Game Change

"Game Change" is the title of a book.  It is also the title of a movie that aired recently on HBO.  The movie is based on sections of the book.  I have not read the book nor seen the movie.  So what expertise do I bring to the subject?  I lived through the events as they happened.  The book "Game Change" covers many subjects.  The movie restricts itself to Sara Palin, her selection and her activities associated with the 2008 Presidential campaign.  Most people consider the movie critical to Sara Palin.  I am not a fan of Ms. Palin.  But, from what I have heard, I believe much of the criticism of Ms. Palin the movie has resurrected is misguided.  Here is what I consider the principal and most appropriate criticism of Ms. Palin.

I think even Ms. Palin would agree that when she was initially selected she lacked some of the background and expertise that she should have.  I think that's true but it is not the key criticism I have of her.  To understand why, I would like to compare Ms. Palin to Harry S. Truman, our Thirty-Third President.  I and many others think Mr. Truman was a truly great President.  Yet his background and experience prior to assuming office were in many ways just as inadequate as Ms. Palin's.

Harry S. Truman was born in 1884 and became President in 1945 when President Roosevelt died in office.  Prior to becoming President Mr. Truman had no college education.  He was the product of the Missouri public school system.  He served in the U.S. Army during World War I for roughly a year as an Artillery Captain.  After that he had an undistinguished business carrier.  His political opponents characterized him as "a failed haberdasher", which was reasonably accurate.  He became a U.S. Senator in 1935 and continued to serve until he became Vice President in 1945.  He was generally considered a journeyman rather than a star as a Senator.  He was best known for investigating waste and corruption in government contracts.  He was not considered a heavyweight in domestic policies, economics, or foreign policy during this period.  Like Ms. Palin, this is not the resume we normally associate with a Vice President or President.

Compared to Mr. Truman, Ms. Palin's resume doesn't look too bad.  Unlike Truman, she is a college graduate.  She got a Bachelor of Sciences (4 year) degree from the University of Idaho.  Ms. Palin has not served in the military.  But she did become the Governor of the State of Alaska.  A case can be made that either person's credentials are superior to the other.  Ms. Palin, for instance, garnered "executive" experience as Governor.  By most standards neither was sufficiently qualified based on their formal credentials.  But based on the Truman example, coming into the job without the appropriate formal credentials is not, by itself, a sufficient reason to disqualify a person.  So I believe it is unfair to criticize Ms. Palin based solely on her thin resume.

Mr. Truman was only Vice President for a short period of time.  And he served in the time before the modern Vice Presidential era.  The modern era is best characterized by Dick Cheney.  He was a very active member of the George W. Bush administration.  John Nance Garner, who held the office before Truman did, characterized the job of Vice President as "not worth a warm bucket of piss".  This was because at that time the Vice President did not play an active role in the administration.  He was not briefed on issues.  He did not attend important policy meetings.  He was given a small staff and generally ignored.  Every once in a while he would attend a funeral or give a speech but that was it.  So Mr. Truman did not get much on the job training during his stint as Vice President.  When Roosevelt died, Truman was so out of the loop he did not even know of the existence of the Manhattan Project, the effort to build an Atomic Bomb.

So how did Mr. Truman go from "failed haberdasher" to a respected and admired President of the United States?  As we have seen, it was not by any formal process like getting a degree at a prestigious university, becoming known as an expert on various areas of importance as a U.S. Senator, or even becoming a member of the inside circle of the Roosevelt Administration.  What Mr. Truman did was informal but effective nevertheless.  He proceeded to educate himself.  He was a voracious reader all his life.  He was a heavy consumer of biographies and other serious works on a variety of subjects.  While he was President and probably well before that, Truman made heavy use of the staff and resources of the Library of Congress.  He would identify a subject that he felt he need to know more about.  He would then contact the staff of the Library of Congress and ask them to send him some good books on the subject.  He would then carefully read them.  He also as President asked for and received extensive briefings on subjects of importance.  When he first became President he was keenly aware of how much he didn't know.  But he set out as quickly as he could to learn enough to make informed decisions on the many and critical issues that came before him.



Senator McCain was a more traditional candidate.  He had a degree from a military academy, several years of military experience, and many years experience as a high profile Senator.  Over the years he had built up a knowledge about most of the issues likely to come before a President.  In spite of how well prepared he was before he started running I'm sure he supplemented his knowledge with briefing books and tutorials before and during the campaign.

Ms. Palin had not seriously considered running for President or Vice President until at most a few weeks before she was picked.  So she had no reason to study up in advance on many of these issues.  So it was to be expected that at the time of her selection the depth of her knowledge on many important issues was inadequate.  So it is inappropriate to criticize Ms. Palin's depth of knowledge on these issues at the time she was picked.

It is also important to note that Ms. Palin brought important skills with her.  She was extremely charismatic and a great public speaker.  She also had strong retail politician skills.  She could quickly impress people at small events and in one on one situations where she came off as very warm and friendly.  So she had great star appeal.  And that's important to the success of a candidate.  But it is also important that candidates also be knowledgeable on the issues of the day.

