The problem with competent , moderate candidates

Mitt Romney's misfortunes as a moderate Republican candidate epitomize some of the difficulties of democratic rule: competence is not enough to win elections. 

Mike Bloomberg -probably the most qualified candidate around with a stellar record in business and governing New York city as an independent- came to the same conclusion recently:

The unfortunate consequence of the most competent candidates self-selecting out of the race is that (a) the choice between the lesser of two evils -the party of no ideas vs the party of bad ideas- and (b) the prevalence of "off-the-wall" extremists that in normal times would be the ones opting out of a presidential race.

As a consequence -as in 2015 with Republicans- the 2019 Democratic rosters are overpopulated with under-qualified candidates that are likely to lose against the incumbent in a landslide like the one McGovern obtained in 1972 serving the White House to Richard M. Nixon's infaust second term. 

Democracy is not the best system to select competent candidates. For all its obvious miseries, the parties' old  "smoking rooms" that were the norm before 1968 Chicago DNC Convention offered better chances to non-charismatic, yet highly competent candidates. Governors, congress members and mayors were much better at selecting candidates than the "beauty contests" -or reality shows- that came after. Primaries are not even truly democratic, because informed, reasoning voters are outnumbered by those bamboozled by smear campaigns, social media or tweets.

And -as in the case of Governor and Senator Romney and Mayors Bloomberg- they allowed competency to get in office and turn around the disasters left behind by charismatic incompetence such as Salt Lakes Olimpic Games, Massachusetts' healthcare or Lindsay's crime-ridden, broke New York-.

The alternative for competency, otherwise, is to line up behind populist characters -like McCain picking Sarah Palin as VP candidate or Romney pitching for Secretary of State for Donald Trump-. Such Faustian pacts end usually poorly.

The art of the (bad) deal

Contrary to Barry Goldwater's assertion, moderation can be virtue when applied to public policy and government as much as it is applied to private life and personal behavior. Thinking otherwise is what brought us -and US- where we are now.

It's not all well what ends well. If the economy favors Trump, he will likely be a two-terms POTUS. The collateral damage brought by his uncivil rule will last longer than those economic results: a low-grade civil war, the rise of incompetent extremists and charlatans in both parties, a general decadence of the Union.

Chickens and eggs: Polarized Parties, Moderate Voters and the other way around

Lack of civility and partisanship in COTUS and POTUS is the cause, not the consequences of "voters' polarization". 

Profesor Morris P. Fiorina, from Stanford University recent research indicates that voters are more moderate and flowing towards the center across the country , but political parties -and donors- are vastly more polarized.

This creates an interesting hypothesis for the current political scenario: voters in the center are increasingly dissatisfied with the available two-parties political options and forced to stay home or vote for a candidate that does not represent their views entirely.

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview with James Taranto, Fiorina explains his findings in a way that might resonate to many moderates:

He arrives with a PowerPoint presentation that visualizes the data behind his theory. A pair of bar graphs show the ideological distribution of lawmakers in the 87th Congress (1961-63) and the 111th (2009-11). In both eras Democrats were the liberal party and Republicans the conservative one. But the pattern is markedly different: In 1961-63, both parties’ lawmakers tended to cluster in the middle. In 2009-11, there were two clusters—Democrats to the left, Republicans to the right. “There’s no longer any overlap at all,” Mr. Fiorina says. “The center is empty. That hasn’t happened in the electorate.”

A line graph illustrates the electorate’s continuity. The share of Americans identifying as politically moderate has remained fairly constant—around 40%, and usually a plurality—since at least 1974. In the same period, another chart shows, independents overtook Democrats as the biggest partisan grouping. As the parties drifted from the ideological middle, centrist voters disaffiliated from the parties. 

That creates what Mr. Fiorina calls “the ping pong pattern” of unstable majorities. One party manages “to win, narrowly, and then they immediately respond to their base. So Bush says we’re going to have personal Social Security accounts, and voters—some say, ‘I didn’t vote for that.’ Or Obama says we’re going to do government health care, and a lot of them say, ‘I didn’t vote for that.’ ” Lawmakers from the party in power “suffer for it in the next election, when they lose the marginal voters,” as Republicans did in 2006 and Democrats in 2010."

The cause of this phenomenon, argues Fiorina, is that political parties have nation-wide platforms with increasingly extreme positions, which play very differently in different states and districts, "sorting out" (emphasis in "out")  moderates that must vote for "a package" or stay home, leaving the district "red" or "blue". That creates also a pattern of swinging majorities, that change the composition and balance of power in both directions, creating a stalemate in most critical issues.

Frustrated voters in turn, blame "Washington" or COTUS for all the laws that they "didn't vote for" (Obamacare as an example) and "repeal and replace" them every 4 or 8 years, creating more uncertainty in critical issues such as healthcare, retirement and investment.

Fiorina expected Trump to break both parties and "re-sort" them closer to more moderate, middle-of-the road voters in spite of his ultra-partisan and divisive political speaking. 

For this column, it's hard to imagine why Fiorina came to have such expectation, other than the non-partisan attitude of a true political scientist. He proves himself an  example of the disappointed moderates that turn off the news in despair after Obamas or Trumps.

Fiorina provides a more compelling explanation in the extreme polarization of the donors class. Here, I think, he touches -although very briefly- some part of the elephant that irrupted in the US political room with Citizens United.

If the Trump White House portrayed by Michael Wolff and the Breitbart politics reported in "Devils Bargain" show something is that the Adelsons, Mercers, Murdochs, Ailes, Kochs, Soros and their "foundations" are the real king-makers in US politics. They not only elect the candidate and fund it; they create a willing voter that buys in what is washed on them by radio, cable news networks and even at the supermarket (let's not underestimate the Enquirer's role in the past election)

I would add gerrymandering to the mix to explain the phenomenon of minority-elected Presidents (like Bush 43 and Trump) and minority party-dominated COTUS that we have been experiencing since 2000.

Politicians -and their clients, their donors- blame voters for the polarization they force to get elected. 

Fiorina's study (and many others) show that it is the other way around. Here are some extra facts (and books)