The Final Four: Form or Function?

While traveling and studying in D.C. this last winter, I attended a few lectures by Dr. Ross Baker, a notable political scientist. Dr. Baker categorized past Presidents and the current Presidential candidates as either an architect or an engineer, a visionary or a mechanic. Dr. Baker suggested that in times of disarray and economic retraction Americans tend to choose engineers for functionality in order to run the country, and in times of change and stagnation we tend to choose architects as leaders that embody a vision and offer a grand picture for the future of America.

This theory of his will surely be tested in the coming months as America weighs in on the decision to vote for the representatives of each major political party of whom they would most like to see run for president. In Iowa, America saw record breaking voter turnout, mostly due to first time caucus goers. As the results of the Iowa caucus came in, it was a surprising victory on both sides of the party lines. Senator Barack Obama won the democratic primary by a significant margin and Senator Mike Huckabee won the republican primary by beating the favored candidate Senator Mitt Romney by a smaller but still significant percentage. These results while surprising to the political analysts who predicted months prior that Senator Clinton would win by a margin of as much as 10 points, and that Mitt Romney who spent nearly 7 million dollars of his own money just on media advertisement for his campaign, seemed almost prophetic of the nature of the unpredictability of independent states such as Iowa, and for Dr. Ross Baker, it appeared to be convincing evidence to support his theories of choice by Americans.

Still the jury should be out on the reliability of Dr. Baker’s theory until all the cards have been counted. Some preliminary data is available and does show that just like Iowa, New Hampshire also had large turnout for the primary with voters showing a genuine interest and enthusiasm for the first truly open primary to occur in 50 or so years.

As President Bush is constitutionally ineligible to run again and the nation seems to be in a time of transition, it is no surprise that the recent turnouts are higher than expected. I have faith in Americans, that they will in times of important transition, rise up to the occasion and do what is necessary to ensure that America sails in what they feel is the right direction.

After some initial polls returned data, it appeared that the analysts were wrong once again, but Dr. Baker’s theory was affected less than the ego and pride of the fortune tellers of politics. So, now with about half of the states down, the results are beginning to be slightly mixed when it comes to who America chooses in particular times.

The results of the state primaries would suggest that America has matured into a nation that accepts and embraced racial and gender differences, while at the same time yearns for new direction and leadership from its representatives. It seems from the results of both these early state primaries, we are going to need to wait till the rest of the states primaries are concluded and the votes are tallied before we confirm that Dr. Baker can pigeon hole all the Presidents and the American voters decision into only two options, that of an architect of ideas or an engineer who can fix the machine. It seems obvious who the architect is and who the visionary is...but who do we choose, and why do we choose them I think is still not as simple as the two career options may suggest.
by Eric M. Rosenberg