An Aspirational Quiz
Inspired by Tod Kelly’s claim that we U.S. Americans are really closer to one another politically than we think, following is a quiz. All remarks are taken from the speeches of either John McCain or Barack Obama accepting their respective parties’ nominations in 2008.
I picked these in part from Tod’s reference to the nominating speeches of Bush and Gore in 2000, thinking that a more recent statement would give us a better picture of where we are now, and in part because these speeches are aspirational, setting out promises and goals rather than actual achievements. Thus, they represent the best and most recent picture I could find of what the leaders of our two major parties think the public wants.
I tried to find statements from both candidates touching on similar subject matter areas of policy, and found education, national security, energy, and budget issues in common, as well as some generalized statements about the role of government in both. However, I promise you that I did not cherry-pick statements to make one or another of the candidates look good in retrospect — I was just looking for a representative sample of the aspirations of each candidate and try to provide an honest quiz. It was harder to find actual promises than I thought, as both speeches contained a great deal of emotional appeals, rhetorical fluff, biographical stories, and describing the problems facing “typical” individual Americans rather than anything that would actually set forth what the nominees were about in terms of policy.
I picked 40 quotes. I’ve set this up in a table format, so that you can print out the quiz and decide for yourself which of the two candidates took it. The table appears after the jump. The answers are in whited text (highlight to see). You’re on your honor to not reference the speeches themselves before answering. I think that if many people report their answers after honestly taking the quiz, we will get at least a clue as to the validity of Tod’s hypothesis that the the parties not all that far apart in terms of their public policy aspirations. Good luck!
|
Quote |
McCain |
Obama |
| Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. We’re dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. No country ever had a greater cause than that. |
X |
|
| … [O]ne of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and each other’s patriotism. |
x |
|
| We believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers. We’re all God’s children and we’re all Americans. |
X |
|
| We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children. |
X |
|
| … [Government] programs alone can’t replace parents, … government can’t turn off the television and make a child do her homework, … fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children. |
x |
|
| The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn’t a cause, it’s a symptom. It’s what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you. |
X |
|
| All you ever asked of government is to stand on your side, not in your way. And that’s just what I intend to do: stand on your side and fight for your future. |
X |
|
| I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st-century challenges with a 20th-century bureaucracy. |
x |
|
| We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor. |
X |
|
| I will stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. |
x |
|
| We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don’t legislate from the bench. |
X |
|
| … [O]urs is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology. |
x |
|
| We believe in a government that unleashes the creativity and initiative of Americans. Government that doesn’t make your choices for you, but works to make sure you have more choices to make for yourself. |
X |
|
| I will restore our moral standing so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future. |
x |
|
| …[W]hen we tell you we’re going to change Washington, and stop leaving our country’s problems for some unluckier generation to fix, you can count on it. |
X |
|
| I fought for the right strategy and more troops in Iraq, when it wasn’t a popular thing to do. |
X |
|
| I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. |
x |
|
| I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home. |
x |
|
| I will end this war in Iraq responsibly and finish the fight against Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts, but I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. |
x |
|
| We lost [Americans’] trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Sen. [Opponent] passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. |
X |
|
| In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East. |
x |
|
| As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. |
x |
|
| We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we’ll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex-fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles. |
X |
|
| I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power, and solar power, and the next generation of biofuels — an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. |
x |
|
| I’ll eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow. |
x |
|
| We believe in low taxes, spending discipline and open markets. |
X |
|
| We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities. |
x |
|
| I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it. |
X |
|
| We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage, whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. |
x |
|
| …the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but … businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road. |
x |
|
| We will prepare [the unemployed] for the jobs of today. We will use our community colleges to help train people for new opportunities in their communities. For workers in industries that have been hard hit, we’ll help make up part of the difference in wages between their old job and a temporary, lower-paid one while they receive retraining that will help them find secure new employment at a decent wage. |
X |
|
| My opponent promises to bring back old jobs by wishing away the global economy. We’re going to help workers who’ve lost a job that won’t come back find a new one that won’t go away. |
X |
|
| As president, I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War. But we can’t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people. |
X |
|
| Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. |
x |
|
| If you commit to serving your community or our country, we will make sure you can afford a college education. |
x |
|
| I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries, and give them more support. And in exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more accountability. |
x |
|
| My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor. |
x |
|
| If you have health care — if you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. |
x |
|
| Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. |
x |
|
| Thank you, and God bless you. |
x |
I got 30/10. Coulda been worse except for some very slight rhetorical tells. If not for those, it’d’ve been about 20/20.
