Inside the Sausage Factory: the 4P's of Political Reality
Our last post (Party on Grasshopper: Digging Deeper....into the Policy Agendi) laid out a perspective on a comprehensive strategic policy agendii that covered
Foreign, Economic and Domestic/Social Policy and related them to some over-riding principles. The goal was only partly to suggest specifics - it was also to provide a blueprint and checklist for your own thinking and to show how all the moving pieces fit together. We took our own best shot at the "right answers" of course but are more than willing for you to take yours. That said there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip - or as a famous German statesman once pointed out if you can't stand the sight of blood but want to enjoy the results don't go inside the sausage factory. In other words no matter what our best intentions on Policy nothing will change unless we understand how things get translated. The key factors that control the results are Policy, Players, Position and Power. After the break we're going to take a deeper dive, again, and get a little abstract on you, again, but sometimes a picture or headline is worth a thousand graphics and arm-waving so let's shoot for a little motivation. Since the last major post several friends and I have had a running exchange on "CHANGE" and one of them put it very nicely - "Perhaps only an independently wealthy President can achieve his policy goals", talking about why a decent national energy policy has been available and frozen in limbo since '01. Of the major policy issues we outline there are none them not resolvable, IOHO, and most with straight-forward and availble knowledge, resources and capabilities. So why ain't nuttin gettin done, Yogi ? Consider the following headlines:
Call for Change Ignored, Levees Remain Patchy Few of a presidential panel’s recommendations after the Midwest’s devastating flood in 1993 were implemented.
Did Bank of America Write the Housing Bailout Bill? ." I don't understand why a realistic bill can't be hammered together. It should reflect the following realities:... It is not the taxpayers responsibility to bailout borrowers who are in over their heads, or lenders that made bad loans. How hard can that be?
Economic Scene: High Medicare Costs, Courtesy of Congress Based on a pilot program, the price of walkers, delivery and setup included, will fall to about $80. Now, would you like to guess how the equipment makers feel about this?
Reading those headlines/excerpts perhaps it's clear why the opening cartoon makes so much sense or why we started with "Institutional Re-engineering" as the sine qu non, the fundamental starting point without which we'll continue to remove both our feet at the shoulder or higher, as the critical initial point of our Domestic Agendii blueprint. After the break we'll dissect the whole problem in some more detail but consider the accompanying chart, which summarizes, some major policy problems that we've cheerfully been ignoring until the current stage of near-terminal feasturation has set in. BtW - this and other charts are part of a dloadable Powerpoint slideshow you can open and save. Please feel free to do so and share it around as widely as you like - better yet, mail it to your political representatives. Politics of Change: Strategic Agenda vs Interests
Assessing Where We're At
Let's start by taking a look at where we're at, have been and might/should be with regard to the major policy dimensions. Again, of course, IOHO. Feel free to disagree, dispute and fill it in any 'ol way you want. But fill it in - or come up with a reasonable alternative. If we address these issues and move forward on them we'll be in good shape. If we don't...well. The upper right compare each of the three areas with each other while the other elements break each down into the major components we're arguing need to be addressed. Think of this as the dashboard for our policy control center.
From Policy to Action
The next chart takes those high-level rankings and breaks them out so you can see where we're at and the next level we ought to shoot for. But it also introduces the first stage of reality - you can't just wave a magic wand and, like King Canute, substitute wishes for fishes or wave the tide back. Instead for each area you have to decide what specific actions, resources, etc. etc. are required and available. And most likely make some hard choices in trading off all that we'd like with what we can accomplish given the level of capacities available. But that's a key beauty of this approach - we find out what's required, who's ox is gored and that those tradeoffs are. Rather than let decisions be made blindly in backroom vacuum. 
From Policy to Pragmatics: the 4P's
That's only the first level of practicalities. The real ground truth comes from understanding who the key Players are, what their Positions are - that is where their interests, public statements and private concerns lie, and what Power (clout, influence,baksheesh,...) are. And what kind of resources they have available to influence policy and implementation. For each one of Barry and John-boys simple-minded public statements the reality of what'll happen depends on a 4P analysis of each major issue. Conversely if you think something is the right thing to do you can judge the gap between likelihoods and your own preferences by understanding these gaps and requirements.
Nothing Is So Difficult
Change is not easy and history is more the story of people, organizations and cultures that refused to change in the face of necessities to do so. As Jared Diamon pointed out the Vikings on Greenland died out because the lifestyles and technologies they brought from home were wildly inappropriate to the ecology and resources available. Yet in a similar environment the Eskimos did and continue to prosper. One can make the argument that the fall of the last Chinese Imperial Dynasty was thru their refusal to adapt and adopt - something modern China is well on the way to rectifying. The other thing the 4P analysis does for us is to measure the gap between where we're at and where we need to be and couple that with a specification of the folks most likely to defend the old way of doing things. The real problem is that the bigger the gap the faster the resistence mounts. And there's nothing new under the Sun - as the quote from Machiavelli - a widely mis-understood political philosopher points out.
Go back to the last chart in the first section - we repeat there's no major policy issue we're facing that a) is not addressable, b) some pretty good blueprints aren't in place, c) (given proper tradeoffs) the capability isn't available and d) for which the primary obstacle has been our short-sighted choices. And decide whether the game's worth the candles to fix - or relax and party on Grasshopper !