Science Debate 2008: II Handicapping the Field

Now that I have joined the call for ScienceDebate 2008, what do I think...

NB: these are my personal opinions and representative of nothing more profound than the WVU vs OU game being rather uninteresting... ;-P

US politics are bistable - the two-party system is a design feature that is hard to break and is disturbingly entrenched in the infrastructure. Ok, it beats the one-party system by a large margin, but I still have an affinity for more general n-party problems...

Party annihilation/creation operations are rare, roughly once-per-century tunneling events. Typically political realignments is done by internal rotation instead, some uncertain phase mixing of eigenvoters over a fraction of a generation and then new base sets projected out.
The last such realignment was the move of southern white social conservatives from the democrats to the republicans, and now the western economic conservatives/social libertarians are holding their noses and considering whether to stay or go.
Should be fun.

So what does the field look like?

First the republicans.

Not a good pool of candidates. Only one I've seen grass movement for locally is Ron Paul.

• Giuliani - Little bit of verbiage on energy, wants it all.
• Huckabee - folksy, pro-home schooling, likes music and arts education. Populist on health care, "it is broken". Wants it all on energy. Surprisingly strong content.
• Hunter - ugh. No comment.
• McCain - ugly site dood. Search box is a bonus. But nothing is found - nothing on NASA, Science, Evolution... he likes the National Parks!
• Paul - No comment. I spent enough time on these arguments late at night as a first year grad student...
• Romney - at least he has a "search site" box... solid on education, most wonkish website of the reps. Concise energy policy. Romney is smart and quantitative, I would like to see him pinned down on the climate change issue. Wait, he likes NCLB? Can this be an issue on which he'd flip-flop, please?
• Thompson - Thompson hits some of the right issues: promoting science careers, alternative energy, life-science innovation. Don't see any meat in the issue highlights, and I am not the only one under the impression Fred doesn't really want to do this.

  The democrats:

• Biden - wonkish. Detailed. Almost too much detail
• Clinton - The Goddess of Wonk. She hits the issues, she has answers, both broad and detailed. Question is: does she mean it? Would she actually make political sacrifices to push any of this through, or is it all negotiable...
• Dodd - not as tight on the detailed issues. Hits all the high notes, but could be less self-referential and more analytic.
• Edwards - site bloat! Either that or everyone is reading it. Solid on policy, almost Clinton level of wonky detail.
• Kucinich - Yucca is yucky. Sustainable is good. No details, lots of assertions.
• Obama - another solid one. Less wonkish, more process oriented. That might work.
• Richardson - scrap NCLB! 100,000 math and science teachers - sure, how?

  No one has "science" as an issue. Closest is "innovation". Everyone talks about environment and health - some strong discriminators in those issues. Obama has "technology" as an Issue.

  On average the democrat sites are much more detailed and have meatier and detailed, quantitative proposals. Only Romney comes close on the wonk.

I am not exactly keen on most of the republicans.
Thompson makes some of the right noises, but seems to lack the drive to actually take the Presidency, much less run it.
Huckabee is what the republican base has been built up to; Paul is at least somewhat consistent, but the libertarian ideal is not very practical.
McCain is flawed, and I disagree with a lot of his actual policies, but he ought to have enough of the old guard in him to be tolerable.
Romney is wonkish, but sold out to an illusory base and may be trapped in his rhetoric.

The democrats have a strong bench. I admire Kucinich's ideals, but I don't think he could function effectively as a head of the Executive, maybe a stint as governor of Oregon?
The rest of them would all do ok, some of them might make great Presidents.

Hm... Clinton/Richardson? Obama and Edwards?

I am ambivalent on the democrats, but in a good way.

Clinton is very impressive, enormous command of detail and quantitative issues. My main concern with her is whether she has a passion on some of the important issues - this is a real problem of perception, Clinton comes across as calculating and willing to trade off on issues that really ought to be non-negotiable. She needs to make a stand, and do it because she cares, not because a consultant told her she ought to be perceived as caring.

Biden is decent, but he seems out of the race.

Dodd has take a principled stance on some important consitutional issues, and it would be nice to see some of the other candidates do so also - actually lead on issues, not talk about leading. Dodd also seems out of the race, seems weaker on some broader policy issues and lack money and media appeal. Expect he will play a role somewhere though.

Edwards has taken the progressive angle. He is solid, smart, organized.
I have not yet forgiven him for letting Cheney roll him in the '04 debate. A trial lawyer ought to be able to rebut lies on the fly during debate.

Obama is very tempting as a candidate. Lack of experience may be an asset, as disgusted as many people are with the beltway. Or it may be a disaster if he picks a bad team. He talks a lot, but has not stepped up and put his authority behind some issues when the opportunity was there - may have been trapped by "consultants" already. His running to the right and attacking other dems recently is a negative.

Richardson is too narrow on the issues. Good politician, poor national campaigner. Likely to play a future role though.

And that analysis is worth every penny you paid for it.