Today’s Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU, Washington DC’s National Public Radio affiliate station featured a segment with Shankar Vedantam, "Department of Human Behavior" Columnist at The Washington Post, called “The Art of Evasion: A Debate Primer”.
The lament of both guest and host was that debate viewers pay more attention to style than substance – we are more likely to believe a smoothly delivered answer that evades the question than we are a haltingly delivered answer that nails it.
Unlike the host and guest, I think that’s probably ok; on election day neither you nor I will vote for a sack of issues, we will vote for a man. We will vote for an approach to the world, not the list policy options with which we agree the most.
When we vote for a president we are voting for a person, not a stack of positions – we use the issues, debate and interview answers, language, non-verbals and all of the other clues we’re given to make a judgment about the candidate. We want to know if this is someone we can trust, someone whose values and priorities we share. Of course we support the firm and clear, if pointless, answer over the halting one – we want our president to be strong and assured. We want to be able to picture our president in the Oval Office in a time of crisis, looking America in the eye, and telling us everything is going to be ok. We want to know that our president has good judgment and will make sound decisions.
Most of us, most of the time, view politics like a broken toilet, and we want our elected officials to be competent plumbers. When our toilet breaks, we want someone to fix it. We don’t care how the person we hire does it, the brand of tools the plumber uses, or what kind of truck the plumber drives. When we hire a plumber we want to know the person will do a good job, will clean up the work area, and won’t steal anything on the way out. If we ask about their approach, it is to hear if it seems reasonable; we are unlikely to question the answer, rather we are listening for a confident and rational-sounding solution to our plumbing problem.
The handful of issues that do matter are often themselves standing in for something else. Senator Obama’s proposed tax cut says “I am with you” and by arguing about Senator McCain’s corporate tax policies Obama is saying “he is for corporate interests, not you.” Senator McCain’s attacks on Obama’s past positions on off-shore oil drilling are less about our energy policy than they are about making the point that Obama seems to want to ignore an obvious solution, which shows bad judgment.
Of course we ignore the content of debate answers, because when we vote that’s not what we’re voting for. And probably never been any other way, and that’s probably fine.