The standard "briefing books" and tutorials were prepared for Ms. Palin.  Apparently the movie makes it very clear that fairly early in the process Ms. Palin rejected this approach.  It was reported in the media late in the campaign that this was so.  What I do know from personal experience is how Ms. Palin comported herself in public at that time and what level of expertise she demonstrated.  My observations are consistent with the idea that she did not feel it was important to become knowledgeable on the issues of the day.  The 2008 campaign is now more than three years in the past.  Ms. Palin she has to this day not remedied her knowledge deficit.  Apparently it's not her style.  And I think it is completely appropriate then and now to criticize her for her unwillingness to address her knowledge deficit.

It was bad but not a "show stopper" for her knowledge level to be deficient when she first joined the ticket.  But it was incumbent on her to remedy this deficit as quickly as possible.  And it was critically important for her to believe that remedying this knowledge deficit was necessary in order for her to become qualified to hold the office she aspired to.  If we compare President Truman to Governor Palin we see that Mr. Truman was acutely aware of the deficiencies in his knowledge.  He moved quickly and effectively to repair these deficiencies.  This gave him the foundation to make careful and thoughtful decisions concerning the issues of the day.  You can not make careful and thoughtful decisions based on ignorance.  So Ms. Palin utterly fails the "Truman test".

Mr. Truman had more than his share of troubles with the press.  So he would have been sympathetic to a candidate dealing with a "gotcha question", a question like "have you stopped beating your wife".  Ms. Palin was famously involved in a "gotcha question" (as characterized by Ms. Palin) event during this period.  Katie Couric asked her what periodicals she regularly read.  I want to explore whether this actually was a "gotcha question".

Let's start with what presumably would be the politically correct answer:  "The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist".  These would be politically correct because they represent some of the most respected media in the world, particularly with respect to political issues.  I don't know whether Ms. Palin considered making this answer.  Certainly if she had it might not have ranked as highly credible.  And I doubt she actually regularly read these publications so follow up questions might have been problematic.  But was it really important for her to make the politically correct answer?  I think not.

As a good conservative, she could have said "The National Journal, The Washington Times, and The Anchorage Daily News (her local paper)".  This would have been a completely appropriate answer.  Except, again I don't know if she actually read those publications either.  If she didn't then again follow up questions might have been problematic.  But there's more.  Let's say she picked a list of the most politically inappropriate publications, say "Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Guns & Ammo".  I think had she listed these publications, and assuming she actually read them, this answer would have worked for her.  In the same way that men "read Playboy for the articles" I think women can claim to "read Cosmo for the articles".  If nothing else it would have supported her "down home" persona.

The problem for Ms. Palin is that I suspect she actually does not read anything routinely.  So she really was stuck for an answer.  Because not reading anything is truly more politically incorrect than my "reading Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Gus & Ammo" list.  And I think Ms. Palin knew that.  And that's my point.  There are many political epithets out there.  One four letter word that I particularly dislike as an epithet is "wonk".  What is a wonk?  A wonk is someone who knows what they are talking about.  And for a large segment of the public, our media, and our political class, "wonk" is an epithet because knowing what you are talking about is a bad thing.  I think Ms. Palin worked hard at not being a wonk and making sure her supporters knew she was not a wonk.

A core belief of mine is that ignorance leads to bad decisions and that knowledge leads to better decisions.  I suppose it is possible to make a good decision out of ignorance but I believe it is far more likely that ignorance leads to bad decisions.  In my universe being a wonk is a good thing even if I disagree with the wonk.  So ultimately Katie Couric's question was a gotcha question.  But not because Katie intended it to be a gotcha question.  I think she intended it to be a softball question.  But it turned out to shed light on Ms. Palin as a person and so it "got" her.

Finally, I want to come to something that Steve Schmidt, the staffer most responsible for going with Palin has highlighted several times.  Picking their running mate is perhaps the most important public decision a candidate does during the campaign.  So it can be very illuminating.  And it turned out to be very illuminating that John McCain picked Sara Palin.  McCain was a fighter pilot in Vietnam.  Fighter Pilots are not known for their deep thinking.  Instead they are known for their ability to make decisions quickly and under pressure.  They are also risk takers.  These attributes are important to a successful "fighter jock".  It's just you and, if you are in a pickle, the best thing to do might be to make a risky decision, a "game changer".

But if a fighter pilot screws up he is risking only himself and his plane.  Presidents play for much higher stakes.  And the consequences of getting it wrong are much higher:  thousands of lives, the state of the economy, trillions of dollars, even war and peace can be on the line.  A president is confronted with very few snap decisions.  What is usually required is a thoughtful approach that takes into account multiple conflicting interests.  Slow and careful are usually the best approach.  And if a snap decision is required it is either in the context of events that have been playing out for a long time and have finally reached a predictable climax or it is the result of a major mistake abruptly coming home to roost.

John McCain demonstrated in his Sara Palin decision that he still has a "fighter jock" mind set.  He was willing to risk everything because he had gotten in a pickle.  It looked like if he didn't make a "game changer" decision he would lose the election.  So he did what a fighter jock would do.  He went with his gut based on a 5 day vetting process that produced a person that in her current state was manifestly unqualified to be Vice President.  He bet, wrongly, that she could be whipped into Vice President ready condition before the inauguration.  This would have been a chancy bet if Ms. Palin had been willing to go along with the program.  It turned out the bet stood no chance at all because Ms. Palin refused to go along.  And what this shows is that not only was Sara Palin unqualified to be Vice President but that John McCain was unqualified to be President.  He was not thoughtful enough and too willing to go "all in" to be acceptable as a President.