As I watched some analysis after the Vice Presidential Debate a couple weeks ago, the headline on a talk show caught my eye: "Breaking News: Pence, Harris Dodge Questions in VP Debate." As Downs says in The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideologies, it is rational for political candidates to be vague about their policy platforms if it will further their own interests. And when the choices are to answer difficult and perhaps incriminating questions on national television or to give a noncommittal answer, it is pretty clear that it makes sense for candidates to choose the latter option. There is no surprise when candidates allow their policy stances to be ambiguous according to economic theory.
The candidates dodged questions about presidential incapacity, healthcare, court packing, and abortion, to name a few. In my opinion, what stands out to me is that it was considered "breaking news" that they dodged questions. How would that not be expected! On the contrary, it would have been breaking news if the candidates had not dodged any questions. That would have been singular indeed. What I think this example illustrates is that the general public, including the news anchors, knows comparatively little about economic reasoning. If they did know more about it, people would have so much more insight into the voting process, the incentives affecting candidate behaviors, and campaign strategies. And if they knew these things, it could lead to more thoughtful, understanding, and reasonable approaches to choosing which candidate to support rather than focusing on vitriol and tangential considerations.
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While reading Downs, I also immediately thought of the most recent elections and how this strategy has been employed. For example, in 2016, Trump had an increased incentive to use the strategy of ambiguity because he was likely not the Condorcet winner in the Republican Primary. Trump was probably not the favored choice for the Republican Party had they elected their nominee in majority-rule, pairwise elections. Because of this, Trump would have wanted to appeal to as many different Republicans as possible in addition to some conservative Democrats by staying relatively vague as far as his platform goes. Additionally, by differentiating himself as a business man who will drain the swamp, Trump emphasized how different he would be as a president in comparison to Hillary Clinton. By emphasizing their differences in personality, Trump followed exactly what Downs predicts in his paper: that if candidates take the route of ambiguity, voters are forced to vote based on "irrational" reasons such as demeanor. Trump harped on the fact that he is not a politician, creating a persona that people could get behind rather than a set of political ideologies. It is as if Trump read right out of Downs's playbook, especially since it won him an election. Trump + Pence and Biden + Harris have all still been relatively ambiguous as far as their respective political platforms go, probably because they are both after the median voter. It will be interesting to see if this strategy of ambiguity secures the election this year as it did in 2016.
(https://theconversation.com/trump-and-clinton-victorious-proof-that-us-voting-system-doesnt-work-58752 -- an interesting article from the 2016 election about both Trump and Clinton not being the Condorcet winners)
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