Tag Archives: Signaling

A signal is only informative if it’s costly enough that it can’t be faked. The logic runs through Spence’s job market model, through deterrence theory, through free speech doctrine, through protest and repression, through campaign finance. Posts under this tag are about situations where the cost of the message is the message — and what happens when the cost structure changes.

I’ll Show You…By Not Showing Up

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All is not well in Thaliand, where the opposition Democrat Party is calling for its supporters (some of whom have been actively protesting for months now) to boycott today’s parliamentary elections.

Boycotting elections is not uncommon: indeed, opposition parties have recently boycotted elections in Bangladesh and the main Islamist opposition party is calling for a boycott of upcoming elections in Algeria. The point of this post is, from a strategic standpoint, why would a party call for its supporters to not only not vote for it, but to not vote at all? [1]

I will discuss two theories that can justify election boycotts.  The first concerns the opposition party’s strength, and the second concerns the ramifications of an election result being overturned.  In general, the two are distinguished by whether the boycotting party expects to “win” the election or not.

In both cases, to make the stories succinct, suppose that some proposed “reform” is the main political issue and, without any loss of generality, let’s suppose that the ruling party is proposing the reform and the boycotting party opposes it. (This labeling doesn’t matter, but keeps the language simple.)  I’ll start with “opposition party strength” explanation.

I’m So Popular…Nobody Showed Up.  For the first explanation, suppose that the opposition party expects that it will lose the election—it suspects its supporters are outnumbered by the other party, and suppose that the ruling party will press ahead with the reform if it believes that (say) 60% of the citizens support the reform.

If the opposition party does not boycott, and the ruling party wins with (say) 62% of the vote, then the ruling party will proceed with the reform.  The opposition party loses both electorally and in policy terms.

If the opposition party does boycott, then, while the ruling party will still win, the election result is less informative about the true latent support for the reform.  In particular, as opposed to the baseline case—where abstention by a voter is more than likely due to indifference about (say) the reform—each “non-vote” might represent opposition to the reform.  Thus, boycotting the election can lead to the ruling party being less certain about the underlying support for the reform and either modifying, or demurring from, the reform. [2]

Notice that this justification is based on signaling, and the logic is clearest when there is essentially no hope for the opposition party to win the election.  If the opposition party might win (i.e., it has nearly the same number of supporters as the ruling party), then it must trade-off the potential increased probability of stymieing the reform (in the case of a loss) against the reduced probability of both winning office and stymieing reform.  The second justification is more applicable when the opposition party suspects that the election won’t matter in any event.

It Didn’t Have to Play Out This Way. Sadly, election results are not sacrosanct.  Suppose that the opposition party suspects that, if it wins the election, the ruling party might disregard the election result and impose the reform anyway.  Such an undemocratic move might lead to various ancillary “bad” things unrest and/or a coup.  To keep it simple just suppose that the opposition party prefers the reform to be implemented after being “ratified” (even in a boycotted election) rather than implemented against a contrary election result.  In this case, because voting is costly, voting for the ruling party is otherwise distasteful, or for the purpose of recording an implicit score of (non-)support for the reform, the opposition might benefit from boycotting precisely when it suspects it might “win” the election. [3]

Elections Aren’t Just About Winning. Each of the arguments sketched out above rely on a key characteristic of elections: they aren’t the end of the game.  Rather, an election results is always to some degree a signal about the electorate’s preferences about the issues being confronted at that time.  Of course, the arguments also highlight how the proper interpretation of the “signal sent” by an election result need not be straightforward: as is usual, the fact that something might serve as a signal can infect the incentives of those sending it (in this case the opposition party) in counterinitutive ways (for example, see this point here).

More generally, the arguments provide two alternate routes to understand the legitimating power of participation.  That is, many people understandably say that free, open, and active elections are a foundation of a healthy and legitimate government.  This argument is often (to me, at least) based on the idea that people don’t want to participate in something that they don’t feel connected to and/or “served well by.”  This isn’t a silly argument—it does have a self-enforcing quality that is reminiscent of equilibrium.  But even if one is happy to accept that logic as “just so,” the next step is to examine incentives that logic provides to political actors in pursuit of policy and office.

With that, I leave you with this.

_______________

[1] Especially in multiparty systems (especially with nontrivial electoral “thresholds” for representation and/or public financing), there are clear reasons for a party to call for it supporters to vote for a different party.  This phenomenon, known colloquially as strategic voting, is about coordination, and I will note it and set it to the side: strategic voting does not justify abstention unless there is some type of quorum/participation requirement.

