Means versus ends. It's a question that most of us largely discount as irrelevant and boring to think about. But it really does hit at the heart of a liberal democracy, which is basically a big organizational framework to ensure that liberal democratic norms are obeyed, enforced, and that due process precludes any arbitrary alterations in its institutional fabric.
This is why policy debates are not compelling right now, while political debates are. John Edwards, with the best stack of policy positions of any of the candidates, languishes in Sharpton-land, while Dean, who most like for stylistic political reasons, leads the pack.
Policy positions are put forward for two main reasons:
- To explain what the candidate will do in office.
- To give a sense of what the candidate stands for.
The laughable policy follow-through of Bush in 2000 is actually par for the course; rarely do politicians follow through on the policies they run on, often for cynical reasons, but often for the simple reason that circumstances change and that appropriate policy solutions that address a particular problem don't make sense when that problem changes in nature.
Since the major challenge of our time has little to do with policy and more to do with deep rooted corruption and systemic dishonesty, candidates that have relatively liberal policy proposals but a fundamental belief in the sanctity of a system that emphasizes reactionary politics, like Lieberman or Kerry, just don't sound liberal anymore. Their policies, their voting records, their histories - these matter less than their upholding of a money-driven special-interest driven political culture that rewards those who vote for an immoral war.
Clinton was elected at a non-crisis time, so his policies underscored that he was serious enough to tackle the problems we faced. But we are in a crisis that is forcing a fundamental reordering of our political system, so an environmental policy, or one on school uniforms, only underscores how irrelevant a politician is, and, worse, how a politician supports the political system's reactionary direction.
John McCain when he ran in 2000 was saying that something was wrong with political campaigns; he stopped following the rules. This critique, actualized, was much more effective than any sort of overt message, and why he attracted progressives and repulsed reactionaries despite being a deeply conservative man. He wanted less government, but he also wanted participatory government, and a participatory Republican Party.
This is why Dean is successful, and not particularly liberal. Because he recognizes that the policies pursued now aren't just wrong-headed, but are situated in a system whose political forces have gone haywire. You fix the system first, because if you don't, you get Clinton all over again, where everything you do is reversed within six months by your successor.
So next time you hear whining about how no one talks about real policy and is just obsessed with who is winning in the polls, remember:
It's the politics, stupid.