Romney, Trump, and Election Economics
While reading the new biography on Mitt Romney, there was a key economics principle that wove through his political life like Albus Dumbledore through Harry's. Just like Dumbledore always nudged Harry at critical moments, this principle helped Romney navigate his way from a failed Senate candidacy, to a successful Gubernatorial run, to multiple failed Presidential campaigns, and finally to a successful seat in the Senate.
Romney all over the place
Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts as a Republican. MA is a strong blue Democrat state, so Romney didn't run as a red Republican. He was definitely purple.
On the campaign trail, Romney carefully tailored his views on social issues to match the average Massachusetts voter-pro-choice, in favor of some gun control, and generally supportive of gay rights. He pledged to "preserve and protect a woman's right to choose." His campaign passed out pink flyers at Boston's gay pride parade wishing participants a "Great Pride Weekend!" He presented himself-maybe even saw himself-as proudly carrying on his father's venerable civil rights legacy. "At a very young age," he reportedly said in a meeting with gay rights leaders in the state, “my parents taught me important lessons about tolerance and respect. I have carried these lessons with me throughout my life and will bring them with me if I am fortunate enough to be elected governor." (p. 65)
But then he wanted to run for President. And purple doesn't win you anything in the Primaries.
Setting himself apart from the pack wouldn't be easy. But Romney would begin tonight by introducing America's Republican voters to a new Mitt-still polished and competent and good with numbers, but now a dyed-in-the-wool Reaganite conservative.
Over the next hour and a half, Romney rhapsodized about family values, delivered crisp answers on the economy and Iraq, and deftly diffused questions about the sincerity of his recent lurch to the right on abortion. "I was wrong and changed my mind," he said simply, noting that Ronald Reagan had undergone a similar evolution on the issue. "I'm proud of that, and I won't apologize to anybody for becoming pro-life." (p. 80)
Now he's a Utah Senator, and he's not planning on running for reelection. As a result, he's moved back to purple. He voted twice in favor of impeaching Trump. He participated in a Black Lives Matter march. He voted to confirm both Trump's Supreme Court candidate Amy Coney Barrett and Biden's candidate Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Median Voter Theorem
This political history is a good example of what economists call the Median Voter Theorem (MVT).
To summarize, let's imagine your political preferences can be summarized as a single number. It's hard to imagine that number when we start talking about policies like setting tax brackets, building infrastructure, and pardoning turkeys. But it can be easy to imagine it in office politics when setting a thermostat. So let's imagine an election over who gets to control the office temperature.
Each worker in the office has an ideal temperature. Maybe if the office requires formal dress, then men in suits will want a cooler temperature but women in skirts will want a warmer temperature. So the candidates propose their thermostat policies and the workers vote for the one that is closest to their ideal temperature. But if the candidates want to get elected, they can't just propose their ideal temperature. They have to consider the distribution of temperature preferences and then propose the one that will attract the most votes.
The best strategy is to pick the temperature right at the median preference. Imagine the candidate didn't and instead picked a temperature just slightly warmer than the median. Let's call it T. Then the competitor could choose something marginally cooler, T-delta. Since T is above the median, then we know more than 50% of workers prefer T-delta. Therefore, the competitor gets more than 50% of the vote and wins. The only way to not get sniped by your opponent is for you both to choose the median.
While the thermostat election is a little silly, this generalizes. Some voters want no taxes, but other voters want to tax the rich so much that they die quickly and their meat can be served at a San Francisco popup steak restaurant. So politicians propose marginal changes to progressive tax policies. Campaigning on centrist policies is not only a good strategy to win, it's how we avoid crazy candidates capturing offices.
But I'd that's the case, how did we get Trump?
Did Trump disprove MVT?
In recent history, Trump came through as a pretty radical candidate. He had no political experience and he had a history of embarrassing business failures. His image had recently been rejuvenated through his show The Apprentice. But his policies were a little further afield than most candidates. One of his biggest campaign promises was a much stricter immigration policy at a time where most strategists thought Republicans should be more receptive of America's fastest growing demographic.
But his success in the 2016 primaries is both a proof and a warning for median voter theorem.
The trouble in the 2016 primaries was that there were too many candidates. Republicans refused to drop out, and they all followed Median Voter strategies. So if you have two candidates right at the median, and one just to the right of the median, then the two will split 50% of the vote and then third will get just under 50%. But just under 50% is a lot better than 25%, so the third candidate wins.
It's no coincidence that Trump was winning primaries with 47% of the vote!
Even though Romney didn't run in 2016, he tried to beat Trump with a median voter strategy.
Arguing that most primary voters still preferred someone other than the current front-runner, Romney urged Republicans to vote strategically so that the nomination fight could move to an open convention. Anti-Trump Republicans in Florida should cast ballots for Rubio, voters in Ohio should go in for Kasich, and the remaining states should be divvied up among the three non-Trump candidates still running. (p. 172)
His plan was to rally support behind the median voter candidate and hope that the convention could hash out the details. (If I remember correctly, this is basically the plot of the second half of Season 6 of The West Wing.)
The median voter theorem is well-tested. But now Trump is running with much more extreme policy preferences, and he’s projected to be the Republican candidate. Does this disprove the MVT?
A new MVT
The median voter theorem focuses on policy. But maybe we need to think about a different margin where voters have strong preferences.
Since Trump's surprise victory, we've seen a shift towards more Trump-like candidates. But they aren't primarily mimicking his policies. They are crass bullies with a blatant disregard for American institutions. And they're succeeding!
I think they're succeeding because policy is turning into the bass player of the rock band. Sure, it's arguably one of the most important parts of the band, but no one goes crazy for the bass player. They want the lead singer, and that lead singer is personality.
Voters have preferences for candidate personalities. The advice has always been vote for the one you'd like to get a beer with. But that was supposed to be when were picking between a bunch of median voter candidates who shared your policy preferences. It was the tie breaker. Trump said, "Instead of beer complimenting the meal, let's make it the main focus. And let's get smashed."
So now we're in a world where politicians aren't trying to appeal the the median voter's policy preferences. They are looking for their personality preferences. And for some reason the median voter likes toddlers more than adults. And just like my toddler wreaks havoc in my house, our representative toddlers are causing a mess in politics.
The books I’m anticipating
These were my thoughts after reading Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins. I also recently posted a video with my review of Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity.
In this week’s message to members, I list a few of the books I’m anticipating over the next couple of months.
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