[2] I’ll keep moving, but a moment’s thought suggests that, in some circumstances, this argument also suggests an incentive for the boycotting party to call for a boycott but send some of its supporters to the polls anyway.  The details are a bit complicated, and such an incentive (or, “comparative static of the ruling party’s beliefs as a function of the actual turnout”) might not work out in equilibrium, because the ruling party’s inferences get complicated and depend upon what it knows/believes about the opposition party’s gambit in this regard.  Nonetheless, it is a neat possibility.  TO ME.

[3] One could embellish this argument quite easily (to account for smaller parties also subscribing to its logic) by having the opposition party increasingly dislike the reform being implemented over larger proportions of votes “against” the reform.

What Didn’t He Say? …And How Didn’t He Say it?

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Tonight, President Obama will deliver the State of the Union speech, or SOTU.  The SOTU is an odd creature.  It is an annual opportunity for the President to directly address Congress on whatever he wishes—a time to “show his hand” for the upcoming year.  From a “math of politics” perspective, there are at least three interesting aspects of the SOTU: (1) time is limited, (2) it’s not just what you talk about, but how you talk about it, and (3) everybody knows that everybody else is listening, too.[1]

1. What’s (not) in Your Hand? First, the fact that time is limited and the SOTU occurs only once a year provides the President a chance to credibly signal priorities.  Given time constraints, including a topic in the SOTU is a signal of its importance in the obvious fashion.  But what is more interesting is the case of topics that one might expect the President to include but are instead left unmentioned.  Especially if the topic is relatively polarized, omitting it from the speech might be an implicit concession to moderate Democrats and/or Republicans in Congress.  If I had to pick a topic that is in the news and yet might not be mentioned, it would be immigration.  I’m not going to bet the house on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t much attention paid to it precisely because some in the GOP are indicating that they might be organizing for a push in favor of immigration reform.[2]  A topic I predict will be included: the debt-ceiling. (See my previous post about Mitch McConnell’s stance on this to understand why.)

Given the realities of bargaining before an audience (as I have discussed before… multiple… times) the fact that a topic was not brought up in the SOTU can signal to Congress a flexibility on the part of the President about what he might be willing to accept with respect to that topic—because he has not (re)staked out a public position on the issue.  Indeed, this is independent of how the President spins a position on the topic.  That is, ironically, if the President explicitly signals flexibility on a topic in the SOTU, then this might make it harder for him to actually compromise, because the details of the compromise might be interpreted and/or spun as the President/Dems “folding” and/or the GOP might be accused of “not getting as much as they could.”  We’re arguably seeing a version of this play out right now with the debt ceiling.

2. What Kind of Glove?  Now, taking the topics brought up in the SOTU as given, how does the President propose to address each topic—does he “seek” Congressional leadership on the matter, or does he announce a unilateral initiative?  This is particularly interesting in tonight’s speech, given the recent suggestions by the White House that President Obama is “ready to take unilateral action to close the gap between rich and poor Americans” and the pre-speech announcement of an Executive Order that will raise the minimum wage for Federal contract workers.

The press release linked above is particularly interesting in this regard, as the following quote illustrates (emphasis added):

The President is using his executive authority to lead by example, and will continue to work with Congress to finish the job for all Americans by passing the Harkin-Miller bill.

Given this “pre-game messaging strategy,” Obama might be seen as more conciliatory and “bipartisan” if he requests Congressional leadership and/or initiative on other topics.  Furthermore, such an approach on a different topic would set up a justification for subsequent unilateral action by Obama if (when?) Congress fails to act on the matter in question.  The message sent by the White House’s comments in general and the minimum wage Executive Order in particular can be interpreted as President Obama saying, “hey, I’ll give it a go on my own if I have to.”  Of course, there’s necessarily a lot of bluster in such statements by any President, but it’s not completely cheap talk.

3. Why Don’t We Shake Hands On It? Third, the SOTU is the basis of what game theorists call “common knowledge.”[3]  In other words, while the President can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and get media coverage of it, the SOTU is a time when all of Congress is sitting in front of him when he says it.  That is, he knows that Congress has heard him take the precious time available in the SOTU to say what he said (and not say what he didn’t say) and, even more importantly, he knows that Congress knows that he knows they were there.  Or, put another way, the voters know that Congress heard the SOTU.

