Miers Equilibria

During my last semester in college, I wound up taking a class called "Game Theory and Political Theory." Although I was loath to take anything remotely involving numbers or graphs at that point in college, the class was the only one available that fit one of my missing requirements, so I took the plunge. It ended up being an interesting class--very theoretical, but actually applicable to politics. My professor had been active in the Greek political system, and I'll never forget how during an office hours visit he livened up a theoretical discussion with an anecdote of how the supporters of his candidate (a Commie, I believe) threw their votes to another candidate in the early rounds of voting, because they knew their candidate would win out in a head-to-head competition. (Kind of like Howard Dean vs. John Kerry -- Howard Dean talks the talk (a little too much, actually) while John Kerry, presumably, was a winner.)

Which takes me to the Harriet Miers/Alito situation. Imagine a simple line chart with the Democrats on the left, regular Republicans a little right of center, and the conservatives on the far right. Bush put Miers between the Republicans and the Democrats -- and the conservatives revolted. Alito falls between the Republicans and the conservatives, and he's gonna get through.

Bush screwed up with Miers. In game theory, whoever makes the first move controls the game--and Bush made a stupid first move by alienating his major power base. But how were the Democrats to capitalize? In a purely results-based system, I think they should have taken Miers--she wasn't great but she didn't seem to be an ideologue and she was going to be better than anybody else on the issues. Plus she's a woman. Instead we're stuck with Alito, who will be confirmed and is an ideologue.

But Miers was also underqualified and a product of cronyism. On a political level, the Democrats couldn't let that stand. I just wish they'd made more noise about it, that they'd taken some responsibility for driving Miers out of town. But as usual, the Democrats say nothing and they're forgotten, solidifying their irrelevant status. And while Bush got some bad press, it was all self-inflicted -- there was no Democratic pile-on that could have not only hurt Bush even more, but made the Dems viable again.

Although I gotta say, I'm loving the latest poll numbers...