Comments on: Happy New Year: Hope Against Hopelessness for the New Year 2013

By: Michael Corey

Michael Corey — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:20:00 +0000

I’m really not very fond of political labels. Most of the people I know hold liberal, conservative and pragmatic beliefs as part of their political personas. I suspect that this is also the case with Romney. I have a passion to fix things that are broken. I had the good fortune to be mentored by leaders who were scrupulously ethical and honest, who expected the same from those they led. I followed their lead with developing leaders that I mentored. For most of my working career, I was a problem solver who enjoyed improving processes, systems, institutions, and helping people achieve all they can be. I championed meritorious performance. I always believed that truth and honesty were a basic requirement for organizations that I helped lead. The people I worked with found ways to give back to our local communities. Most of the leaders I knew could not function as politicians. I continue to believe that political propaganda waged during campaigns is a corruption of the political process, and I have very little respect for campaigners and staffers that use these tactics. I’m afraid that the tactics are not likely to change.

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:52:00 +0000

Is Romney a Massachusetts moderate or a severe conservative? To the degree to which the vilification worked (honestly I don’t think it was extreme, nothing in comparison to what was thrown at Obama), it was a function of his fundamentally ambiguous presentation of his political self. I don’t blame the person Romney for his presentation, though, I think it is a function of the conservative-Republican crisis: too ideological and dogmatic party base that makes little sense to the changing America. This is my point: a major and important political party is in deep crisis making a broad deliberate center hard to establish. I have my partisan Democratic (Party) concerns, but also republican (small “r”) ones. I know we disagree on the proper policies for our times, but I want to somehow emphasize that for me the more serious problems go beyond these.

By: Michael Corey

Michael Corey — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:21:00 +0000

Thanks for providing the links. The data is interesting, but it only deals with advertising, and does not demonstrate cumulative impacts over time and their impact on decision making closer to when decisions are actually made. The advertising was only one element in the vilification campaign. The messages were communicated through many other mechanisms and by many actors. We know that the Obama campaign felt that the vilification of Romney was from their perspective necessary, but not sufficient to win the election. The campaign expended huge amounts of time and resources to implement the tactic. Maybe they were wrong and wasted their resources, or perhaps they were right, and the misinformation campaign made the difference on how competing messages were received. Once someone is disqualified as an acceptable alternative, the weight of the messages is diluted. (Actually, I don’t think that Romney waged an effective campaign). My original point was and remains the same. Using misinformation and innuendo to destroy another candidate is an ethically bad practice. When it occurs, it needs to be recognized for what it is, and critiqued. Good practices should be praised and instrumental, bad practices should be acknowledged and discouraged in my view. Creating a fictive representation of an opponent and running against it hurts democratic deliberation.

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 03:04:00 +0000

I think there were many contributing factors to the election results, and perhaps this includes ads that vilified Romney, though I just read an analysis on Nate Silver’s blog that demonstrates that these ads weren’t really effective. see http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/were-obamas-early-ads-really-the-game-changer/ But despite the effects of one turn or the other in the election, I believe the overriding cause for the Obama victory were very significant changes in our politics. The Republicans offered an incoherent message, based on unbelievable economic program and (happily) out of date social ones. The Democrats made sense to a broad and rapidly changing public. I used your comment to exemplify a problem I see. The failure of Obama’s opponents to take seriously the meaning and consequences of the election. We now still have a mixed government, but it is necessary that both parties take this seriously. The Senate Republicans seem to get this, in the House not so much. This has been a pressing problem today. I worry that conservatives and Republicans are sticking their heads in the sand. I am not accusing you of this, though I fear the kind of explanation you gave for the election results supports it.

By: Michael Corey

Michael Corey — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 01:59:00 +0000

Best wishes for a happy New Year to all.

Perhaps you can clarify your objection to my observation, hardly an original one, but one that needs to be acknowledged. During 2011, President Obama’s campaign adopted a strategy to disqualify Romney in the minds of voters, and during the campaign hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on implementing this strategy. Many of the messages were misleading at best. I believe that this had a material impact on the campaign. It wasn’t the only reason why President Obama won. I don’t believe that I said it was. Unfortunately, this type of tactic may work, but it has an adverse effect on democracy. I think that we need to recognize all aspects of a campaign: the good, the bad and the indifferent.