This mutual knowledge aspect of the SOTU is important in the following way: if Congress does not act upon a request in the SOTU, it is difficult to believe that the inaction was due to Congress not knowing that the President thought the topic was important.  As alluded to above, this is particularly relevant if the President eventually takes unilateral action on the topic. If he signaled a topic was important through the allocation of SOTU time and Congress doesn’t bring a bill on it to his desk, then it is clearly easier for the President to justify unilateral action to the voters.

In summary, while any speech is necessarily “just” talk, the State of the Union is more than just a speech: it is a constrained amount of time when everybody knows that everybody is watching. This kind of talk ain’t cheap.

With that, I’m going to go get my popcorn and leave you with this.

___________

[1] Of course, it’s not true that everybody is listening.  I mean, this is about SOTU, not SYTYCD.

[2] I’ll leave aside the interesting question of whether such attempts, given the timing, might be strategic attempts to preempt Obama staking out a big position on immigration.  That would require another post entirely.

[3] Technically speaking, common knowledge is a much deeper phenomenon than what I am talking about here.  However, this is merely a blog post. I am using this footnote to try to make it common knowledge that I am aware I am being loose with the notion of common knowledge.  Know what I mean?

 

 

Going Down in Flames…To Rise Like A Phoenix (in the Primary)

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So, the Federal Government is once again approaching the debt ceiling.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he thinks that

“…for the president to ask for a clean debt ceiling, when we have a debt the size of our economy is irresponsible. So, we ought to discuss adding something to his request to raise the debt ceiling that does something about the debt or produces at least something positive for our country…”

What McConnell and his colleagues will discuss adding is a bit unclear at this point (though approval of the Keystone pipeline might be part of it), but Democrats are repeating President Obama’s earlier stance that there will be no negotiations based on the debt limit.

This seems like a stand-off in the making…or does it?

Setting aside the popular conception (with which I concur) that Congressional Republicans “lost” the previous fight on the debt ceiling, McConnell followed the above quote with the following statement:

“We’re never gonna default. The Speaker and I made that clear,”

Um, maybe this isn’t a stand-off in the making.  Maybe a “stand up, just to sit down?”  That’s not catchy, but it brings us to my point in this post.

I could argue that McConnell is pursuing a strategy of either looking “crazy” or trying to imply that he is “hemmed in” by his colleagues, as I have argued before regarding Boehner and his factious caucus.   But, I don’t think this is that.  Rather, McConnell’s unusual comments might be best understood as an attempt to send a costly signal to his constituents, as he is facing and already fighting a right-wing primary challenge by Matt Bevin.  I’ll quickly detail this argument.

Let’s suppose that McConnell is facing a primary challenge because some believe his conservative bona fides are lacking.  McConnell can scream as loud as he wants that he is as conservative, but Glenn Beck doesn’t think he’s good enough.

How can McConnell convince voters that he is a true conservative? Well, he can’t just say it—the voters he wants to convince with such a statement will understand that this is cheap talk.  He has to make the statement that he is “one of them” costly—it has to “pin him down” in some way.  This is tough to do with policy, given that he is the minority leader and his party does not control the White House.

So, my argument goes, he can publicly stonewall what is (hopefully) in the end a fait accompli—the debt ceiling increase—and take his lumps along the way.  This type of position will work only if it hurts McConnell in some verifiable way.  My too-clever-by-half argument is that he is setting exactly such a situation up for the voters who care to see that, at the least, he is willing to bleed for them.

His two statements above make it clear that (1) he is simply being difficult, and (2) he is willing to acknowledge that he will lose unless Obama is willing for some reason to compromise.  (Not saying Obama won’t—he might—but McConnell probably doesn’t know that Obama will.)

Arguably, by saying that he is going to try to drive a hard bargain on the debt ceiling while at the same time admitting he’ll ultimately support a clean debt ceiling increase,  McConnell has adopted a position of “I’m so conservative, I’m willing to fight A KNOWINGLY UNWINNABLE FIGHT FOR CONSERVATIVE `PRINCIPLES.'”[1]

To revisit the argument again before concluding, my point here is that McConnell was probably not speaking off-the-cuff: he is no idiot, and I believe he realizes that his position is internally inconsistent.  Most voters won’t care, but those who pay attention might, and the distinction between his statements and simply saying “awww, heck no—we aren’t going to give a clean debt ceiling increase” is that he purposely made clear that not only was he against default—he and Speaker Boehner have “made it clear” that “we’re never gonna default.”  That is, he explicitly pointed out that the GOP is very unlikely to get anything from this—and yet he’s willing to lose trying.

