The Winning Formula
Summer evenings in a presidential election year used to find me glued to the television. Not this year. In fact, I did my best to avoid watching the marathon of speeches, songs, platitudes and pledges of either of the two national party conventions. Wanting substance rather than spectacle, I sized them up, in Shakespearean parlance, as being “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”* I guess I’ve grown weary of being shilled by too many sales pitches tempting me to buy a product that promises far more than it will ever be able to deliver. As a result I find myself longing for the days when convention roll call votes held out a degree of 11th-hour tension between candidates whose nomination was anything but a fait accompli.
None of what I just said should surprise or startle anyone who has paid any attention to what has gone down in this most bizarre of election years. Indictments, law suits, convictions, an eleventh-hour resignation and a near-miss assassination: we’ve had it all, and there are yet two more months to go. In less than a decade the Republicans have seemingly morphed into a Red tidal wave hell-bent on reversing their 2020 presidential run, fueled, as before, by the overconfident bravado of their once-defeated champion. In that effort Mr. Trump’s MAGA crusade has recast the GOP in his image, turning it into a political force that strikes me as far less grand than old. Not to be outdone, the Democrats—in less than a month—managed to pull the rug out from under their previously exalted incumbent just when he was about to accept his party’s nod for a second term. Abandoning Mr. Biden in his undeniable mental slippage and physical decline, seemed, I’m sure, a no-brainer. Yet it raises a question about the integrity of this party of Roosevelt and Johnson. How could they anoint a person who has never been vetted for the presidency through any state primaries nor any national elections while proudly trumpeting that they are the guardian of democratic principles and process? Talk about irony? Ms. Harris’ candidacy brings to mind what Republicans tried to do in selecting the non-elected Vice President Gerald Ford to wear the mantle that so shamefully slipped from Richard Nixon’s fingers. At least Ford ran the gauntlet of state primaries to secure his nomination. But look how that turned out. I’m sure Ms. Harris and her backers are counting on history NOT repeating itself this November.
Admittedly, I didn’t watch the conventions but chose to follow them at the safe distance of network-excerpted sound-bites. Yet I sense that both parties have actually been working off the same playbook in orchestrating an electoral victory this fall. Each in its own way, whether through carefully choreographed rallies, controlled sound-bites, managed interviews and the barrage of media-saturated publicity has been adhering to the same formula designed to bring them electoral success come November.
At the risk of sounding a bit too academic, I have taken a stab at visualizing what this formula might look like if written in mathematical symbols. So for what it’s worth, here is the campaign formula for electoral success in November as I see it:
½ t + X => { EV }
I know I’ve taken a bit of a gamble in writing out such an expression. Just the sight of it may well make you shudder, remembering those times when you felt lost or embarrassed in laboring through high school math. If so, I apologize. In all honesty, I, too, carry those same emotions, reminding me how humbling it can be getting lost and feeling dumbfounded when trying to cross the intellectual rubicon of calculus. Nonetheless, I remain fascinated by what numbers and equations may reveal to us about the fabric of life and human behavior.
So, borrowing a line used by some of my very best teachers, I will now attempt to “unpack” what I’ve written formulaically. As in most mathematical expressions, the symbols are shorthand for something else. In this case, moving from left to right…
t stands for truth, ½ t being a half-truth
X represents EXXAGERATIONS
EV is the Election Victory which is the ultimate goal, and
{ } which refers to a null or empty set.
If this math expression still leaves you scratching your head, perhaps when put into a verbal statement it will make more sense:
Electoral Victory will follow from a campaign built on half-truths and exaggerations.
Now why do I think this formula delineates, in simplistic terms, the strategy, that is driving both the Democratic and Republican parties in their quest to hold or recapture the White House in November? First I’m struck by how often our Pres and VP candidates—along with their party and media surrogates—punctuate what they say with a list of claims about themselves and their opponents that are neither completely true nor completely false. Now there is an art to doing this, a genuine skill in being able to put a shine on 0ne’s own resume while portraying oneself as s0meone whom voters will find both believable and relatable, in other words, a person “just like me”. Truth be told, few of those who aspire for national leadership, who have already become quite good at running the gauntlet of big donors, lobbyists and special interests, are really just like you or me. But pretending to be—well that is a significant half-truth that must be convincingly portrayed if widespread voter allegiance is to be secured. In much the same breath, each of our candidates holds nothing back when it comes to exploiting any and every scurrilous tidbit of information that casts their opponents as incompetent, criminal, evil or just-plain un-American. Nothing I have seen or heard from Kamala, Donald, Tim or JD so far would lead me to believe that they have any qualms about doing this, and doing it with a passion dripping with righteousness indignation. And why shouldn’t they? Isn’t the very heart and soul of America, the very future of our civilization, hanging in the balance? So we would be led to believe.
You’d think we’d see through all this politico-speech, seeing how many times we are drawn into today’s over-lapping election cycles. Certainly we realize that much of this campaign talk is disingenuous and misleading. But isn't it just part of the game that must be played if one is to get elected? Isn’t that really what separates the winners from the losers in the electoral game of thrones we play every four years to secure or maintain control over how the country should be run? Perhaps that is why we are not offended or surprised when our favored candidates shamelessly speak in half-truths and exaggerations about their character, experience, and accomplishments. For winning, at any and all costs, is the bottom line. The party faithful fully understand this, fully accept and embrace the formula. That may be why so many American voters are so willing to enter the fantasies of candidates promising to fix and correct and deliver—on day one of their administration no less—when they know that most of these pledges will never be remembered or fulfilled. If alliances and deals among political rivals and enemies can make of them strange bedfellows,** how much more so can this be said of the compromises and coalitions from which political parties derive their appearance of unity and purpose.