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Yeah, but they both lied. The lies may represent “the American consensus,” however, which is helpful. On the other hand, promising the unachievable is a yardstick with no markings and no end—it goes up and up and up until it reaches the pie in the sky.
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This isn’t a response to this but since comments are closed below, I figure I will try to write a note since you don’t have a direct email option.
From what I read in the closed-comment thread below, it seems the major bone of contention is between “scott” and another commenter who has had exceptionally bad experiences with police forces.
It probably would not have gone any further had Jason Kuznicki not exercised his “police powers”, as it were, in the defense of only one side of the argument. I notice “Scott” making several favorite epithets used by the unintelligent majority of the right wing, as well as a false accusation that “Mike” was advocating violence.
I’m sorry to see that comments were closed, and even sorrier that it closed up while I was trying to compose a response to the whole affair. And I am rather sad to see that, at least from appearances, Jason Kuznicki decided to behave in a lopsided manner with the use of his power.Report
Dude – having just gone back and read the update where JK closes the thread, I’m puzzled. Where are you getting that the thread was closed because one side was winning an argument, or that Jason did it to support one end of an argument, or whatever it is you’re getting at?
I didn’t read the thread, but if the comment thread was highjacked by people that refused to respect the commenting policy and had no issues using new IP addresses to keep fishing up the site, then I see no reason why Jason can’t be allowed to close the thread. In fact, since having one’s post conversations boarded up shortly after posting has got to be a painful thing to do, I’d like to thank Jason for not letting what everyone is describing from bleeding into the rest of the site.Report
First of all – “Scott”, and several other right wing commenters, make a number of needless insults and ad hominem attacks towards both the left wing in general and OWS and students in particular.
Second of all, “Scott” makes a reference towards “keyboard commandos like Mike threatening violence…” I do not not, and did not in any of the posts which I saw that appear to now be deleted, see any call for violence from the other side. I did see several mentions of why Scott’s attitude shows that he is unsuitable to be a police officer, and I am not unsympathetic to this point given Scott’s clear lack of self-control and sound judgement regarding the use of force and power.
Scott, in my view, was trolling very much like other right-wingers spend far too much time trolling the League. That he got the reaction he was looking for from one individual – and apparently due to police misconduct concerning spousal abuse, which I saw mentioned as a reason in a comment I can’t now find and assume was one of the ones deleted – does not excuse this, nor does it excuse Mr. Kuznicki’s failure to discipline Scott for trolling while disciplining the person who reacted. Scott’s behavior is a variant of the old “stop hitting yourself” bully tactic and he should not be condoned for it.
Any reasonable person, from what I saw and the fact that it appears only one side’s posts were removed following a trolling incident, should have cause for concern over the unequal application of policy here.Report
There is a difference between making ad hominems at a general group and making personal attacks on another commenter or poster.Report
Also, no more comments on this thread that are not germane.Report
Mike Schilling said: “If one of those sadistic motherfuckers ever hurts her, we’ll all find out if there’s blog commenting from prison.” and Scott said, “I think their answer would be quite a bit more interesting to hear then bunch of keyboard commandos like Mike threatening violence if his kids are ever peppered”. I fail to see how this is directly equivalent to flooding the thread with comment after comment about another commenter being a “fascist”, “subhuman”, “piece of shit”, “monster” and the original poster being a “fascist shitbag”.Report
Second of all, “Scott” makes a reference towards “keyboard commandos like Mike threatening violence…” I do not not, and did not in any of the posts which I saw that appear to now be deleted, see any call for violence from the other side. I did see several mentions of why Scott’s attitude shows that he is unsuitable to be a police officer, and I am not unsympathetic to this point given Scott’s clear lack of self-control and sound judgement regarding the use of force and power.
I deleted the comments that threatened violence. They did not come from either of the two people who usually go by “Mike” around here. Scott is correct that they were way out of line.
Trolling is not in itself a cause for discipline at the League, because it’s very, very hard to define. If Scott actually did threaten personal violence toward anyone, or if he resorted to racism or other personal abuse, please bring it to my attention. Otherwise, I’d place his views in the category of “repellent, but allowed” here at the League.Report
Jason: I don’t have the ability to do this from my tablet, but could you delete this portion of Burt’s thread and, ideally, either transfer it to the other thread or put your explanation (which I fully support) as an addendum to your original post?Report
Agreed. My bad for feeding the thread.
Sorry Burt!Report
I can’t figure out how to do that.