Because that’s just how flamboyantly conservative he is.

With that, I leave you with this.

___________________

[1] I apologize if my distaste for this narrative offends you, dear reader, but I will not accept that even flirting with violating the full faith and credit of the Federal Government is consistent with any reasonable rendition of conservative principles.  Trust, reliability, sanctity of contract—hell, even the facile analogy between running the government and the responsible financial management of a family or small business—-all run squarely against using the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip. Full stop.  That said, as a political scientist, I do not think McConnell is playing dirty—procedural stopgaps are rightly the fitting and necessary last bastion of the minority party.  (See what I did there?  I can link filibusters and debt ceilings, because that’s the way I’m wired: namely, short-circuited.)

You’re Welcome for the Thankless Thanks

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Tonight’s Golden Globes reminded me of a point I haven’t seen made (though I am sure somebody has made it).  Namely, why do actors and actresses thank a whole bunch of other people when they are on TV in front of millions of viewers who hate watching actors and actresses thank a whole bunch of other people?  After all, it is arguable that awards shows are clearly and only about the viewers.  Right?

Well, a quick point is in order.  A “thank you” is like a gift—it is more meaningful when it is costly and demonstrates that the thanker “thought of” the person being thanked. The seconds one gets to speak on live TV are precious and fleeting.  More importantly, an actor or actress sacrifices a lot (e.g., of at least hypothetical accolades) by not giving some meaningful speech and instead thanking one’s agent, producers, etc. This is even more true given the fact that nobody likes listening to such acknowledgments.

The fact that the time is limited and the awardee presumably had to prepare the list of people to thank without knowing for certain that he or she would actually win merely amplifies the cost—and accordingly, the meaningfulness—of the “gift” of the thanks.

But, here’s the kicker: the fact that we, the audience members, hate listening to “a list of thank you’s to otherwise anonymous industry people” bolsters the value and, accordingly, the incentive for actors and actresses to do this.  So, in a nutshell, it’s kind of Alanis-esque: the fact that viewers of award shows hate listening to lists of thank you’s ironically causes /induces actors and actresses to get up on live TV and run through lists of thank you’s.

And, with that, I leave you with this.

Dis-Spence-ing with the Debt Debacle

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There is an excellent piece in the New York Times by Jeremy W. Peters describing the outcome of last night’s (temporary) resolution to the debt ceiling and funding showdown. A quote stuck out at me:

Others could not explain why it took so much damage, to their party and the millions of people inconvenienced and worse by the shutdown, to end up right where so many of them expected.

Well, there is a simple MathOfPolitics explanation for this.  In a nutshell, it’s called a “pooling equilibrium” in game theory.  The classic example of this behavior is the “job market signaling model,” due to 2001 Nobel Laureate Michael Spence. The basic idea is that there are two types of workers/applicants: “low” type and “high” type, and employers would prefer to hire high type workers.  The type of a worker, however, is asymmetrically known: the worker knows his or her type, and the potential employer does not.  Rather, the employer can observe whether the applicant (say) went to college, and — here’s “the rabbit” — high types find college more enjoyable/less costly than low types.[1]  Employers see an applicant’s education (college or no college) and hire based on that information alone.  In the model, and this is key for the analogy, education is in and of itself inefficient—it does not make a worker better.  Rather, it is obtained in equilibrium only to the degree that it helps the worker in question procure employment.[2]

In every equilibrium of such a situation, the low type of worker does not obtain a degree unless the high type obtains one, too.  This leads, when the value of employment is sufficiently high, to both types of workers getting a degree, and thus the degree is observationally unimportant: some people with degrees get jobs, some don’t—degrees seem (observationally) to be unimportant.[3]

In other words, at the “beginning of the game” in such situations, everybody knows that getting a degree is “pointless,” and yet everybody knows that everybody will get it. In the end, applicants are hired with the same probability that they would have been if the option to get a degree were prohibited/taken off the table, and yet every applicant pays a positive cost to get the degree nonetheless.  Rephrasing:

The model explains why workers will get degrees to “get a job,” only to end up right where they started.

