the competence illusion

The "Lexington" column in this week's Economist has an interesting, and superficially true statement: voters in the 2008 presidential election will be more concerned about competence than anything else. The column then goes on to state that Mitt Romney's "competent" track record is being unfairly punished because the Republican nomination process is controlled by people who vote based on - gasp - issues.

Mr Romney's problem is that he is competence on steroids. He turned Bain Capital into a financial juggernaut and made himself $250m. He saved the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. As governor of Massachusetts, he introduced one of the country's most ambitious health-care reforms. But he cannot dwell upon his real strengths until he first wins over the guys with the “Jesus is cool” T-shirts and the monkeys in nappies. A cruel business, politics.

Complaining about issue-based voters controlling the primary process is quite ridiculous. Historically, "manager" types like Romney have been losers. This is because voters tend to vote for candidates based on issues and personality, not whether or not the candidate is perceived as "competent." Based on his background, it's likely that he'll be friendly to business and somewhat ambivalent about social issues. These views conflict strongly with a large swathe of the Republican base, and as such, he's unlikely to be nominated. That people don't vote for people they disagree with is a feature of the system, not a defect.

An additional problem with the popular line about Romney being the "competent" candidate is that having a reputation for being competent in other lines of work is no guarantee of a person being a competent president. Running a campaign is actually a much better indicator of the job somebody will do as president than any previous position they might have held. That's because the president has rather limited concrete powers, and his or her ability to effectively implement an agenda comes down to an ability to connect with people and effectively use the bully pulpit... charisma. Although charisma is frequently demeaned as a superficial part of the campaign that has little to do with how a candidate might govern, it is really a critical part to being an effective president.

In addition to charisma, a president must have almost impeccable political judgment and the ability to lead a group. He or she has to be able to choose one adviser's advice over another's without causing the other to feel put out. These skills, along with the 24 hour stress of the presidency, are actually best tested through the wear of the stump, the quick decision making, and constant leadership a candidate must display on the campaign trail. Nothing Romney has done in his career comes close.

For an instructive example, look at another consummate "competence" candidate: Wes Clark. Clark was supposed to be the perfect candidate for a country in a hopelessly botched war: he'd been in charge of NATO. But it turned out he lacked political judgment and was milquetoast on the stump. So given these qualities, it's good he got beaten because he would have been an uninspiring president with poor political judgment. I'm not saying that Mitt will be like this, but we should give him some time before we say he'd certainly be a good president.