From the opening gavel of each convention to the last desperate plea for support on November 5, we will have borne sympathetic or disgusted witness to the formulaic campaign gospel of half-truths and exaggerations that will serve as both medium and message for these national candidates. For many of us the formula I’ve described is an essential component of a tried-and-true playbook that will ensure that the will of the majority will be served through democratic process. For others, in whose company I count myself, the steady drumbeat of untruths, exaggerations, juvenile name-calling and outright deceptions*** represents not a formula for success but an indicator of the shortcomings and failures of our electoral system. That is why the formula’s EV stands within the mathematical symbol { }—the empty or null set. For it captures the reality that much of what the winners have proclaimed and promised is empty of substance. And what of the so-called victory of one party over another and over the nearly 50% of eligible voters who will choose to sit this one out by not casting a ballot? It will not validate the triumph of right over wrong or truth over lie. Rather it will confirm the fact that formula-driven party politics has once again carried the day. Any Election Victory won under such circumstances is, in my judgment, rather hollow of meaning, even if it does empower some to hold sway over the many until the next election.
There is one further clarification of the formula I must add. You may note there is no equal sign in the formula, rendering this a math statement and not an equation. That was deliberate, since if both parties follow the formula they cannot both win, so it isn’t a sure thing for either of them. It is, nonetheless, a blueprint for what both parties appear to regard as their best strategy. Therefore I have used the symbol, =>, meaning “ implies” or “follows from” instead of an = which would suggest that electoral victory is always the result if the formula is followed. Thomas Dewey, Richard Nixon, and Al Gore remind us that no presidential election is guaranteed or certain, no matter how rigorously and passionately the formula is followed. For in a genuinely free democratic process involving millions of independent voters, many things can affect how those in the body politic cast their ballots. It could be as simple as a sweaty upper lip suggesting nervousness or dishonesty in a televised debate. Or it could be as unforeseen and uncontrollable as a sudden economic upturn or collapse, a military victory or embarrassing setback, or a reputation-shattering revelation that explodes on social media. Even though the formula is likely to bring electoral success, it is never a slam dunk that it will.
In assessing the current political strategies of both parties I wish I could have written a formula that would have included symbols to represent Experience, Credibility, Character and Integrity. I have no doubts that each of these are essential qualities of presidential leadership. And it isn’t as if Trump, Vance, Harris and Walz are entirely lacking in these leadership qualifications that have, in the past, defined or strengthened a candidates’ credentials. But in 2024 they seem to be secondary in importance in their campaign rhetoric, and hardly worth mentioning to voters whose cynicism of politics and politicians is almost as great as their self-interest in winning, at any price. The same can be said for two other symbols I omitted: I for issues, and P for policies. The was a day when candidates were judged by both as the planks upon which party platforms were constructed and presidential aspirants stood. Today they strike as boring and and insincere. Today we are far more enamored by personality, style and popularity than we are drawn to issues that ultimately will have the greatest impact on the country. Why else are the candidates so preoccupied with how much their voters “love” them and cheer them on in their pep rallies? Issues and policies merely muddy the water and reveal the inconsistencies to be found when candidates try to be all things to all people. More important than anything else is the prize to be won, not the product to be purchased with our ballots. And in that calculus, the formula seems to work best: ½ t + X => { EV }. Nothing else seems to matter.
As you can probably sense, I am finding it increasingly difficult to get worked up about the candidates for Presidential office this year, knowing how formulaic is their approach to getting elected. I can’t bring myself to support people given to saying so many half-truths and pronouncing so many exaggerated and oversimplified claims about themselves, their opponents, and the great issues our country and its people now face. I wish it weren’t so, although I am not so idealistic or naive to think that similar formulas weren't followed by a host of other office-seekers over our long and often contentious electoral history. But just as we have, more often than not, found a way to rise above parochial self-interest in fashioning governments able to serve and advance this Republic, so, I hope and pray we may yet rise above our partisan dysfunctions in forging a government that will honor the trust that we, the people, will soon place in its hands.
____________
*From Act V, scene 5 lines 16-27 of Macbeth by William Shakespeare
**From Act II, scene 2 of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, in which the line, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” has inspired many many metaphorical substitutions for misery, including politics.
***Lying, by Sisela Bok. 1999. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. I have found this book to be most helpful in distinguishing untruths from deceptions, the former often being the result of ignorance while the latter stemming from a conscious fabrication in order to deceive and manipulate. It therefore can be difficult determining the motive behind anyone uttering a non-truth, for it could be accidental or deliberate. In that sense not all of the things said by our candidates about themselves or their opponents qualify as lies. It is likely that many of the statements made by Kamala or Donald, Tim or JD —far fetched as they may be—reflect what they sincerely believe. That may expose them as fools or dupes, but it doesn’t necessarily make them liars. If or whether they are trying to manipulate voters with deliberate deceptions, only time will reveal.