The Why of the Vice-Presidential Pick (Part Two)

This is the second half of my essay analyzing the vice-presidential picks by Barack Obama and John McCain. I'd suggest reading the first part before delving into this one.

According to the Median Voter Theorem, Obama’s decision should have been relatively straightforward. Having clinched his party nomination, Obama should have deliberately moved towards the median, independent voter – effectively following a political Laffer curve. Clinton’s widespread support among moderate women would make her the obvious choice from that game theory model. Whatever votes Obama lost from the contention would be more than made up for by independents and cherry-picked Republican moderates.

But he didn’t pick Clinton. Obama chose Biden.

In Game Theory class, this decision was rationalized using Prospect Theory. That is, that Obama knew that picking Clinton would improve his chances of winning the election, but the utility of probably winning the Presidency with Clinton as VP was lower than potentially winning the election without the worry of an administration at odds with itself – essentially that he was too emotionally biased against Clinton to make the right call. This model is supported by the largely adversarial primary campaign, and Obama’s statement towards the end of the contest that he was not considering Clinton as a candidate for vice-president.

However, I disagree with this understanding. For all the idealism displayed in the campaign – the grandiose speeches and calls for “Hope” and “Change,” Obama is fundamentally an American pragmatist. In his books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, as well as many of his speeches, Obama displays a considered attitude conscious of the difficulty of the road ahead. He appears driven by a desire to effect policy, and willing to compromise in order to do so. It seems uncharacteristic of the man to jeopardize the prospects of the entire liberal movement in order to spite Clinton.

For me at least, this model appears insufficient. In game theory, we are taught that a model is only correct if it serves a purpose. While perhaps this is merely confirmation bias, I don’t think that a model predicated upon the irrationality of Obama and his campaign advisors is particularly serving the purpose of explaining Obama’s decision. These are people who created a juggernaught campaign, raised unheard of amounts of money, and shoved aside a shoe-in candidate at the 10-yard line – it does not seem likely that they would bench Clinton for a Hail Mary pass rather than kiss and make up.

Therefore, I drop the prospect theory explanation, and return to the discussion of Obama’s choice between focusing on independent voters and depressing conservative turn out.

The Median Voter Theorem is predicated upon the existence of the uninformed voter. That is the purpose of appealing to the median voter – to convince the uninformed that their opinions are moderately liberal or moderately conservative. Converting the decided voter is far more of a crapshoot. But in an election that has seen record advertising and discussion, truly uninformed voters are rare at this point. Most people have already decided if they are liberal or conservative, and are unlikely to cross all the way over the aisle.

From this perspective, Obama and McCain were engaged in an infinitely serial Prisoner’s Dilemma with imperfect information: they were effectively cooperating with each other by striving for moderate voters and increasing their base for this election and those in the future. Each party benefited from the contest, because it pulls in donations and marginalizes the third parties. But at some point each campaign needed to stop going after the increasingly marginal number of undecided voters, call that a 50 / 50 game, and work on shoring up their base in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.

In this model, it can be expected that the two parties will follow the Trigger Strategy (as opposed to Tit For Tat in the primaries or between like-minded parties,) meaning they will cooperate until “Nature” provides a triggering event that will cause one player to defect, followed by the other, for the remainder of the game.

That is exactly what seems to have happened.

Biden is a liberal who will help to bolster turnout in Democratic blue-collar areas. His credentials are unlikely to actually convert those leaning towards McCain, but rather to allay concerns that might keep moderate liberals home or induce disaffected Republican voters to voting against Obama. Whereas picking Clinton would have rallied a limp conservative flag.

McCain seems to have recognized this signal for what it was. Rather than picking Joe Lieberman to drive home McCain’s maverick image, or even Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty to gain the median voters ignored by the Democratic pick, McCain chose little known Sarah Palin. The little-known Alaskan governor has proved to be a hit with social conservatives and small government traditionalists, but has struck out with moderates and all but the most ardent PUMAs.

While the McCain / Palin ticket has seen such rocky roads out of the starting gate that they haven’t really been able to get on the offensive, I predict that Republicans will begin fielding attacks aimed at depressing Democratic turnout as the official campaign kicks into full gear. Though neither campaign will totally abandon rhetoric aimed at convincing undecided voters, particularly in battleground states, I think that the candidates are going to focus on raising the percentages of their base, rather than increasing the size of the base as a whole. I’d also anticipate aggressive tactics by the DNC and RNC to gain the full support of the Green Party and Libertarian Party respectively.

I have one final point to make supporting this model, which lies with Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. If Prospect Theory was correct, and Obama spited Clinton while McCain retaliated against his party preventing him from choosing Lieberman, then Clinton’s and Romney’s involvement with their respective campaigns would be very limited. Instead, both Clintons have maintained their stumping around the Mid-West, while Romney is revving up for an offensive after Republicans throw off the Palin controversies, while being touted as the Republican candidate for 2012 or 2016.

Surely the prospect of allowing those two to recover by retaining them as stump speakers would be little different from having to deal with them as vice-presidents. And the Republicans are certainly no idealists. The Prospect Theory model just doesn’t explain the picks.