Politics à la Mode

Ice cream, from the lowliest Good Humor novelty to the fanciest gelato, is my favorite thing about summer. This year, I spent a fair amount of time standing in line at Ben & Jerry’s, Mister Softee, and those multiplying frozen yogurt stores, deciding what to get.

Judging by the rate at which these lines move, I’m not the only who takes the decision very seriously. After all, the opportunity cost of a Choco-Taco is a Chipwich. And although sprinkles on top of soft-serve are a textural marvel, they make it impossible to have the cone dipped. Unless you’re with someone who doesn’t mind eating the awful bubblegum flavor you ordered, there is no recourse for a reckless choice.

In 2011, around 1.5 billion gallons of ice cream and frozen dairy products were produced in the United States. Ice cream, to most Americans, is very important, so people evaluate their options carefully.

As the New York City mayoral election—the first of its kind that I’ll be able to vote in—draws nearer, I know what to look for in a frozen dessert. But what should I look for in the leader of a remarkably diverse, heavily bureaucratic, and highly complex city of eight million?

Political puzzles like this one are harder to solve. Questions of morality are often abstract; questions of practicality, in light of economic and institutional concerns, are complicated.

One of the main ingredients in ice cream is air—is a central ingredient in voters hot air? Although the wonkish and idealistic among us might like to believe otherwise, most electoral decisions are not the result of dispassionate reasoning based on concrete facts.

Robert Jervis, professor of international affairs at Columbia University, writes: “Just like the drunk who looked for his keys not where he dropped them, but under the lamppost where the light was better, people often seek inadequate information that is readily available, use misleading measures because they are simple, and employ methods of calculation whose main virtue is ease.”

Whereas we’ll put time and effort into figuring out what “stracciatella” and “gianduia” mean (and, if they have those little spoons, trying samples), we’re less diligent when making political decisions. Because the question of who will govern best is murky, we often avoid asking it outright.

Usually, we substitute an easier question: Which candidate will do something for me? Or, which candidate belongs to the right party? If chocolate’s never let you down before, why experiment with butter pecan?

But we sometimes ignore hard political questions altogether. According to the research of Stanford professor John A. Krosnick, candidates whose names appear highest on the ballot receive a boost of about two percentage points. A 2005 Princeton study found that “inferences of competence based solely on facial appearance” (based on viewings that lasted for only one second) could be used to predict the winners of U.S. congressional races about 70 percent of the time.

Statistics like these don’t inspire confidence. They’re in line with Winston Churchill’s famous comment: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

But I want to believe, as Churchill observed more optimistically, that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” I can’t help but think that if we spent half as much time thinking about candidates as we do about ice cream, the quality of our leaders would improve.

And so—what if we looked at the candidates to succeed Michael Bloomberg the way we look at ice cream?

Of the Democrats, disgraced former Congressman Anthony D. Weiner would be bubblegum. Former Comptroller Bill Thompson would be a cherry Italian ice: reasonable, really, but unexciting. Christine C. Quinn, City Council Speaker, would arguably be Serendipity 3’s famous $1000 sundae running for a fourth term. And liberal frontrunner, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio—a Red Sox fan, raised in Cambridge—would be BerryLine.

I hope voters will consider the GOP candidate likeliest to challenge him, former NYC deputy mayor, budget director, and Metropolitan Transit Authority chairman Joe J. Lhota HBS ’80. Lhota, a proven manager who also favors policies like same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, would be bacon ice cream—a step outside of traditionally Democratic New York’s comfort zone, maybe, but an excellent choice in the end.

The primary elections are September 10 and the general election November 5. Autumn is approaching—soon the ice cream trucks will disappear. But I hope, for the sake of democracy in my hometown, that it won’t be too late to make a choice we won’t regret.

Lisa J. Mogilanski ’15, a Crimson editorial writer, is an economics concentrator in Currier House.