The art of triangulation.

In the mid- to late-nineties, the concept of triangulation was all the rage among political commentators in the US. Morris, widely considered as its father, describes it for us in his book:

The key is to recognize that it is legitimate for Republicans to worry about the elderly, education, and the environment. It is okay for Democrats to work to solve crime and welfare and to hold down taxes. Issues are not the preserve of one party or the other. Candidates, to be effective, need to cross over and show their ability to solve the other side's problems.

Bill Clinton proved this to be so. But the Republicans have yet to realize they can use their basic issues of less taxation and government regulation to win elections only if they offer credible programs for education, the environment, the elderly, and economic growth. But as long as Republicans offer no real alternatives on these Democratic issues, voters will continue to reject them. Voters will not seek low taxes and limited government at the price of jettisoning their concerns over the Democratic issues.

In addressing the other party's issues, a "me too" campaign never works. To be successful, a candidate cannot jusst mimic his opponent's rhetoric or programs; rather, he has to invent a new range of solutions to the problems historically associated with the other party. In the 1996 campaign, Clinton did not merely parrot Republican proposals, he sought to defuse the pressure for GOP programs by using Democratic means to achieve Republican goals.

(Morris: pp. 51-52).

In other words, triangulation consists in "stealing" your opponents strong issues by taking a different approach in its resolution. As such, it sounds a lot like the Third Way proposed by Clinton, Blair, Schroeder and others, something similar to the concept of the radical center, which attempts to come up with a centrist path by combining the solutions coming from both sides of the aisle in the left-right divide. It's a position that doesn't have much credit these days, in spite of the fact that Barack Obama himself has applied it to his own campaign to a great extent (although without making a big deal of it, to be sure). I understand this position may have acquired a bad reputation after Blair went out supporting Bush's adventure in Iraq, but the fact is that the position itself continues making sense, I think. Simply put, today's problems are of a completely different nature than the one the old ideologies of left and right tried to answer. And yet, they still defend certain values (equality, freedom, tradition, etc.) that are obviously timeless. To this, we also should add the fact that today's voters are far more educated and sophisticated than in the past. They dislike being treated like sport fans who are expected to join in cheering chants according to an already written libretto, preferring to choose on their own. Catechisms should be thrown out the window.

Political scandals and their ability to mobilize voters.

Morris doesn't seem to believe that political scandals have any influence whatsoever:

Scandal sells newspapers, radio programs, and TV shows. It just doesn't move voters. It attracts those who are already decided politically —base voters of either party— to the TV set, but it does little to influence the real playing ground of our politics: the independent middle.

(Morris: p. 45)

I beg to differ. It all depends on the type of political scandal we are referring to. If it only involves personal issues, as I've indicated somewhere else, I do agree they end up having little influence over electoral behaviors. On the other hand, if they involve political corruption, their effects could be the key to winning or losing an election. I do believe voters these days are way too sophisticated to fall into the sensationalistic trap that political strategists sometimes like to use. They are too often described as brainless, amorphous individuals who can be easily influenced by political marketing. Far from that, today's average voter is more educated than in the past, and also more adept at reading and interpreting messages from the media, separating the wheat from the chaff without much trouble.

Oh, and one more thing: I don't completely agree with Morris' assessment that today's elections are won by attracting "the independent middle". Yes, the "floating vote", the voters who could go either way at the last minute, is important. However, I am convinced there is another sociological group that is far more influential in the final outcome of the elections but that is usually underestimated: the one that goes out to vote sometimes but decides to stay home in other circumstances. This is the group that can make or break elections, I think. Yet, precisely because they sometimes stay home and their vote is not counted, political scientists and consultants confuse things and blame the shifts on "independent voters". Let me put it this way: I think that, for the most part, there are no independent voters. The vast majority of people feel identified with one or another side of the political spectrum, and rarely change their views. When they do, it tends to be for a period of years (for instance, people who used to vote Democrat change their preferences at a given point and start voting for the Republicans consistently). One way or another, there is no such a thing as a true "floating vote" (or, at least, not a group that is statistically significant enough to decide the elections, I think). However, there are plenty of people on both sides of the aisle who may or may not turn out to vote. These are the ones who decide the elections. Why would political scientists then fall for the idea that there is such a thing as a significant group of independent voters? The reason lies precisely in the way this behavior I am referring to here shows in the election results. Suppose there is a group of voters A who tend to vote for the Democrats, and a group B that leans towards the Republicans. If voting group A becomes actively involved in an election and goes out to vote while group B stays homes, the Democrats will win. On the other hand, if in the next elections group A stays home and group B goes out to vote, the Republicans will win. A quick look at the results will seem to clearly show the existence of a group of "independent voters" who sometimes vote for the Democrats and some other times vote for the Republicans, in spite of the fact that the reality is not truly like that. I am obviously not arguing that there are no independent voters out there, but rather that their importance is usually overestimated, I think. On the other hand, the voting group that I think is truly vital to a winning strategy (i.e., the one one that sometimes votes and some other times decides to stay home) is usually overlooked. I also think Obama's campaign proves that my hypothesis is more correct than Morris'.

Clinton and personal scandals in contemporary politics.