Would it be better if I un-banned everyone I just banned (pretty sure it’s just one guy), and then created the Jason’s a Fascist Shitbag for Daring to Oppose the Cops Open Thread?
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Do as you see fit, i’ll back you whatever you do. I just want this threadjack removed.Report
(Hope this is OK, Mark, since it’s a clarification of Jason’s comment.)
Scott said:
keyboard commandos like Mike threatening violence if his kids are ever peppered
This does clearly refer to me. I did not, of course, threaten violence, because I’m not nearly dumb enough to do that using my real name.Report
Um, there’s another “Mike” who posts here, I clearly understood it to be /him/ not /you/.Report
I specifically mentioned my daughter. Unless it was in a deleted post, no one else referred to their kids.Report
This definitely isn’t you. It’s the other Mike (and not at the Big Stick, even).
If it had been you, you’d have been banned.Report
Mike:
Really, you are now claiming that you didn’t advocate violence and that I’m a liar? Here is what you posted:
Mike Schilling November 20, 2011 at 2:10 am
My parents, back in the days of anti-Vietnamese-War protests, considered Berkeley too dangerous for an 18-year-old, and persuaded my brother to attend a safer, lower-key, small-town campus, where the most pressing law-enforcement problem was bicycle theft. I was very pleased earlier this year when my daughter decided to follow in her uncle’s footsteps.
If one of those sadistic motherfuckers ever hurts her, we’ll all find out if there’s blog commenting from prison..
I highlighted the pertinent portion to jog your memory about your threats.Report
Right-wingers usually deify father’s protecting their family from attack.Report
It’s neither a specific threat nor, if I may say so, a credible one.Report
Jason:
If it is not credible then I guess the keyboard commando description is accurate.Report
I’m fine with that. But if we started banning keyboard commandos, hoo boy, we’d have an awful lot of banning to do. What Mike Schilling did was not remotely a bannable offense, is all I’m saying.Report
Jason:
I never suggested or advocated that Mike S be banned. I merely pointed out that his statement that he did not threaten violence was false.Report
What sort of violence, and against whom?Report
Gentlemen, let’s knock it off with the threadjacking already. Please. We’re waaay off topic here.Report
Don’t mess with me when I’m already headed for prison.Report
Certainly non-specific. As I said, I’m not dumb.Report
Wow. I go over to a friend’s house to watch one game of football and look what happens.Report
What, did Tebow win again?Report
I’m starting to think all the Tebowing is paying off. And as an atheist, that worries me.Report
24.
I didn’t get to comment on Tod’s thread, but I do agree with whoever made the comment that all this is evidence that in the general election both party candidates are spinning their way to median voter appeal, having already shored up their bases in winning a primary.Report
The most obvious sort of flaw with an exercise like this is the complaint that a nominating speech is not really reflective of what the parties want to do. Of course, neither are their platforms. What other medium of comparing and contrasting policy preferences might we use than these?Report
I think someone on another thread (greginak?) was right on when he said you look a things like judicial appointments and selections to be the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of the Department of “x”
(but even then, as someone else (b-psycho?) said, the most irritating stuff is the most irritating because the two major political parties are in agreement)Report
I agree here, But, as far as presidential politics goes, we have to accept that this means, in essence, it’s all and only party affiliation that matters.
Now, I do happen to agree with that. This kind of speech sameness reminds me of hotel advertising. Every hotel is selling comfort and convenience and cleanliness at great prices – no one advertises that they skimp on the sheets because you’d go somewhere else for $5 less per night.
Almost no one in the nation has a record to run on that’s remotely applicable to holding the presidency (and if they do, nearly all voters are not in a position to really judge their records fairly), so one has to base their vote on expectations for generic Democrat and generic Republican. The particulars of the person on the ticket are only so much advertising. It should not surprise us that the messaging is based on not alienating the minimum number of likely voters.
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I agree it shouldn’t be a surprise. That what is supposed to be a public service position is pursued in a way people can compare to advertising, IMO, further exposes the self-interest inherent in those that want it in conflict with the public they claim to want to serve.
Considering the power being sought, the ideal candidate field IMO would be one where everyone competing lays bare exactly what they think, what they plan on attempting if elected, and how they reach their conclusions with no weasel words, no platitudes, no smoothing off of any rough edges. Straight-up “this is my agenda, if you agree with it then vote for me, if you don’t then vote for somebody else” — in other words, people running for office that frankly don’t give a fish whether they win or not.Report
And I’d go one step further, Burt. Take education. I’ll bet that in an election, Rs would support elimination of big give getting in the way and Ds would support educating the poor, and they’d go round and round over that.
