A note about Arlen Specter
I’ve had this draft sitting around for a few weeks now (end of the semester was hectic, what can I say) so bear with me while I beat a horse that’s been long-dead in the political blogosphere. It may be old news, but it’s a good example of game theory in a political context and, I think, still interesting to think about.
The basic issue is this: Specter doesn’t want to run as a Republican, because he doesn’t think he could win as a Republican but does think he could win as a Democrat. Most of what I’ve heard is either criticism of this sort of selfish motivation, or resigned praise that he’s at least being honest about having a selfish motivation. But isn’t this* exactly the right way for a politician to behave?
We expect companies to pursue profit, not because profit has a moral quality on its own, but because it acts as a measure of real worth. If people like what you’re selling, they’ll buy it, and you’ll make money. A company that relentlessly pursues profit will (most of the time) be trying relentlessly to make as many people happy as possible.
Similarly, we expect politicians to try to get themselves elected and reelected. “He’s already campaigning for reelection” is often said with derision, but there’s really nothing wrong with it. Trying to get elected means trying to make your constituents like you and want you in office. True, there are some limits on this with respect to corruption and voter superficiality, but in general, we respect elections as a mechanism of choosing who deserves to hold political office. If you’re a politician and you don’t think that doing what you’re doing will get you reelected by the people you represent, we expect you to change what you’re doing.
However, if you really think that what you’re already doing is the best way to be a politician, it’s reasonable to have a bit of integrity and resist changing it. Maybe you should try to make the case to the public that your ideas and actions are worth valuing, worth electing. But let’s suppose for a moment, just hypothetically, that that isn’t working. That perhaps you really believe in strict measures for national security and in the right of women to choose abortion, and the majority of voters who elected you don’t understand how those ideas could go together.
What would we expect a company to do, if in the same situation? What if they can’t convince anyone to buy the high-quality aprons they sell, except for those couple people they heard of one time who tied them up into some really nifty handbags for themselves? Should they close up the apron shop and look for other careers? Or should they make the most of the fact that with a slight repackaging of the product they already make, they could reach a brand new and much larger market for their goods?
Arlen Specter knows he’s providing valuable services to his nation and his constituents, but he can’t convince enough PA Republican voters of that. He paid attention to polling and noticed that PA Democrats really like the job he’s doing, and also noticed that that had something to do with the fact that his ideology and actions would be at home in the Democratic party. So Specter had three choices. He could keep doing the governing he thinks is best, and get voted out of office by Republicans who don’t appreciate him and Democrats who’d rather vote for someone with a D by his name. He could compromise his ideals and vote the way that the Republicans want him to vote, just to keep his job and the R by his name. Or, he could agree to write a D by his name and get the chance to continue his work using the ideology he believes in.
Sure, I suppose it’s selfish, but we’ve constructed the system in such a way as to make personal interests and public interests motivate each other, so acting selfishly is not immoral. Specter isn’t somehow rigging the system in order to trick the American public into voting for him. He’s trying to make himself into the sort of politician the American public actually wants to elect. What more could we ask for?
* I realize some other political games were played after the initial announcement of Specter’s party switch. I’m not talking about those, mostly because when I wrote this, they hadn’t happened yet. At any rate, I want to talk about the initial incident and people’s reactions as a case study.
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4 Responses to “A note about Arlen Specter”
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I guess my question is, does his responsibility lie in moving his ideas along, or moving the party? If he thinks Republican voters have lost their way, the righteous thing to do is to try and persuade them otherwise and guide them back out of the wilderness.
Or he could stay in office and leave them to rot.
Well, I think Specter’s responsibility is to move his ideas along by advocating them to all people, not just to Republicans. Political parties don’t have a moral quality in and of themselves, they’re alliances made for political expediency. He also has an obligation to do what the majority of Pennsylvanians want him to do. It turns out (so the polls say) the majority of Pennsylvanians like him and want him to stay in office. Given that, I think it would be irresponsible of him to let the extreme-right 30% of the state veto what the rest of the state wants.
Specter’s been advocating his point of view in every public remark he’s made and in every election he’s run in in the past. I’m not really sure what else you’d expect him to do to try to move the party, and why this constitutes leaving anyone to rot.
I guess I feel like the most honorable thing to do is to leave office and re-run as a Democrat, rather than switch parties during a term.
And I’m not so sure that PA wants him to stay. I think he’s in the sunset phase of his job as a senator as we speak.
That’s a fair point, but I disagree—I think voters typically care more about his policy views than which party he caucuses with. They elected him to enact the policies he promised while campaigning. (I see where you’re coming from insofar as one of his campaign promises was, technically, to caucus with the Republicans, but there’s a lot of evidence that Specter was elected in spite of being a Republican rather than because of it. Also, I just don’t think that’s really the top voting issue for most people.) If writing a D instead of an R next to his name means getting those policies he promised enacted more efficiently and effectively, then I think that’s the honorable thing to do.
I guess the bottom line is that I see political parties as a convenient generalization for categorizing people, but that they don’t have moral weight as an institution. You couldn’t betray your party just by leaving it, any more than it’s betraying one’s school to transfer. (Sure, you could betray your old school by telling lies about it, or by telling their football rivals all about the team’s weaknesses. But that’s not the sort of thing we’re talking about.)