Quite a few people were surprised to see in the late 1990s that no political (or personal) scandal seemed to have any effect on Bill Clinton's popularity level. The clearest example of this was, of course, the Lewinsky scandal. The Republicans strategists thought they had finally caught Clinton in a situation that would pretty much force him to resign or that, at the very least, would have a significant cost for the Democrats at the ballot box. Morris, however, has a completely different approach to the issue:

One of the reasons politicians like Clinton have proven less vulnerable than one might expect to constant attacks on their characters, is that voters don't want to have to trust a candidate to make decisions for them. They want their elected officials on a shorter leash. Voters now insist that a candidate spell out his program, his vision, his ideas, and then they will elect him to fulfill that specific mandate. As Tina Turner sang, "What's love got to do with it?"

(Morris: pp. 32-33)

I'm not sure I totally agree with Morris' view though. I am convinced voters view a politician as a professional these days: as long as he delivers, we don't have to care about his personal affairs. To put it a different way: do we want to see the Government (or even media) mingle with our own personal affairs? I believe the centrality of media these days has led people to learn the importance of privacy. Sure, ogling into other people's lives is tempting, and everybody does it to one extent or another. Yet, we also know that each person's life is his or her own. We have learned to respect that, at least in general terms. As a matter of fact, I'd say that the main reason that makes a given type of media that specializes in airing information about the private lives of big stars so popular is directly related to the fact that people see it as mere entertainment. In other words, people who consume this type of media is fully aware that the whole thing may not be more than a big lie, a marketing plot set up to spread a given public image of the star in question. People are far more media savvy than we want to give them credit for. In this sense, political "scandals" that only affect the politicians' personal lives are nothing but fodder for this particular form of gossip entertainment. People couldn't care any less about them, except to gossip, discuss and joke about it. That's all. Scandals of a real political nature, of course, are a completely different thing.

Idealism as the most pragmatic course.

Although Morris' choice of title for his book may generate a good amount of mixed feelings among readers (after all, Machiavelli has come to be seen, unfair as it is, as a synonym of dirty politics and overt hipocrisy and pursuit of self-interest at any cost), the truth is that The New Prince does not read as a manual of dirty tricks. Rather, it reads as a political manual in the good old tradition started by the author of The Prince, widely considered to be the first study in Political Science. The preface already gives us a good idea of the line he follows in the rest of the book:

If American politicians were truly pragmatic and did what was really in their own best self-interest our political process would be a lot more clean, positive, nonpartisan, and issue-oriented. It is not practicality which drives the partisanship, and the never-ending cycle of investigation and recrimination in which we wallow, but a complete misapprehension of what Americans want and what politicians —in their own career self-interest— should offer. If Machiavelli were alive today, he would counsel idealism as the most pragmatic course.

(Morris: p. XV)

I totally agree with Morris on this one. How often have we heard in the past twenty years or so that the problem with contemporary politics is precisely the fact that politicians are too pragmatic (too "professional") and don't hold deep beliefs? On the contrary, I think what most citizens dislike about politics (the constant bickering, the sectarian approach to the issues, the ad-hominem attacks) have more to do with ideological dogmatism than pragmatism. Everyone is fully aware that our societies are too complex for politicians to be amateurish. This may be OK at the local level in the smallest towns, but as soon as we move to higher levels the amateur approach just doesn't cut it anymore. The people who hold most offices have to work on it full-time. They have to be professionals. There is no other choice. However, precisely because they are professionals, their main goal should be to achieve objectives, to deliver. I am convinced that citizens don't have a problem with a politician who commits mistakes or changes his mind on a particular issue, as long as he delivers. That's how voters —especially those who matter most: the independents— will judge him. They are seen as freelance advocates. And yet, Morris is right when he points out that most politicians simply are not aware of this change in perception. They continue doing politics the old way: in a partisan manner, with an ideologically-driven agenda, blinded by a set of rigid ideological principles that are seen as the magic recipe to solve all problems.

I have a little issue with Morris' choice of words though. Idealism is usually identified precisely with the sort of starry-eyed unrealistic expectation based on a given dogma. True, it doesn't have to refer only to that, but let's face it, it's what most people identify the term with. I do think a politician must have some deeply held principles or values, but she must also have an idea how to bring them to life, how to implement them in real life. Politics is the art of applying ideas to the real life by implementing it in the form of projects. It's not so different from business management after all, although most people would shy away from that comparison because it doesn't sound grandiose enough.

The New Prince. Machiavelli Updated for the 21st Century.

Dick Morris, one of Bill Clinton's political advisors and the brains behind his electoral victory in 1996, writes what he considers the essential rules for office-seekers and anyone who cares about politics. There is no theory in this book. Rather, Morris writes about the practice of running for office and doing politics based on his long experience as a political advisor to many politicians. Although his reference to Machiavelli might turn off many potential readers who may think that Morris portrays a conspiratorial way to reach power and avoid being unseated from it, the contents of the book are quite different. He simply reflects upon the essence of the political activity in the 21st century.

Technical description:
Ttitle: The New Prince. Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century.
Author: Dick Morris.
Publisher: Renaissance Books.
Edition: First Edition, Los Angeles (USA), 1999.
Pages: 252 pages.
ISBN: 1-58063-147-9

Find it on Amazon (USA, UK, in Spanish)