God Is in the Details

Paul Krugman has another stellar column today, this one about the importance of substance — that is, policy proposals — in presidential campaigns. 

Krugman’s piece is barricaded behind the TimesSelect wall.  But here’s the gist:

Two presidential elections ago, the conventional wisdom said that George W. Bush was a likable, honest fellow. But those of us who actually analyzed what he was saying about policy came to a different conclusion — namely, that he was irresponsible and deeply dishonest. His numbers didn’t add up, and in his speeches he simply lied about the content of his own proposals.

In the fifth year of the disastrous war Mr. Bush started on false pretenses, it’s clear who was right. What a candidate says about policy, not the supposedly revealing personal anecdotes political reporters love to dwell on, is the best way to judge his or her character.

It’s sad that such an obvious point needs to be made.  But it does.  We have a mainstream media that’s obsessed with quirks of personality — Obama’s middle name, Edwards’s hair, Hillary’s cleavage — and utterly uninterested in substance.  Indeed, I’m not sure I have ever — ever — seen a TV show devote a segment to comparing and contrasting the details of candidates’ policy positions.  That is a monumental failure of democracy.

It’s a religious failure, as well.  Faith matters in politics largely because (at least for some of us) it’s a basis for issue positions and priorities.  If we think Jesus focused on the poor, we want the government to focus on the poor; if we think his kingdom eschews violence, we’ll urge our government to do so too.  And so on.

What faith precisely isn’t — or shouldn’t be — is yet another opportunity for politicians to build up their cult of personality.  If a politician shares my priorities, that’s good; if he can win a Bible-quoting contest, I don’t care.

Now don’t get me wrong: if politicians want to share why they hold the positions they do, great — and if the “why” involves faith, they should feel free to spell it out.  I’ve said as much before.  The issue, though, is whether we’re looking at personality traits as ends in themselves or as means of predicting the policies a leader is likely to implement once in office.  The latter is democracy; the former is the stuff of gushing high schoolers voting for prom queen.

I’ll go this far: if faith impacts our vote, then to the extent that we are indifferent to issues, we are indifferent to God.