There's a guy standing outside the coffee shop I'm typing away in. He's canvassing our very blue neighborhood, raising money for Democratic candidates in battleground districts throughout the country. I know it's legal and that everyone seems seems to be doing it nowadays (moveon.org and the DSCC are constantly at it) but I don't like it. I don't think it's my place to put my thumb on the scales of another district.
Here's an example: Across the lake from me, Darcy Burner is running for US Congress from Washington's 8th district. I really like Darcy. Instead of just talking the talk about pulling troops out of Iraq, Darcy went and talked to a retired general who had overseen troops in Iraq to get his opinion, and that of other experts. She put this all in an analysis paper she published on the web. That's ballsy, thoughtful, and proactive -- all good traits I'd like to see more in Congress. But I won't donate to her campaign. I don't live in her district (I live in WA-7th), and I don't know if she represents the 8th district's thoughts and values.
I pointed this out to the canvasser. He thought it didn't matter: in DC, they make decisions on a national level, and not decisions specific to a particular district. That's true -- they make national decisions by representing the values of local districts. Each representative applies their local values to national problems. It's the diversity of opinions that makes a plurality work. It's what makes the wisdom of crowds work.
Once upon a time, there was a very opinionated man named Sir Francis Gaulton. Sir Francis believed that crowds just multiplied the ignorance of its individuals, thus producing horribly bad decisions. One day he was at a fair and stumbled upon a contest to guess the weight of an ox. Sir Francis thought that these uninformed people couldn't possibly guess accurately. The guesses ranged across the spectrum and a few were close enough to award prizes. After the contest, he took all the guesses and did some math: he found that the median of all the answers was frighteningly close to true answer. Since then, countless classrooms of students have guessed the number of beans in a jar and, despite class clowns and earnest over-achievers, the median is always incredibly accurate. The diversity of opinions makes this work.
So, back in D.C., if you actually want Congress to work well, you want a broad array of opinions. You get many opinions by making sure that representatives actually represent their home districts. Anything that gets in the way of that representation -- lobbyists, Party dogma, and yes, outside campaign donors -- gets in the way of democratic decision-making working at its best. I really don't see any difference between my donating to a campaign outside my district, and big oil pouring money into campaigns.
(Special thanks to the always fabulous RadioLab for the ox-weighing anecdote above. Listen closely to the episode, and you'll make out Oliver Sacks in the background doing all the voices. There's nothing quite like hearing one of our most celebrated contemporary scientists doing goofy voices).
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