Who wants to be President anyway?
Posted by Matt Clifford on November 3rd, 2007
These days, Al Gore jokes that he “used to be the next President of the United States”. But it seems that he now not only isn’t, but doesn’t want to be. This seems strange on the face of it. As I pointed out back in February he’s clearly flirted with the idea. He still has more “buzz” than any of his rivals; it seems he’d have an excellent chance of winning; and now he has a Nobel to add to his Oscar, he has a good claim to have had the most successful year in history.
What more inducement does a man need? Which is just another way of raising the question no one running for office dare ask: is politics just not a very efficient way to change the world? We clearly need to shift our idea of “the most powerful job in the world” if Al Gore believes he can do more to combat climate change by not being president. But he’s probably right. Ask yourself who has had more influence on your day to day life since 1997, Tony Blair or the founders of Google?
Increasingly, we ask our politicians only to administrate. The more they act like civil servants the better. Very few expressions of public outcry against the government are provoked by the vision of those in power. They’re about some form of maladministration or the fact that our politicians are, incredibly, political. Weber said that in a world of increasing bureaucratisation, we needed charismatic politicians to contest and select the vision of the society that we wanted. But now that we wish our politicians were mere bureaucrats, we’re looking outside the traditional political sphere to find values and vision. And what’s more, Al Gore knows it.
Filed under: algore, election2008, tonyblair, uspolitics on November 3rd, 2007
It occurs to me that perhaps you are undervaluing the importance of Gore’s career in politics before his big a-political successes. An Inconvenient Truth might never have been the success that it was without ‘the former next President of the United States’ at the head of its publicity machine. Would the film ever have been made without the former Vice President driving the project?
More fundamentally, when Gore prematurely quit law school in 1976 he was a small-time journalist and a graduate in goverment with a year in divinity school. Could that man have achieved his ‘miracle year’ without a career in politics? Maybe, by some other route, but as things stand we should not undervalue the vast benefit to Gore of his career in politics before turning down the chance to be president.
Maybe the efficiency of taking up the role of president, rather than the efficiency of a career in politics, is all that’s in question.
Maybe - I think you have a good point, Matt. You have to find a way to come to public attention before you can be a neo-charismatic leader; and politics is still a good way to get famous. But there are lots of other ways too - start a business (Bill Gates), make music (Bob Geldof, Bono) or just make tonnes of money in finance (George Soros). Once you have that platform, you can lead without being in politics.
My question is really: should someone who really wants to change the world go into politics or, in the 21st century, will our politicians forever be merely reacting to events?
I do wonder though how much real power the leaders of corporations like Google have— and how much they too are merely reactive to the whims of shareholders and the rather unpredictable technology landscape.
Even a corporate entity such as Google which has a well articulated if rather nebulous benevolent set of principles is prepared compromise them, reverting to a strategy of Realpolitik in the face of the Chinese government. I credit Google with enough goodwill to think that the decision caused some serious soul-searching at Mountain View but ultimately shareholder interest and thereby financial exigencies won the day.
These kind of imperatives do make the corporate world a place for innovation, and unusually in the case of Google, genuinely socially disruptive technologies — But I wonder how far any set of principles can really be upheld when they come into opposition with shareholder interest. My knowledge of corporate law is non-existent, but would it even be legal to put principle first? (Certainly in non-legal sense this represents a conflict of interests)
Assuming our aspiring hypothetical politician wants to change the world in a principled way - perhaps even being in possession of 2007’s must-have political gadget, the ‘moral compass’ - surely consistent submission to shareholder interest, potentially at the expense of public interest would prove utterly intolerable?
Also anyone know where to get hold of an immoral compass, they sound much more fun.
If you asked people to name an influential 19th Century politician, I wonder how many would name William Wilberforce - another campaigner who never got the top job.
I think you’re both right.
Sam, I agree - the constraints on the power of corporate leaders are very important. But I’d still argue that the founders of Google have had more opportunity to impose their vision on the world than most politicians ever do. Your phrase, “socially disruptive technologies” sums this up perfectly.
And remember that the flipside to shareholder accountability is that if you’re creating a lot of value - as Google undoubtedly is - you can get away with a lot more.
Jonathan, I agree, but remember that Wilberforce’s achievements were very politically conventional: he was a parliamentarian, he had a vision and he pushed a bill realising that vision through parliament. In that sense he was doing exactly what Weber thought politicians should do.
What’s interesting is how seldom that kind of initiative comes from within parliament today.
Interesting blog Matt, but I have to disagree. All Gore can do outside of the political framework - as he is now - is raise awareness about climate change (a job he is doing well). But only politicians can actually make change count; tax incentives, greenhouse gas emission limits, regulating carbon trading etc are ALL political decisions, influenced by the public media but made by the politicians nonetheless.
I have absoluetely no doubt that Al Gore as President would make significantly more progress on climate change than Al Gore the media darling will do. Al Gore’s reluctance to re-enter the political frame - especially as polls last year suggested he had a chance of challenging Clinton for the Democrat nomination - was a disappointing example of a man who CAN effect change but has chosen to talk the talk instead.
But I guess I’m trying to highlight the disconnect between vision and mere administration. The point is that there will be some action now on climate change: it’s become the consensus, certainly among Democrats (but among most Republicans too), in no small part because of Gore’s efforts. President Clinton II won’t be able to escape it even though Al Gore isn’t running. The decisions that politicians have to make now are largely technocratic.
My question is, can anyone think of a big issue, one requiring real vision, on which elected politicians are genuinely leading the way?
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