Here, the analogy is that “the Republicans” (it’s easy language, but see here) were trying to signal their “ideological purity/conservatism/belief in small government/hatred for the Affordable Care Act.”  In the end, the stakes for signaling this—say, successful circumvention of a primary challenge from a right-wing candidate—were perceived to be so large, relative to the costs of temporary shutdown and some briefly rattled markets that all (House) Republicans, regardless of their true beliefs/purity, were willing to go along with the gambit.  Note that this story is in line with the party line vote behind such procedural undergirdings of unity as discussed in this post, and, more math/less politics, is based on the counterfactual reasoning that drives signaling models discussed in this post.

So, to summarize: a simple signaling model not only explains what happened over the past 17+ days, it also offers an explanation for why what happened was foreseeable.  Thus, rephrasing one more time:

Game theory already explained and arguably predicted that it would take so much damage … to end up right where so many of them expected.

With that, I leave you with this.

__________

[1] When I say “the rabbit,” I mean (in layman’s terms) the causal mechanism: the thing that makes the model work, that explains the phenomenon that the model is aimed at, that makes the audience ultimately say “ahhhh!”

[2] And, no, I won’t admit that this is essentially a model of getting a PhD in the social sciences.  BECAUSE I (RE)LEARNED ABOUT POOLING EQUILIBRIA GETTING MY PhD.

[3] In a nontrivial set of cases (when employment is less valuable relative than the low type of worker’s net marginal cost of obtaining a degree relative to that experienced by the high type of worker), degrees are obtained only by high types, all applicants with degrees—and only those applicants—are employed, and degrees “look” valuable, even though they generate no inherent value on their own.  This is the first of many (empirically) important conclusions obtained by this deceptively simple model.

Boehner in the Middle?

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White House Press Secretary Jay Carney just argued that, if the House Republicans won’t allow a default, why would they not give a longer extension of the debt ceiling, instead postponing another round of brinksmanship in 6 weeks, which—the argument goes—will merely lead to another extension, with arguably deleterious impact on the economy and financial markets.

I wanted to quickly point out that this appeal to subgame perfection—the game theoretic notion that equilibrium behavior should be based on credible threats—is intuitive, and arguably spot on…in a two player bargaining situation.  But, this is a bargaining game between (to simplify) Obama and the House Republican Conference.

Arguably, tea party members can’t—for signaling reasons similar to those described in this post—vote for along-term extension of the debt ceiling.  According to such an argument, this might be “the best that Boehner can get.”  However, there’s another story that is more interesting.  Suppose that Boehner and Obama each wish to achieve real reform, but both realize that any changes to the Affordable Care Act are a “no go.”  (That is, suppose they wish to reach “a grand bargain” on entitlements and taxes.)

Suppose they need time—like, more than 7 days—to work this out.  In order to get such a bargain approved without requiring Democratic support, Boehner has a problem without the debt ceiling as a “nuclear weapon in his back pocket.”  In particular, Boehner can use the very real (in legal terms) threat of default to bring his conference into the fold on a vote bundling the grand bargain with a debt ceiling extension.  Indeed, such a story would be a “win-win” for the GOP and Obama, who could presumably use the next couple of weeks to both take some credit for the bargaing and, arguably follow some strategy like the one I describe in this post.

The point is that the threat of breaching the debt ceiling can be useful to both Boehner and Obama in terms of keeping the rank-and-file in line on a substantive vote.  Finally, note that, to the degree that some reelection-minded members actually don’t want to default or keep the government shut down, they would also prefer a short-term extension in this case, so as to simultaneously provide electoral cover for real reform.

With that simultaneously hopeful and cynical note, I leave you with this.

Why a Clean CR is A No Boehner

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Before getting into today’s post, I wanted to point out this excellent post about the discharge petition by Sarah Binder.  I was both embarrassed and relieved when I read it, because it predates and more eloquently states what I did about the practical difficulties with using the discharge petition.  Sarah knows her stuff so, as I explained to my daughter last night, I was sorry to have not read it before posting, but proud to have been thinking the same way.  (Sarah also describes the observed historical difficulty of this procedure in this post.) Credit paid where it is due, I’ll now turn away from the procedures for a second and focus on the floor.

Specifically, I was to consider the math behind the problem that Speaker John Boehner faces.  For simplicity, let’s presume Boehner that would like to move past the shutdown and would be perfectly happy with a “clean CR” that extends appropriations at the (sequestered) levels.[1] For a little over a week at least, Democrats have supported a “clean CR.” Recently, Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor have responded that such a measure would not pass the House.  Democrats have challenged them to try it, noting (somewhat disingenuously, as I’ll get to below) that, if Boehner and Cantor are right, then there’s no harm in trying. Right?