But if you talk to any one of them asking should fed money help, should the govt subsidize lower income kids in education, is choice good, is testing for accountability good, etc, you’d find that there are very strong consensuses. It’s putting theses issues in a R vs. D that gets everybody all wiggy.Report
25. Plus what Tom said about the BS behind the statements.Report
Y’know, I don’t even remember what the 2000 election was about. It was a peace-and-prosperity election; both candidates had promised a prescription drug benefit for seniors. What were the contentious issues?
Until Gore started acting like a goon [stalking Bush around the stage in a debate], acting like a loon [campaigning himself bleary-eyed until the last moment while Bush went to bed] and agitating with divisive Two Americas nonsense, it was a slam-dunk election that shouldn’t have been anywhere near close. Bush wasn’t even a sparkling candidate like Bill Clinton was in 1992, another mostly peace-and-prosperity election. [The data later said that that mild recession was already over.]
In Congress, the GOP kept its majority and actually lost 2 House seats and 4 in the Senate, but those are rather tame figures.
I think Tod’s point about the American consensus holds for times of peace and prosperity, but when the spit hits the fan, and action rather than stewardship is called for, well here we are.Report
Y’know, I don’t even remember what the 2000 election was about.
Blowjobs. But for some reason, more men voted for the side that was against them.Report
31. And I don’t think this proves much–all it shows is that, in situations where they have every incentive to appeal to the median voter, both major presidential candidates can do so. It doesn’t say a thing about what problems they’ll pay attention to once in office, nor does it address the impact of dealing with a Congress controlled by their party.Report
32
And God bless the United States of America is easy for Fallows readers. It’s as big a pet peeve for him as the boiling frog. And what Stillwater sad about rhetorical tropes is absolutely true. Add minor differences of emphasis, and at least 30 could be either of them.Report
Put it this way, most Supreme Court decisions are not 5:4 splits. In fact there have been runs of quite a bit of unanimous decision making. But it is precisely those 5:4 splits where some extremely significant disputes are being settled. As I alluded to in the other thread, appointments with life tenure matter, I’d predict with a high degree of confidence that Roberts and Alito will find themselves on the opposite side of Sotomayor and Kagan in many (though not all) of those 5:4 splits. As with Supreme Court nominees seeking confirmation (since Bork), all the hard edges are shorn off for polite public presentation at a certain stage. Politicians saying they love their moms and apple pie is all well and good, but that has little to do with the shape of public policies that ultimately result.
A more telling comparison would be looking at what politicians do when they have a freer hand, not to look at what politicians say since everyone promises double rainbows and unicorns. Say, the first hundred days in office of the W. Bush administration and the first 100 days in office of the Obama administration – that’s a time where true priorities are on display. Or another time when they’re free to pursue their priorities with little consequence, the last month of the Clinton administration and the last month of the W. Bush administration.
Btw, I got 16 wrong out of the 40.Report
31Report
30.Report
The results are all coming in about the same here. Allow me to suggest that this means that there are identifiable and meaningful differences between the parties — with the acknowledgement that rhetorical style (as an analogue for personality) plays a large factor in addition to substantive policy preferences.Report
Burt:
Sorry but what relevance do aspirations in speeches really have? I only care about what candidates and parties actually do not what their pie in the sky please elect me speeches say. Barry ran on hope and change but has America really gotten either?Report
That’s a great point. The problem with looking at actions rather than aspirations is threefold, although you’re right that actions do speak louder than words.
First, actions are difficult to assign to a collective when dissent is tolerated. It’s rare that there are party-line votes in Congress (for instance) and when there are, it’s not clear that the partisan discipline truly represents a unity of opinion so much as a recognition of political imperative.
Second, actions are difficult to articulate in a way that are intellectually honest. This is particularly difficult when characterizing things with which you disagree — the test of whether you have described someone else’s actions in an honest way is when the proponent of that action affirms that your description was accurate. Democrats would not affirm that Obamacare was an ‘unconstitutional power grab’ and Republicans would not affirm that private school vouchers are a ‘subsidy to churches.’
Third, it’s not always clear when an action is outside of the fold of general partisan thought. Only rarely do the parties have clearly-identifiable leaders; even now it is not apparent to me that a majority of Democrats accept Barack Obama’s leadership of their party. So when Congressman “R” introduces Bill “X” into Congress, it’s a murky question at best as to whether we can say “All Republicans want policy X.”
So why look at aspirational statements? Because they’re easier, if imperfect, tools to work with.Report