There was a thought-provoking article in the New York Times this morning, in the section headed “Strong opinions on the 2012 election”. Its focus was on a somewhat novel way to compare Mitt Romney to President Obama.
The basic idea was that Romney represents the whitest possible candidate to run against the black outsider Obama, and that this near-subliminal perception is one of the strongest factors driving his candidacy.
Yes, Romney is white, maybe even “very white”. And Obama is black (although one might say that he is “not very black”--at least, people on the left have said that about him, not so much now that he is President, but certainly during the last campaign).
However, to me, while “Romney is snow, snow white” and “Obama is coal, coal, black” may well be a factor, it is hardly the most interesting way to compare the two candidates.
What we have here is two contenders that are both moderate, both aiming for the center.
Both are conservative (in the literal sense of which the antonym is “radical”, not “liberal” or “progressive”). Both are liberal (in the literal sense of which the antonym is “bigoted”, “miserly”, or “narrow minded”, not “reactionary”).
Both are well-educated and successful. Although Obama is certainly more academic and literary than Romney, that is unlikely to be highly relevant during this campaign.
In other words, on the surface they are probably much more similar to each other than different. What sets them apart as candidates beyond race and party affiliation?
I think the answer has to do with how important monetary wealth is to them. Romney came from wealth and focused intensively on using his good education and strong native talents to amass great personal wealth. His politics reflect this: his vision makes sense to people who have great wealth or who pursue great wealth and who see it as synonymous to success and to happiness. Obama did not come from wealth, he came up in a maelstrom of diversity. From the beginning, his intensive focus has been on using his good education and exceptional native talents to build bridges between groups with different ethnic, economic, and ideological world-views. His politics strongly reflect this: Obama's vision makes sense to people who see ethnic, economic, and ideological disagreements as the source of most of our problems as human beings.
However, notice that it is difficult to compare the two men because their respective strongest focuses and talents do not align themselves along the same dimension: getting rich versus building consensus are just completely different things. Or are they?
I believe that these two personal obsessions, while seemingly unconnected to each other, are in fact very closely linked. The thing about amassing a great fortune is that by definition, “great fortune” can only exist in a context of “not so great fortune”. In other words, amassing wealth inherently creates, if not actual poverty, then at least increasing economic differences. To contradict Garrison Keillor's remark regarding averages, we can't all have great fortunes. And, of course, greater economic differences create a greater potential for clashes and disagreements between people who exist at different levels of personal wealth.
No one is trying to eliminate differences in wealth, certainly not Obama who at least these days is doing all right himself. But carried to an extreme (and I believe $200 million plus is quite extreme), large differences in wealth will inevitably attract the attention of someone who is focused on reducing disagreements between different groups of people.
Viewing things from the “wrong side” for the moment, it is also very obvious that if someone is primarily focused on amassing great personal wealth, the existence of a strong political leader focused on reducing differences among groups will also become increasingly salient, as that leader becomes more successful and powerful. This is because the flip side to the Keillor rule on averages is that the wealthier one becomes, the smaller economic minority he inhabits. This is worrisome in a democracy, at least a democracy where everyone has access to unbiased information and has the right to vote, because the People do have the power to interfere with the unbridled accumulation of great personal wealth, by creating regulatory agencies, by making the tax system more progressive, and by building a solid social welfare safety net so that the desperation of starvation, poverty, disease, and ignorance cannot be used to facilitate the profitable exploitation of the worker and the consumer.
So there you have it. Rather than racial differences or differences in literary or oratorical talent, I believe that the most interesting comparison between candidate Romney and President Obama lies in the central obsession of their respective lives and careers. If you believe (as many do) that the primary purpose of government is to create a structure that allows people to amass a great personal fortune, while allowing other efforts such as a social welfare safety net as a secondary, lower priority mission, then Romney is your man. If you believe that the primary purpose of government is to create a structure wherein people can live together and get along with each other in safety, comfort, and harmony, while allowing other efforts such as aid to businesses as a secondary, lower priority, then Obama is your man.
Now, those are extreme statements. In fact, no president is a dictator, and so there are always many agendas that act together in the context of the times, and these probably have a far greater impact on the nation than the personal agenda of any president. We have certainly seen this unfold during President Obama's term. So a second Obama term will not be all about creating consensus and creating a stronger safety net with little or nothing to help businesses, nor would a Romney term be only about helping businesses with nothing at all about consensus or the general welfare. That goes without saying and isn't really germane to the comparison of the two candidates.
I believe that the most useful metric of comparison for Romney and Obama is to contrast their personal obsessions, like this:
Romney: money |
Obama: people |
It really doesn't get any simpler than that.