 

Wrong, for at least three reasons. First, many reasonably argue (e.g., David Karol) that the majority party collectively prefers to appear united, a presumption that is given some credit by the much ballyhooed “Hastert Rule.”[2]

The second reason is the one I will focus on first: uncertainty.  This explanation applies to why Boehner didn’t allow a vote on a clean CR prior to the shutdown.  In a nutshell, many members of both parties face a highly uncertain electorate in the following sense.  A vote on a clean CR represents trading-off two “goods” or, put another, choosing the lesser of two evils.  For the stereotypical “moderate” Republican, these are[3]

  1. Responsibly funding the government, or
  2. Modifying the Affordable Care Act.

A public “yea” vote on a clean CR—particularly given the presumption that the ultimate vote will be close—is a costly and visible signal that the member thinks (1) is more important than (2).  This public signal is, of course, a coarse one.  There is no nuance in a clean CR.  So, in order for a reelection-minded member to see a vote on a clean CR as desirable, he or she must know ex ante what vote he or she would like to cast.  I’ll simply assert that few members of the House are very certain about this—this is why whip counts like this one and this one are occupying our attention right now.

The third explanation for why a vote on a clean CR would be “bad for Boehner” applies only after he has taken the public stance that a clean CR would not pass.[5]  While many have argued that Boehner is in a pickle because bringing up a clean CR might lead to a revolt within the GOP and possible his removal as Speaker. I understand this argument, but I don’t think it’s nearly as potent as some others do, mostly because a replacement for Boehner must secure a majority of votes in the House.[6]  Rather, consider the following simplistic story: presume that Boehner wants to be seen as an effective leader with control of his caucus.  Accordingly, he doesn’t want to expose his members to pointless and electorally difficult-to-explain votes.  This is what distinguishes this from the multiple times the House has voted on the pointless measures to repeal the Affordable Care Act—these votes were not difficult for most, if not all, GOP members to explain to their base constituents.

So, what would Boehner gain from allowing a vote on a clean CR?  Well, if the clean CR passes, Boehner and Cantor look disingenuous, inept, and/or out-of-touch with their copartisans.  If the clean CR fails, then Boehner has exposed his members to a difficult-to-explain and pointless vote.  (And, to be even more common-sense about this, he would have let the Democrats (appear to) dictate the agenda of the House.)

Once you add into the mix the residual uncertainty about the debt ceiling, I think it’s a “no brainer” that Boehner and the GOP membership in the House stand a lot to lose in both perception and electoral terms from allowing a vote on a clean CR.  This logic further amplifies the point I made in my previous post about the importance of the Democrats finding something to “lose” in pursuit of an end to this mess.

With that, I leave you with this.

______________________

[1] Remember the sequester…the fiscal cliff?  We were all older then…we’re much younger now.

[2] It is not infrequently brought up, but note that my explanation is arguably more consistent with the history of Boehner’s leadership, because he has violated the Hastert rule on several high-profile votes.

[3] For a stereotypical Democrat, these are

  1. Responsibly funding the government, or
  2. Fighting to undo the effects of the sequester.

[4] Or a “sincere delegate” seeking to faithfully represent some notion of his or her constituents’ interests.  I know, I know…but it’s possible.

[5] Arguably, it also applied with a slightly more circuitous reasoning as soon as the House passed the first “CR with strings” a couple of weeks ago.  But, I’ll leave that for another day.  Perhaps sadly, I expect I’ll have a chance to write about this in about 9 days, if Treasury Secretary Lew’s estimates are right.

[6] Unlike the Majority Leader position and other caucus/conference leadership position, the Speakership isn’t controlled by the majority party.  Accordingly, the Democrats can protect Boehner simply by voting “against his removal,” (they need not vote for Boehner), presuming that some GOP members would stand with Boehner.

Winning At All Costs Will Make Winning Costlier (Than It Needs To Be)

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So, the shutdown continues.  Indeed, it seems to me that the collective conscience has accepted that the shutdown will continue until mid-October, when we can get a “two-for-one” CR-Debt Ceiling deal.  Kind of makes sense, in a sad way.

Anyway, the topic of today’s post is the uncomfortable position of Speaker John Boehner, who may very well want a clean CR. Or, more to the point, he might have truly wanted such an outcome before the shutdown.  There is at least a partial narrative to the effect that a clean CR would not pass.  The storyline is, as I alluded to in the previous post, is one of “ends against the middle,” in which liberal Dems want a “clean plus” CR that restores funding to the pre-sequestration levels[1] vote with tea-party GOP members who prefer people eating the goo out of each other’s heads to anything that might be seen as conferring legitimacy on collective governance.[2]

So, how to resolve this?

