McCain, Florida, and Prisoner’s Dilemma

So John McCain has won Florida, and with it, the Republican nomination for President in all likelihood.  I was a FredHead, and not sure where I am with McCain — but right now, I’m likely going to vote for him over either of the Democrat candidates for a variety of reasons, least of which is that McCain is unlikely to rush into surrender.

Having said that, as a conservative, I’m not exactly bursting with enthusiasm for the McCain presidency.

There are a number of voices within the conservative blogosphere who take people like me to task for our lack of enthusiasm.  This blog on Redstate.com is a great example:

“Let’s grow up, conservatives! If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work.” – Barry Goldwater, encouraging his supporters to work for Nixon in 1960.

I don’t want to get in to the endless sniping about how conservative McCain is or not, about what’s a “pure” conservative, etc.

But if you are a conservative of any type, and actually believe in the country instead of making yourself feel good, I suggest you listen to Sen. Goldwater’s advice.

He makes a good point, in a way.  After all, what can conservatives do?  Pitch a fit and threaten to take the ball and go home?  Stamp our feet and hold our breaths?

No, in all likelihood, we’re going to have to “take back the party” by being even more active, even more valuable, even more energetic in promoting the Party’s causes (namely electoral victory) in order to rise up through the ranks of the Party to steer it back towards conservatism.  That’s some good solid practical advice.

Having said that, I’m not really in the mood for good solid practical thinking.  Rather, let’s get a little bit theoretical and self-indulgent for a moment.

I’ve been saying this since South Carolina, but the main issue from a conservative viewpoint with a McCain nomination is the message it sends to future officeseekers.  Essentially, I think we are caught in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma.  I’m not a formal game theorist, but those years of studying Philosophy weren’t entirely useless (at least as it comes to being theoretical and self-indulgent).

The prisoner’s dilemma is a classic problem, and the Wikipedia link above goes into considerable depth on it.  The iterated prisoner’s dilemma is a variant in which the same two players keep playing the game, with knowledge of how the other guy acted in earlier rounds.

What’s interesting is that the classic prisoner’s dilemma — a one shot choice between cooperation and defection — results in sub-optimal equilibrium where both will defect.  But in the iterative, the result is often an optimal equilibrium where both will cooperate.

At the heart of the dilemma is the idea of rational players, and clear incentives and punishment.  When you iterate the prisoner’s dilemma, both sides pretty quickly come to understand that defection might win you one round, but the next round, the other guy’s going to remember and defect as well.  The incentive is to cooperate, as non-cooperation will be punished.

I believe that the Republican politicians and the conservative movement are engaged in what is essentially an iterative prisoner’s dilemma game.  For some time now, politicians who ‘cooperated’ with the conservatives have been rewarded by ‘cooperation’ by the conservatives.  As we saw early on in the 2008 campaign, every candidate was eager to don the mantle of Ronald Reagan and loudly proclaim his conservative credentials.  Those who have ‘defected’ did so knowing that a national nomination was very unlikely, as the conservatives within the GOP would ‘punish’ them.  It was never a good thing as a Republican seeking national office to be known as the “liberal” or “moderate” candidate.  We had, basically, a pareto-optimal equilibrium.

McCain’s victory changes that equilibrium.

Now, from the Republican politician’s point of view, ‘defecting’ is rewarding.  I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I think McCain is some sort of raving liberal.  He’s not.  But I do want to give the impression that politicians are motivated primarily by their desire to win and to exercise power.  Why else would anyone get into that business?

Maybe McCain recognized years ago that the traditional conservative coalition was fraying, and that he could take advantage by ‘defecting’ with one or more of the wings.  Maybe he saw that no matter how ‘moderate’ he got, because the liberals have lost their minds, he would get conservative support in the general election when the choice became picking the lesser of two evils.  Or maybe he simply ran on policies and ideas that he himself genuinely believes.  It doesn’t matter.  His motivation is not the issue here.  The result is what is important.

And that result is that someone more or less identifiable by a huge swath of conservatives has won by being a ‘moderate’ on many key issues.  A politician has ‘defected’ in the prisoner’s dilemma game.

What should conservatives do?

Knowing that this is a case of an iterated prisoner’s dilemma, where how we respond isn’t just about this round, but the next one, and the one after that, how we respond is critical.  Do we punish politicians like McCain by withdrawing all support, in the hopes that the message it sends to future officeseekers is that ‘defecting’ will be met with ‘defecting’ from the conservatives?  Or do we ‘cooperate’ by going all out for even the politician who ‘defected’ in the hopes that future officeseekers will see that it is in their best interests to cooperate as well?

If politicians have no reason to fear reprisal from conservatives once they are the Republican nominee, then what incentive do they really have to ‘cooperate’ with them?

If conservatives continue to support the Republican candidate, no matter how little he appeals to conservative principles and platform, then do we really have a prisoner’s dilemma here, or simple, straightforward ownership wherein one side can do whatever it wants knowing that the other will always cooperate?

The whole situation reminds me forcefully of where African-Americans are in the Democratic party.

-TS