On Sat 7 Feb, 2004, Slate's Michael Kinsley was quoted as saying: > The process the Democrats are putting themselves through resembles John > Maynard Keynes' famous description of the stock market. The game isn't > to figure out which stocks are most likely to do well, but to figure out > which stocks other investors think are most likely to do well.
That's a very good description of the mechanism of what's happening. But his conclusion that the result is unstable is completely wrong. There is a difference between a feedback mechanism that has no end point -- i.e. a price, which can always change -- and a feedback mechanism that has a single endpoint -- i.e., a choice for the nomination, where everyone knows that in the end there can be only one. In the later case, feedback mechanisms typically produce a quick arrival at a stable final equilibrium Kinsley is also completely wrong that Democrats don't know what they want. They know exactly what they want. They want to win. They want Bush out. And everything else is secondary. They aren't voting for Kerry because they've become more moderate. They are voting for Kerry because they are so thoroughly united by desparation that nothing else matters. All this makes this a unique national primary. The truism has always been that primary voters (and especially early primary voters) don't vote strategically -- that is, they don't vote for anyone other than the person they really want. But that's exactly what's going on here. And saying that "electability" is more important than usual doesn't capture the uniqueness of it. "Electability" is a traditional primary concern. It means, Can this guy *conceivably* win? That's always been important to a lot of primary voters. So they'd make a cut and then choose the guy they liked best above that line. It was by nature a secondary concern. But the difference now is that winning is the primary concern -- that primary voters are choosing the guy who has the best chance of winning even if his if his positions are several people away from their favorite. And they are doing it from the getgo. That's unprecedented. The result has been a cascade effect. The only proof that you can win an election is that you've won and election. People voted for Kerry in New Hampshire because he won in Iowa. And they voted for him in the seven state primary because he won in Iowa and New Hampshire. And they'll vote for him in the primaries to come for the same reason. A reason which only gets stronger. Unstable this mechanism is not. Personally I feel the reason Kerry won in Iowa had nothing to do with him. It was because Gephardt took down Dean in the electoral equivalent of a suicide bombing, going so negative that it was almost guaranteed to hurt him more than it hurt Dean. And when they both fell, Kerry and Edwards were standing behind them in line. But all that's a footnote in history now. When the primary comes to New York, I'll vote for Kerry for the same reason that everyone has -- and for the same reason I supported Dean in the first place. I want the junta of madmen gone. Then we can start to think about other things. BTW, the silver lining for me in Dean's demise is that if the internet model of politics is ever going to be important for the left -- if it is ever going to be more than a new kind of money chute for the Democratic Party -- it is going to be something that proves itself after the election. It is only then that we will see if it can produce pressure that actually affects policies. And for such a thing to happen, it would probably be better if the internat activist network is separate from the candidate's machine. In addition, the potentially most innovative and transforming use of the internet will not be its power to collect money, but its power to move bodies into borderline states as it becomes clear which ones are in play. And so far, the people who have done the most advanced work on that front is MoveOn. Michael
