I asked Asa Hutchinson why he didn't drop out, for the good of the country.
I asked it at the New Hampshire "Leadership Summit." About 10 TV cameras recorded his answer.
"This is where the tough part comes in. I know what's coming here," he said with a smile as I began my question.
I asked it politely, "with all due respect." He took it well.
He asked me back, "Which of us non-Trump candidates should be the ones to leave?" He said that New Hampshire voters should clear the field, not him on his own. The New Hampshire crowd applauded his answer.
A Washington Post reporter approached me after Hutchinson's speech. She said polls showed that Trump had a majority of the GOP vote. Wouldn't that mean that he would win, even if the field narrowed? Do I have a comment? She conspicuously turned on a tape recorder and held it in front of me.
I tried to sound confident and authoritative. I said there is a problem with the polls. They reflect a decision-making problem for voters. Multiple candidates create a muddled choice, so it artificially inflates Trump's share, I said. If there were a single alternative, then the polls would change. The alternative candidate would tie or exceed Trump.
I said I recognize this is un-intuitive. Surely the sum of each person picking their favorite candidate is better than being stuck with one alternative to Trump. But not necessarily. There are about seven plausible alternatives to Trump, which defines their status as one of many. They are rival aspirants, not peers to Trump. It positions the race as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," or a lead singer with backups, e.g. Diana Ross and the Supremes. Even if backup singers in the chorus have better voices than the star standing in the middle, people never compare them head-to head.
That exacerbates the problem of choice overload, I said. I gave an example. Imagine a busy employer has a job to fill. One applicant is someone who had worked there previously, went away, and now has come back. He had some problems but he is back and wants the job again. There are six or eight new applicants eager for the job, each with different attributes, some which complement, some which contradict, other applicants' attributes. The applicants both praise and criticize the original job-holder. It is apples and oranges many times over, sorting pros and cons. Picking one is a complicated decision. It is overload for that business person, or in this case for voters, most of whom have busy lives outside of politics. Confronted by too many choices people pick the familiar one.
Or think of Baskin-Robbins. Vanilla is the favorite ice cream flavor, I told her.
Once the non-Trump field reduces to one, I said, the survivor would be repositioned into a Trump rival, not a rival to aspirants. Then, in a simple this-or-that choice, people will face up to Trump's electoral problems against someone without them. After all, Trump is facing multiple felony charges. Republicans know that 60% of Americans dislike and fear him. Even his supporters recognize that Trump is manic and half crazy.
The New Hampshire primary is too late to do the winnowing. A victory for Trump in New Hampshire would be an accelerant for Trump. It would be a "proof of concept" for his candidacy, showing that Republican voters, not just poll responders, accept Trump as he is. Trump would have defeated a tangle of contradictions, not a real alternative.
But Trump loses against even flawed candidates when it is one-on-one, e.g. Biden versus Trump. She nodded, thanked me, and turned off her recorder. She got my name and the title of this blog.
The Washington Post article on the New Hampshire Leadership Summit made no mention of my comment.
There's a lot of academic writing on suboptimal choices made by organizations and individuals, which generally supports your argument.
There was once a Dilbert cartoon about the phenomenon, too.
A year from now, I think we'll all see that Trump was the subsubsubsuboptimal choice--but I also think that--by that time--that die will have already been cast. I think it already has been.
Alea iacta est.
I’m sorry the WaPo article didn’t mention your comments, Peter, because I think they’re valid.