Archive for the ‘Public Discourse’ Category

Now that the election is over, I’ve been seeing a lot of crazy talk in the news. At least its not all coming from the McCain campaign.

Bush's Brain

Some is though. At least a few of McCain’s team are ripping on Governor Sarah Palin, calling her essentially an ignorant hillbilly. Now, I was not a Palin fan, but didn’t these guys select her as their candidate without really knowing anything about her? And now they are surprised and angry? This scorched-earth style is just so reminiscent of Schmidt and Wallace’s mentor, Karl Rove. If you don’t believe me, read Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.

Then there are people who are criticizing whatever name is floated for the Obama administration. Critics want him to get moving immediately and produce results. But, they also want him to do that without using anybody who has been in government before, especially from the Clinton or Bush administrations. (Those people are not change, they are “more of the same.”) Further, the critics also don’t want him to use the people who helped him get elected.

Now, let’s take a step back. How do you move fast? To move fast, you have to quickly find and bring in qualified and experienced people. Otherwise, there is going to be a long learning curve. But, since there has been a Bush or a Clinton in the White House for the last 20 years, the pickings are kind of small. And Obama has already said seances are out.

On top of that, how do you find people fast if you ignore the people you know well and trust? Searching for and vetting people is a time consuming process. This would take months even for a handful of people. Picking people without that kind of a process can be disaster, as the McCain apparently found out the hard way.

Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer

So realistically speaking, there are going to be a lot of Democrats and people who helped him get elected or who know people who helped him get elected in his administration. This is not cronyism, its just the way it has to be done. What he needs to do to create change though is bring together a mix of experienced people who have different perspectives and orientations, as well as a deep knowledge of government and world affairs. A great book recommendation for him is Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer: Managing for Conflict and Consensus. In the book, Professor Roberto discusses how leaders should organize the decision-making process for best results. While the book is geared toward corporate leaders, the principles still make sense for political leaders. In fact, the author recounts in detail how President Kennedy revamped the decision making in the White House after the Bay of Pigs disaster. So the debate here is not whether President-elect Obama will be tapping Democrats and people he knows, but whether he will tap ones that bring a diversity of perspectives and a wealth of current and profound knowledge.

Today in the Wall Street Journal we have the headline “Gap Narrows in Florida and Ohio, Not Pennsylvania.” The article has a lot of graphs and looks pretty impressive. But taking a wider view shows that this is a red herring. I don’t know if the writer knows this or just didn’t bother to look past one poll, but let’s look at how the false drama works. According to the WSJ,

Sen. McCain now is within striking distance in Florida, where Sen. Barack Obama leads 47% to 45%, a new poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute finds. Less than a week ago, Sen. Obama led by five percentage points there.

One is led to think that Senator McCain has closed the gap by 5% points. But, take a look below at this screen cap from WSJ’s own superb “At the Polls” interactive graph. The green line shows the trajectory of the Quinnipiac poll.

WSJ Graph of all Florida Polls

You can easily see that the Quinnipiac Poll, which used to show the most extreme Obama lead, has switched to now barely show the narrowest Obama lead. But the average of polls hasn’t really changed. In other words, there is no reason for Obama to be worried.

So, what about Ohio? The situation is even more–that is , less–dramatic. The WSJ article says,

In Ohio, considered a Republican must-win, Sen. Obama still has a comfortable lead of 51% to 42%, Quinnipiac found. The good news for Sen. McCain is he appears to be closing the gap there; last week, Sen. Obama led by 14 points.And here is the chart of all polls:

And here is the graphic of other polls. The green line shows the trajectory of the Quinnipiac poll:

WSJ Compilation of Polls for Ohio

Clearly, the Qinnipiac poll has only gone from being way extreme to mildly extreme. This is hardly a gain for McCain in the polls.