Tue, Feb 15, 2000 page8

• The underwater world of politics

  • By Antonio Chiang
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  Western cartoonists like to use the octopus to characterize sly politicians. Because octopuses have a poor sense of touch and rely excessively on the tricks they can play, they often lose the chance to escape. When they run into trouble, they spit out their ink to hide themselves.

  But unfortunately the limited amount of ink emitted cannot keep them safe for very long; sooner or later they are revealed. On the other hand, they probably don't expect their ink to draw the attention of fishermen or invite trouble.

  Fish do not need hands; they suck their food into their mouths. Hands would probably get in the way, therefore fish hands atrophied during the evolutionary process.

  However, octopus hands didn't atrophy, in fact, they increased in number.

  Perhaps octopuses thought they would be more flexible with more hands. They probably never realized that their hands might do them more harm than good. They have become the clumsiest, and hence the most easily caught, creature in the water. This is the consequence of depending too much on their hands and tricks.

  Cheng Chih-yen (鄭赤琰), a former professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, once compared politicians to fish.

  The above description of octopuses seemed to hit a nerve with the KMT, who thought the story was a good metaphor for James Soong's (宋楚瑜) current situation. It gives party members a warm feeling just to tell the story.

  The financial scandal surrounding Soong makes him look like an injured fish. Sometimes floating, sometimes sinking, he has showed all his ugly sides.

  The more an injured fish wants to stay near the surface, the greater the danger it will be attacked.

  An intelligent fish has to be able to restrain itself in crisis and the best way to do that is to stay near the bottom.

  This is what the ancient Chinese called the "sinking fish strategy" (沉魚之計).

  However, the ups and downs of politics are not so easy to deal with. It is easier to float up from the bottom than sink from the top.

  Big fish float up because their swim bladders are filled with air. But once they float, they die because of the unbearable pressure of their swim bladders.

  After the KMT disclosed Soong's mysterious bank savings, they expected he would lose his temper sooner or later, since Soong reportedly has an excitable temperament.

  What the KMT didn't foresee was that Soong might quickly regain his popularity after a short decline.

  There are all sorts of opinion polls though their quality varies a great deal. While their credibility may be doubtful, they all have a psychological impact.

  The results of opinion polls influence the state of mind of both candidates and voters.

  Every weekend, public relations companies conduct all types of surveys in order to fill up space in newspapers and on TV.

  Polls have become an election battlefield. Different surveys have different motives.

  Even though poll-sters try to maintain their objectivity, they cannot completely hide their own preferences.

  Both the KMT and DPP have spent a fair amount of money on frequent surveys aimed at different issues. The results are used as references to adjust campaign policies and are never revealed to the public.

  Both parties have thought about hiring US campaign counselors, but nobody has ever come, partly because of different political views and partly because of the high costs involved.

  But both parties have extensively researched the campaign strategies of western democratic countries.

  They have tried to figure out how Bill Clinton and Tony Blair won their elections and, more importantly, how these men and their counterparts dealt with campaign crises.

  The parties' respective white papers, outlining their policies, are really just essay contests. They do not provide any pragmatic strategies.

  As the saying goes, "winner takes all."

  This is a competitive game where there is no second place. We can expect the intensity of the campaign will increase until the election is over.

  Antonio Chiang is the publisher and editor in chief of the Taipei Times.
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