The Race for Second

Shot himself in the foot or not, it’s been disappointing that no one has responded to the actual issue, and if they have, it’s been so muted by the hubbub about going negative.

Really though, who cares? Everyone finds negative campaigning distasteful, but I don’t know a candidate in the Utah US Senate race (except maybe David Chiu) who hasn’t flung any mud. Lee and Bridgewater and Eagar have been pounding away at Bennett for months, and when he decides to start shooting back, is anyone surprised? (not that I’m a huge Bob fan; i’m just saying…) The truth of the matter is that drawing distinctions and negative campaigning is a tried and true method that both educates voters and wins elections, and I say that based only on what studies have shown. It IS distastful, and it DOES dirty both the thrower of the mud and the recipient, but it works. And Lee has been throwing it just as long as the others.

What would I like to see? I’d like the candidates to engage each other on foreign policy, actually debate it. Show off their knowledge and expertise and position and persuade us that it is the right one. Right now, all I see is one candidate trotting out a shlew of veteran generals to support him, a second saying “Look, I told you he was going to start attacking me, because he’s afraid” and a third saying “Look what the second said–isn’t that dumb?” So…they all kind of miss the point: foreign policy is not a simple issue that can be summed up in a short and trite statement posted on one’s website, but is actually highly complex and deserving of considerable analysis.

The Founders, oft cited by all the candidates, lived in a world that was drastically and technologically different from our own, and even so they differed dramatically from each other. Hamilton and Washington and Adams spend the first 12 years of the republic grappling with Madison and Jefferson over the revolution in France and the appropriate role and response of the American country (and their attacks on each other were far more vitriolic than anything Bennett, Lee, Eagar, or Bridgewater have yet levied against their opponents). They also had an ocean that required a three week voyage between them and their enemies. Today, we face enemies, both state and non-state, that are only a commercial flight away, which communicates by email, text and cell phone almost instantaneously, and has access to arsenals that can and have rocked our nation’s economy and cities. It is not a simple problem that should be dismissed by a simple answer, nor lost amongst the rhetoric of campaign communication directors’ ad lib style press releases.

As they say, those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it, and to date, I have not been convinced that any of the candidates have read history or attempted to demonstrate more than a cursory nod to a foreign policy position in order to check the box.

(as an aside, I recommend “Ghost Wars” by Steve Coll, “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid, and “Unholy Wars” by John K. Cooley. And I recommend them regardless of any candidate or supporter’s predilection on this topic.

Thanks for the analysis. Let’s hope that one of these can transcend campaign politics and ascend to real policy analysis. Right now, I’m just sick of their whining that someone else is going negative.