A few days ago, David Javerbaum wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he likened the Romney campaign to quantum mechanics: Romney does not operate in any common-sensical way. He does not do things in a way we expect. He is something like Schrödinger's cat: here and not here, alive and dead, for and against whatever position he's been asked about. Romney's position is an outcome always up for debate, always changing, never settled. He is not a man with strong convictions that led him to become a politician--rather, he wanted to be President so he began inventing convictions.
Javerbaum's article is interesting and entertaining, but I have three issues with it:
(1) It's obviously unfair. It is simply insulting to quantum theory to compare it to Romney. Quantum theory isn't nonsensical, it's complex. It appears strange to us because we--at least, we the laypeople--do not understand the world with any depth and expect things to appear simply. Quantum theory was a massive leap towards a unified theory of physics and its ostensible unintelligibility is a fault on our part. Romney, on the other hand, lacks any depth himself. He appears nonsensical because we expect more from him than he will ever give--namely, actual opinions, coherent positions, and a base-level of honesty. The trouble in understanding quantum theory and the trouble in understanding Romney are opposite problems. In the first, we are failing; in the second, it's the object (in this case, Romney).
(2) This is the exact same thing Obama did in his campaign. The only difference is that Obama was (and is) much, much better at it. (Maybe that means Obama is better qualified as President, but that's a whole different question.) At bottom, both men push positions that will sell and will gain votes. Their platforms come from the political climate at a given moment. Perhaps some will say that Obama had more conviction than Romney, leading him to a more definitive space than Romney's awkward campaigning ever will. But, that argument is harder to justify given how far Obama back-tracked on his initial campaign promises from 2008 about Iraq, Guantanamo, etc. The times when he asserts himself (and his evil Communist visions!) always arise when the public is bemoaning how powerful the Republicans seem or how little the Democrats can get done. That is, his power stances come when what sells votes is making a power stance--not any other time. On the other hand, some will say "of course Obama does that! That's how politics is done!" But that's just my point: Romney isn't a special case of a politician, but an especially clear one.
(3) The problem here is one that we have become accustomed to because it's the logic of advertising. What Romney demonstrates is something that every major company does and that we've become inundated with as advertising has taken on a more and more central role in our lives. (Javerbaum does hint at this when he says that only corporations can understand Romney.) What a company is, is whatever sells. That's how the market system works, right? Companies are created to give the consumers what they want. Politicians simply do the same thing. This is the capitalization of politics: it is not only that campaign finance laws skew lawmaking and force politicians to play money games, but politicians themselves are acting like corporations by using capitalist advertising logic in the way they approach politics. Obama, of course, did the same thing when he made himself into an image that was sold on posters, t-shirts, and anything else his campaign could think of. (More than one person has commented to me about how awesome the new Obama merchandise was and how they needed to update their Obama wardrobe.) The ridiculousness of the Romney campaign is only an outcome of this basic capitalization of politics.
In the end, then, Javerbaum brings out an interesting point, but doesn't trace it to its core, and doesn't bother to show how ubiquitous it is in politics. Romney isn't special. He's just stupidly normal.
The outcome of all this is the scary part: Rick Santorum. His positions are not really logical and not meant to be actual arguments for anything. They are pure opinions without backing and without connection. He is the response to Romney, who won't take a stand on anything. This is akin to the argument Carl Schmitt makes in "The Age of Neutralizations and Depolitizations": when the norm becomes contentless, the obverse are the extremes that have no value, and no room for value.