Well, I definitely don’t know for sure.  But I think the problem right now—to the degree that one thinks that the proper and properly lexicographic priority is to open the government—is entirely due to the Democrats’ stance on the CR.

Let’s be quick about this.  There is no discussion of what one might call a “CR minus,” which would (for example) fund the government at (say) 95% of the last FY’s levels.[3]

So, what Boehner needs here is a way out while saving face.  That’s basically what he is pleading for with respect to the debt ceiling. To me, Boehner is basically (and reasonably) saying “I’ll get the votes however I can, including from Dems…but I need to look like I got something out of this.”  It is important to note that, in politics, hypothetical wins and losses can count as much (if not more than) observed ones.

From a game-theoretic perspective, Boehner’s leadership struggle (as well as the reelection struggles of his more moderate copartisans) is based on the suspicion that he is not a sufficiently “true conservative.”  In signaling game terminology, Boehner needs some meaningful (“costly”) way to differentiate (“separate”) himself from Obama.

A side note: this argument can be related directly to the normal practice (at least in the US) of the winner of an election deferring his or her victory speech until the loser gives his or her concession speech, often preceded by a publicly announced “phone call” from the loser to the victor congratulating him or her on the victory and “a contest well fought.”

Here’s the deal: Obama (and arguably Pelosi) each have the opportunity to go VERY public and demand the moon.  Overplay the hand—demand not only a clean CR, but—-I dunno—a tax increase on the rich.  Let every Democrat who wishes to do so go public and disown this position as too extreme.  Then, have Obama/Pelosi sit down with Boehner and Cantor at the local Applebee’s, and come out with Pelosi and Obama mad as hell.  They need to say that Boehner won’t budge, won’t give into the strengths of their positions.  Maybe get Howard Dean to come up and give a “HEEEE-YAAHHH” for full effect.

Then Boehner takes the stage and says, look, this isn’t the thing we as good conservatives wanted here, but I think it’s time for us to come together and get to the real business of this nation.[4]  He turns and welcomes Reid, McConnell, and a few other Democrats and Republicans to the stage.  The Rules Committee brings the clean CR passed by the Senate to the floor with a closed rule, Boehner walks out smelling like roses with a solid 330-100 or so vote, and *POOF* the tea party is arguably neutered.

It has been said that the real value of the right to appeal in judicial systems is as a way for losers to “save face.” I really believe this.  Almost every collective decision has at least two components: the policy impact of the actual choice, and the reputational impacts on those who argued for and against the choice during the deliberations.  Incentivizing “fair dealing” sometimes requires the (policy) winners to “take a hit” on the reputational front.[5]

It would be sad and truly ironic if the Democrats take the “evidence” (at least strong folk belief) that the GOP overplayed its hand in 1995-96 so closely to heart that they end up overplaying their own hands in this one.

With that, I leave you with this.

______________

[1] Sorry to bring it up again, but remember sequestration?  Man, those were crazy times.  Like when we opened the fire exit for those dudes bringing burgers back from Hardees and almost didn’t get to walk in graduation!  Except, now it’s like, they got cold hot dogs from 7-11 and we ate them while watching Full House reruns.

[2] Too strong?  Oh, I don’t think so.

[3] The piecemeal approach being pursued by Boehner is an intriguing one, but I’ll leave that for later.  For now, I’ll simply say that such a strategy smacks of “politics meets the need to be seen as active meets the desire of Members of Congress to have their trash picked up.”  Or, more simply, “panic politics.”

[4] Which is, of course, Reality TV.

[5] Note that, in classical two-party electoral competition, “taking a hit” and “declining to pounce on an opportunity to win” are equivalent.

Putting the “Come At Me, Bro” in “Comity” or, Boehner is a Painer to McConnell

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So, as you might very well have read (and probably predicted): the House has attempted to present President Obama with the facile Faustian bargain of averting government shutdown by agreeing to repeal the Affordability Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”).

I have ideas about how this is even more absolutely ridiculous (from a strategic perspective) for the House GOP than it might appear.  But those are even less interesting than what I am going to write about.  (And to be clear, GOP leaders—including the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Harold Rogers (R-Ky)—are publicly clear about the fact that this is a ridiculous gambit.)

