Rise of the Lions

I know I'm not the only one who finds the overwhelming majority of election analysis to be stultifyingly shallow. Beyond the polls, the deepest concept we deal with is "momentum," an amorphous concept that implies that a candidate will keep winning until he/she doesn't in which case the "momentum" has been lost. Basically, momentum can stand in for any number of other explanatory variables but it saves us all from the difficult task of defining them or being wrong when they fail to predict an election.

So, in honor of my first intellectual love (after a fling with psychology and a torrid affair with philosophy) I would like to recount a bit of political theory for my readers.

Vilfredo Pareto (for you economists, yes the efficient one), introduced a theory of political cycles in his 1901 work "An Application of Sociological Theory," which outlines a theory of the circulation of political elites. He sees the political elite as composed of a mix of two types of individuals, "lions" and "foxes."

The "lions" are strong-willed and rule in a forthright manner, relying on tradition and "group persistence." The "foxes" are devious and chip away at the "lions'" power through cunning and deceit. Eventually rule by the lions gives way to rule by the foxes who outmaneuver and undercut the traditions that gird the lions power. Eventually, however, the foxes in all their maneuvering end up in a position so far away from the underlying traditions, that they are exposed and upended by resurgent lions who bring the political culture back to its underpinning traditions in a direct manner.

The qualified application of this theory to this election would be this. The two "fox" candidates who maneuvered through positions, votes, and transactional politics to take their respective party nominations, Romney and Clinton, have fallen (or are falling) by the wayside. This is not because of their intrinsic failings, but rather after 15 years of Clinton I's triangulation followed by Tony Snow style press conferences, forthrightness is favored over political cunning.

The corollary to this, is that the "lions," Obama and McCain, have overcome a politically inevitable opponent and shown that predictions of their political death were "greatly exaggerated." Obama, a far-sighted cub, offers to renew the tradition of "communitarianism," while McCain, wizened member of the pride, offers us a return to pre-Conservative Republicanism.

Ironically, an election focused on change may really be about bringing us back to long-held traditions.