10 years researching fuel cell technology before you go back online. The public expects reliable service. To the extent we have failed to deliver that I believe often it is because we've already moved away from the tried and true to adopt snazzier ways of statecraft (i.e. changing our foreign policy in the Middle East from the attainable short-term goal of stable autocrats to the massively difficult long term goal of regional democracy).  Yes demographics change. They always have. Yes there are rifts in the party. There always have been (see 1964).

Now if we are making the less ornate argument we need to be a party more focused on Wal-Mart than Wall Street, well there's some rationale there and some track record of success for blue collar Republicanism. But far too often I've seen this argument used by disgruntled absolutists in the party who justify running their opponents out of the party on the basis that for social conservatives "there's a huge number of socially conservative black voters" or for libertarians "there's a  huge number of young single women" who will suddenly abandon the Democrats if we would throw some current Republicans out.  The subtraction in such strategies is guaranteed; the addition is completely speculative.

The Republicans we should "throw out"

Submitted by GOP_Rebel on Mon, 06/23/2008 - 10:26.

are those who display a complete lack of moral center (think Foley, Craig, Doyle, Vitter, Gardner, the list just goes on and on), those who are linked to corruption (Tom DeLay), those who waste taxpayer money incessantly in return for reelection and power (Don Young), those who deliberately run jobs and business out of their state by aligning themselves with failed Liberal policies (Schwarzenegger), etc.   I think you get my drift.  The ones we should support are leaders and legislators with track records of "political sobriety" like Sean Parnell, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty.  "Wal-Mart Republicans" with family and conservative values, high ethical standards, a sense of duty and honor - and a good sense of humor, too, well - they sure do work for me.  The Republican Party's really going to need that, and you're right - we don't have the luxury of waiting 8-12 years.  I think that makes McCain's VP pick a much more significant one than we're historically accustomed to.