Quickly, because we all have fantasy football lineups to pore over for hours prior to leaving them just as they were (i.e., FFB Fiduciary Diligence), let me ask—has anyone asked Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, how much he is hating his life right now?  (I presume that McConnell is in favor of removing the ACA defunding language, though it seems like he might not yet have said as much. The linked blog also sketches out a neat (and obvious upon reflection) trick that I hadn’t thought about Reid using to strip the language.)

In addition to the fact that the House GOP’s tactic will not win any extra votes (and probably lose a few), McConnell has to choose exactly how he wants to “plate” a simmering pile of turd in the Senate.  There are two basic scenarios, depending on whether the Senate takes up the House’s version of the continuing resolution (CR).  The two are actually the same, except in terms of labeling. And while labeling can/does matter in politics, I will get to the point.

Reid wants to present to the Senate for a final vote a version of the CR that is free of the ACA-defunding language.  Regardless of how Reid tries to get there (either through a new CR, a pre-cloture amendment to the existing CR, or—as the above link highlights—securing cloture prior to offering such an amendment), a determined coalition of 41 Senators can stymie his efforts.  The GOP currently holds 46 seats so, without McConnell’s cloakroom help, Reid would need (at least) 6 Republicans to visibly cross lines and support Reid (cloture votes must be recorded).

Presuming that this won’t happen (or that McConnell would prefer that it not happen for other reasons), McConnell must somehow get his Senators to not filibuster the new version of the CR.  Ugh.

Note that Boehner has many more tools at his disposal—let’s call them “the Rules Committee and their precious panoply of procedural ploys”—to save face while sending a relatively clean CR to the Senate so as to keep the government from shutting down.

Also, note that—as far as I can tell—this is all still separate from the debt ceiling showdown.  With that, I leave you with this.

The Politics of Going Public

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The Syrian crisis and the debt ceiling/government funding crisis have one thing in common in my mind.

Narrative.

In each situation, President Obama has a chance to “look Presidential” by being decisive. To be short about it, “Presidents order military strikes based on moral/strategic prerogative” and “Presidents tell Congress that the business of governing goes on.”

But what’s different about this situation?

I and others have thought and discussed the two crises ad nauseam.  But their interaction is the point of this post.  While I discussed this earlier, I will take a different, ahem, take in this post.

Syria comes first: Obama might or might not have personal beliefs about what is best to do there but let’s accept as plausible that “doing nothing” requires no explanation: the default of “don’t put Americans in harm’s way” is a safe and understandable (even when wrong) option. To do something requires explanation (especially after Iraq).  There are some layers there, given the various subtle differentiations between “airstrikes” and “boots on the ground,” but the point remains: if Obama wants to do more than a one-off strike on Syria, he needs to explain to America (read: insure himself in Congress) why this is a good idea.

Now we turn to the coming budget showdown: Obama will have no choice but to face a choice here.  Let’s stipulate that Congress ain’t going to hand him a sequester-free continuing resolution (longhand in today’s world for “federal budget”). So, he will face meaningful calls for veto threats, stonewalling, and general resistance to whatever Congress sends to his desk. And, of course, if Congress sends him nothing, then he is forced to face the question of how to avoid/deal with default.

Ugh.  I mean, $400K is a lot of sugar, but that job SOUNDS LIKE IT SUCKS RIGHT ABOUT NOW.

All that said, and while I have already said/implied that I think committing troops/materiel to Syria would put the GOP in a tough spot while also saying that he may very well (and understandably) not know what to do, I want to point out that Obama lingering on the sidelines on Syria, as morally slippery as that may be, might be the right strategic call.  While he dithers and is lampooned by Putin, Gates, and Panetta, Obama is reserving the flexibility to “go public” with a fuller narrative.  When and if the debt/funding crisis comes to his doorstep, Obama arguably has the ability to distract/dissimulate/refocus the public on “the big (Presidential) moments” as he sees fit.  This won’t work with certainty, of course, there are always Benghazis/Wacos/Katrinas to wreck a hard-working President’s day.  But, I’ll just point out that there’s one thing more Presidential than stepping in front of the camera and making the hard call and, as usual, it is referenced in Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler.”

Real leaders know when to hold their Presidential opportunities until they are at their most ripe as Presidential moments.  From a strategic perspective, Obama has one distinct and enduring advantage over Congress: he not only gets to decide, but he also can—within reason—decide when and in front of whom to decide.

With that, I leave you with this.