Ethics Newsline®

by Rushworth M. Kidder

How will the next president respond to a crisis?

For voters who care about moral responsibility in a complex world, there are few more important questions. But the answers, during an ordinary campaign season, usually are only speculative responses to hypothetical what ifs. Candidates usually don’t have to respond to real crises.

Last week that changed. With the challenge to financial markets and the ensuing interventions by the federal government, voters got to watch how the presidential and vice presidential candidates responded to a critical turn of events unfolding in real time. In other words, we got to see whether the candidates looked and acted presidential.

The results were disappointing. It’s now widely felt that none of them rose to the occasion — at least not until late in the week after the moment had passed. Given the chance to assert a commanding national presence, they punted. Why? Was the crisis too big, such that they didn’t want to risk interfering with the actual crisis managers? Did they feel it was inappropriate for a campaign to engage in real-time decision making? Were their staffs buffaloed because they lacked the knowledge that sitting presidents have and therefore were unable to formulate a presidential-sounding position? Or — sober thought — is none of the four capable of looking and acting presidential in a crisis?

I’d answer no on all counts. Their failure isn’t personal to them. It reveals a basic flaw in our campaign system, which is that the qualities needed to get elected in the United States are fundamentally different from the qualities needed to govern the United States once in office.

We’re talking qualities, not experience. We’ve known for years that the experiences are substantially different: No one believes that a suitable inhabitant of the Oval Office is required to know how to eat vulcanized chicken in shirtsleeves under a campaign tent. What’s now becoming clear is that the qualities — the attributes, characteristics, and habits of mind — also are entirely different:

• Successful campaigns are about naked partisanship and polarization, where candidates take every opportunity to snap back at their opponents. Successful administrations are about unification and coalition building, where the president forges compromise and compels unlikely bedfellows to cooperate.
• Paradoxically, however, successful campaigns are about appeasement, as candidates constantly repackage themselves to appeal to warring camps within their own parties. Successful administrations are about consistent visions of statecraft — predictable, unwavering in their core principles, and willing to soldier on despite being disliked.
• As part of their polarizing, successful campaigns routinely redefine tough issues as simplistic, black-and-white choices and accuse their opponents of being dead wrong — all at breakneck speed. Successful administrations recognize nuance and complexity, and can afford to take the time for diplomacy and quiet persuasion to triumph.
• Successful campaigns, spending hours in search of the 10-word zinger that will grab media attention away from the opponent, often let language trump substance. Successful administrations, able to get media attention whenever they want it, don’t have to rely on clever sound bites and more readily can let substance drive language.
• Finally, successful campaigns are about fundraising as well as vote getting, and candidates’ schedules are designed with one eye toward extracting as much money as quickly as possible. Successful administrations build the president’s schedule around “Where can I get the votes?” instead of “Who’ll pay the most?”

Okay, so I’ve overstated it. Campaigns do have visions and values, and presidents don’t always act as they should. But you get the point: The system itself is driving us toward these extremes. What’s more, campaigning may hold more overt ethical risk than governing. Voters sadly have come to expect from campaigns a level of moral sponginess — disrespectful language, irresponsible promises, untruthful spins — that they’re more apt to find offensive in presidents.

And that’s the ultimate paradox. At the Olympics, athletes are asked to do precisely what they’ve trained for years to do. In U.S. politics, the winners are asked to do something at right angles to their training — laying aside much of what they’ve learned about campaigning and mastering a whole new set of skills for governing. Little wonder, then, that when a week arrives where candidates need to look presidential, they scramble to figure out how.

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

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