[Peace-discuss] on Kucinich and Paul

Tue Nov 13 14:28:05 CST 2007

I can't speak for Carl - I do not have command of that many words :-); but
speaking for myself, "anyone who runs for public office, does not deserve to
get it and that includes presidents." :-)  However, this should not be taken
to say that I trust or like appointed officials and bureaucrats or think
that they deserve to have and keep their jobs either.

But to the topic at hand, I do not think that there has been any social
science studies of that question (maybe a few journalistic attempts in the
form of articles and essays based on impressions and limited in their scope
and range).  Any attempt to create a good research design and carry it out
is faced with a number of potentially irresolvable difficulties.  

First, the campaign rhetoric is meant to be just that. It is superficial and
general with little concrete detail; plans are stated in shopping list form
with no stipulation of the conditions under which they hold and the
conditions under which they will not be followed, no statement of
contingency courses of action should the main plan become inappropriate, and
no definition of the terms used to gloss or index vast vague and ambiguous
phenomena, actors, or behaviors.  Thus it is hard if not impossible to
operationally define campaign promises for purposes of identifying them or
determining if they are or are not fulfilled - let alone the degree to which
they are or are not being fulfilled.  It is also impossible to establish in
any causal manner or even in the form of a correlation any connection
between a campaign promise and specific policy decisions or actions and the
meaning and impact of those specific policy decisions and actions since no
time frames are ever set forth or established.  The consequences of
decisions and actions often unfold and realize fruition or failure long
after the office holder's term of office and may continue to unfold and gain
import and impact long after being implemented.

Second, typically the campaign promises that come to be identified during
the course of a campaign are based on an unstated set of presuppositions as
to the future and assumptions about the current empirical factual
situations.  After getting into office, the office holder may discover that
both are wrong or have changed requiring them to change, alter, modify, or
amend their previous positions.  Part of this may also include the fact that
the official is not the exclusive power holder or player but has to work in
consort with other players, who have their own agendas and campaign promises
to attend to.  Thus, the meaning or significance of any correlations become
questionable and of limited use in that they may furnish a distorted view of
the official and their campaign.

Thirdly, usually the campaign promises that get identified during the course
of a candidate's run for office are identified mostly on the basis of press
and media coverage where the interpreters are adding their own spin and
emphasis to what has been said or promised and the priority assigned to the
various promises; thus the data that one would collect, interpret, analyze,
and count is not primary first hand data but often second hand tertiary or
greater level data that may not represent what the candidate was promising
but what the public was lead to believe they were promising.
Hence what is being identified and counted in the correlation is ambiguous
and could be misleading in unknown ways.  Would such a study tell us if the
public's expectations were being met or would it tell us if the candidate's
commitments and promises were being met?  There is a difference.

Fourthly, there is the issue of identifying and counting what should
comprise a policy decision or action that implements a given campaign
promise or commitment and if that policy decision or action alone
constitutes the attempted fulfillment of a given campaign promise or
commitment.  If a candidate promised during a campaign that they would work
toward fixing the health care system if elected and if - upon election -
proposed a plan or policy with that goal in mind which failed to accomplish
the goal or which the candidate (now elected official) failed to get passed,
would that constitute fulfilling the campaign promise? If that was the only
attempt and the now elected official did not make any new attempts, would
that comprise a failure to met the campaign promise?  How would one
interpret and count the actions?

Thus, most commentary on the question is speculative and impressionistic -
if not polemical and editorial.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Karen Medina
> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 12:55 PM
> To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] on Kucinich and Paul
> 
> Carl,
> 
> I pick on you because you are a historian, is there a president that
> you did like? I'd be especially interested in comparing that person's
> campaign rhetoric and their deeds.
> 
> -karen medina
> 
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:47:53 -0600
> >From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> >Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] on Kucinich and Paul
> >To: kmedina at uiuc.edu
> >Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >
> >There's very little correlation.  Remember Bush the Less campaigned
> >against the Clinton admin's "nation building."
> >
> >Classic case is the 1932 election, when FDR campaigned against
> incumbent
> >Herbert Hoover in the midst of the Great Depression.  At the center of
> >FDR's campaign was a promise to balance the budget, over against
> >Hoover's deficit spending!
> >
> >Roosevelt said: "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the
> >American people", coining a slogan that was later adopted for his
> >legislative program as well as his new coalition.  But during the
> >campaign, it meant the opposite of what it came to mean. Roosevelt
> >campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and
> drastic
> >reductions of all public expenditures" and for a "sound currency to be
> >maintained at all hazards."
> >
> >In some cases expediency, in others flat-out lies.  To the latter
> >category belong John Kennedy's 1960 "missile gap" scare stories, which
> >Kennedy knew weren't true. (But his belligerent, semi-fascist rhetoric
> >was all too true and announced what was probably the most dangerous
> >admin until the current one.) --CGE
> >
> >
> >Karen Medina wrote:
> >> Peace discuss,
> >>
> >> Anyone know some good political science studies that look at the
> >> campaigns of presidential candidates and then the terms in office
> >> that shows what they say and what they end up doing.
> >>
> >> I know we all get general impressions and there are media reports
> >> that summarize things like the first 100 days in office, but I am
> >> more interested in a deeper analysis. Can anyone suggest one?
> >>
> >> With regard to Tom Mackaman's complaint that one particular person
> >> did not stand up for the peace demonstrators as they were removed
> >> from the Democratic National Convention, was there anyone who did
> >> stand up for the demonstrators? And ultimately is there anything we
> >> can say about all of those who did not defend the demonstrators?
> >>
> >> Who would Ron Paul have defended?
> >>
> >> -karen medina
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss