Wonkery as a Base Activity

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

I tend to side more with Duncan Black than Kevin Drum on the ability of public wonkery* to influence the political debate in the eyes of swing voters. There just aren't enough people who read blogs to make a difference. Only Kos, with its daily readership on par with the non-O'Reilly, non-Hannity programming on Fox News, and perhaps the other big hitters like Atrios and America blog, who have smaller audience roughly equivalent to the Boston Globe online or or MSNBC, reach enough people that they might make a difference.  Even then the value of wonkery is limited, since both parties appear to have ideas on major issues such as health care, education, taxes, etc. As I've pointed out before, this makes it very hard to figure out which side has better ideas.

Still, wonks have value in the public sphere. They provide a set of policies that help reinforce political identification, which gives partisans ideas to believe in beyond the rhetoric that stems from their preferred politicians. It's not an accident that Fox News frequently has guests that are "scholars" at places like the American Enterprise "Institute" and the Heritage "Foundation". Keeping the base happy without promising a specific policy benefit is a useful activity, because it's the partisan base that's going to knock on doors, make phone calls, lick stamps, and give political advice when their coworkers at the water cooler ask them a question. In addition, as Max points out, influencing the debate by pushing policy-based talking points towards news desks and Congressional spokespeople can help change the shape of public opinion. The press corps quickly understood that the White House hadn't really thought through the impact of its social security plan. So, wonks can play both offense and defense, but (to continue the sports analogy), they're really more "role players" useful in specific situations than they are every day starters who can have an impact on The Game at any time.

* Doesn't "public wonkery" sound like something that's illegal in Alabama?