Plasma Pool

Shortly after Caroline Kennedy withdrew her name from consideration for the vacancy in the U.S. Senate created by Hillary Clinton’s move to the State Department—way back in January, on Obama’s first full day in office—Nate Silver published a brief and provocative piece entitled “Did Caroline Ever Really Want It?”:

This thrilled me for a very simple reason. There’s a tendency in analyzing the thinking of figures in public life to treat their decisions as though they are discrete events informed by reason and calculation, events that clearly and cleanly dictate a particular result—whichever result, of course, the decider happens to arrive at. Most public commentary today imagines that the brains of these people work in the way we pretend our democratic policy apparatuses do; imagines that the conclusions of what are in fact irreducibly subjective processes are in reality conclusions arrived at through the rigors of logic and democratic mediation.

Policymaking doesn’t actually work that way—human beings get in the way—and our brains don’t work that way, either. Understanding decisions like Caroline’s requires a sincere, thoroughgoing attempt at inhabiting a particular subjectivity and working out the contours of a person-rooted decision making process. Silver does this, enumerating a possible subjective trajectory for Caroline’s decision:

1. Barack Obama, somewhat unexpectedly, taps Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State, creating a Senate vacancy in your home state.

2. Having gained some notoriety because of your role on Barack Obama’s campaign—not that you needed much notoriety, since you’re a Kennedy—you start to hear your name tossed about by the press and by some of your associates, all of whom are behaving with the best of intentions.

2a. Also, your uncle, one of the most famous senators in history but also someone who is gravely ill, encourages/hints/urges you to take the seat.

2b. Deep down, however, you’re conflicted. Your relatively public role on behalf of the Obama campaign went better than you thought—maybe you don’t mind the limelight so much, being so overtly involved in electoral politics. But you’re also fundamentally a fairly private person, a free spirit, and the idea of becoming a senator feels constricting. Everyone seems to want this for you more than you want it for yourself.

3. Well, maybe not everyone. New York is a very big state with a lot of very famous Democrats, and some of them want the seat instead. So if you want the seat, you’re certainly going to have to look like you want it, whether you actually want it or not.

4. And so, you embark on a media campaign and “officially” declare your interest, finding your powerful family and their powerful friends all too eager to help out. But when you’re actually put on the spot, you come across as nervous, indifferent, and underprepared—perhaps because you are nervous, indifferent, and underprepared. Your public image takes a hit. Some powerful figures in the media begin to criticize you, mocking everything from your resume to your speech patterns. You have even less privacy than you’re used to. This is exactly what you were afraid of in the first place.

5. But you’re also kind of stuck. A lot of people—the Mayor, maybe the Clintons, and certainly your uncle—have gone out on a limb for you. You could probably have the seat if you really wanted it. But you’ve never been entirely sure that you really want it. In fact, you’re not sure that you want it at all.

5a. You sort of schlep your way through your remaining media hits. Deep down, perhaps, you’re trying to sabotage your candidacy.

6. Finally, something breaks. Paterson lets you know that he’s leaning in a different direction. Or, one of your best friends sits down and has a real heart-to-heart with you. Or, you summon the courage to let your uncle know that you don’t really want the position. In any event, you withdraw your name from consideration. And you haven’t felt better in months.

Whether or not Silver’s correct in his speculation (or to what degree), I don’t know and don’t particularly care. A friend I spoke with who’s familiar with Caroline’s speaking habits thought Silver’s interpretation plausible, particularly the point that if “when you’re actually put on the spot” you “come across as nervous, indifferent, and underprepared,” it may be because you are nervous, indifferent, and underprepared:

People often assume politicians are somehow capable of creating personalities which (a) they believe are best suited to bring them to power/influence and (b) they are capable of perfectly representing at all times. If a politician appears one way, it is sometimes because they are that way. Caroline wasn’t bad at being in public, she just did not want to be in public in this context.

Regardless of Silver’s accuracy, it’s nice to see someone with a sizable audience analyzing politics as though it were practiced by people rather than abstractions. This thinking is especially refreshing coming from someone trained to think in numbers. Silver’s alacrity with statistics won him his early and deserved acclaim, but he persists as a leading commentator in progressive politics because that alacrity is coupled with both his strength as a thinker-through of complex problems and his appreciable and developing skill as a writer.