Friday, February 01, 2008
A Look at the Candidates as of January 31 - The Republicans
Yesterday I wrote on the Democrats, today my view on the Republicans. Lets be honest, this is a campaign season without any great choices. Of for the days of men like Reagan, Truman, F.D.R. or even Calvin Coolidge.
Okay, lets begin at the top:
John McCain – lets be honest, how can you not like this man’s narrative. War hero (though people have asked how getting shot down, lost his plane 5 times make you a hero but come on – all those years being beaten for your country and not taking the easy and early release because of who his dad was, pretty hard to top that).
Back in 2000 I took a serious look at McCain in the primaries. While I liked a lot he had to say, especially holding the line on spending, I became increasingly concerned about his personal makeup. He has a lot of anger and at times he finds it hard to control (again, probably some of the after effect of his POW experience). This is not a good thing in the leader of the free world. Also, like George Bush, he values loyalty a little too much, and loyalty has proven to be Bush’s greatest problem, making him appear incompetent because he has stuck with people far too long in areas that needed change. Ask yourself, if Bush dumps Rumsfeld and his generals in 2004 after the election and goes for the surge in 2005, where would be today politically, militarily and in our power in the world?
Historically McCain has been a conservative. His American Conservative Union rating is a historical 82.3, which is close to people like Rick Santorium at 88.1. Yes, he has been as low as 65 in the past few years, but still as high as 80. But Conservatism is undergoing some changes, and that has made evaluating McCain more difficult. The chief complaints against his are campaign-finances reform, the Gang of 14, immigration, opposition to tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, his view on global warming and drilling in ANWR, and lately his view on profits and the economy.
I am agnostic on campaign finance reform. Personally I do think there is too much money in politics, but still not sure how to change it. The gang of 14 seemed at the time like a bad decision, but we did get a lot of justices out of the Senate and that is no small thing. McCain’s views on immigration are the same as President Bush’s, who is still viewed favorably by most Conservatives, and I do think that if the Republican Party is going to gain in the Hispanic community we need to talk as much about a wide gate as we do about a tall fence. His opposition to tax cuts comes from two places – his general ignorance (self-confessed) on the economy and his hard-line on spending cuts. This was Regan’s view in 1981-1982, he just never got the spending cuts. Of course he fails to understand that cutting taxes at the margin gets you more revenue as people risk more when they get to keep more, and quite simply, you can never go wrong on letting the people who earn the money keep it and spend it, save it, invest it as they like.
The last two issues are the deeply troubling ones for someone deciding to vote for McCain. In recent days, at just the time when he needs to reassure the economic conservative wing of the party, he has been blasting profits and the wealthy. This is a sick rhetoric, which does no good and only harm. This is the stuff of John Edwards. With all due respect to McCain the soldier, we won in WWII because our ecomomy rewarded with profits the men who invented new technology and new ways of production. We in part lost Vietnam because of the economic mailaise that hit the country. Making money is not a bad thing, and those who generally are making profits are doing so by playing by the rules and bettering the country and their workers. His rhetoric these past few days appears to be an attempt to draw in Huckabee voters, who one has to guess are going to abandon the Huckster soon and who could swing the nomination to Romney. But what is it that McCain said about Iraq, “I would rather lose an election than lose a war.” Well sir, that kind of rhetoric may gain you Hucks votes, but it will not serve America. Our economy has lots of problems right now, but people making a profit is not one of them.
I could live with all of the above, save maybe for the deep concern I have over his temper, but for his stance on Global Warming. If you have read here over the past two years you know that I am a doubter on man-made priority in Global Warming. Not only is the science not settled on what is causing the warming (heck, our computer models are not even settled), but it is still not clear a) whether any of the steps in the McCain-Lieberman Anti-Global Warming Act would change a thing b) whether on the whole that a warmer earth is not better for the vast majority of the people, plants and animals (remember, there is no “normal temp” – the earth has warmed and cooled since it came into existence so this change is only upsetting what we have known) and c) whether the money to be expended by his bill would not be better served going towards fixing any problems that arise from global warming rather than trying to fix global warming itself (remember even the Kyoto supporters, which is far worse than McCain’s bill, admit it will take 50 Kyotos to make any difference).
The man compared ANWAR to the Grand Canyon, which is just silly. The Grand Canyon is a vast area that is visited by people. ANWAR is a small area visited by few wildlife let alone people. If no drilling in ANWAR, where then do you want to drill? Even if we can develop technology in the next 20 years to replace oil as the primary motor of the economy, we will still need more oil. Would it not have been better to say, “Look if we are going to drill in ANWAR, we need to take the same amount of land off the market for drilling and cutting, set it aside as a preservation, so the country has no net-loss in wild lands.” But no, he says ANWAR = Grand Canyon.
So will I vote for McCain in November? Yes, if he is my only choice, and I will do so only because I believe a) his term will be 4 years and he will retire b) the selection of Supreme Court justice is important to me and c) whatever else McCain is or isn’t, he is a strong-man on the question of government spending, and we need to get our fiscal house in order, not through tax increases but by cutting spending.
Still, in a perfect world, McCain would be a Sec. of Defense, not my Commander in Chief.
Fred Thompson – a little comment on Fred who has left the race. I loved Fred. Still do. I was talking about his running for President back in 2002 when he quit the Senate. In a year when authenticity and anti-corruption matter, he is the real deal and a straight talker. But he ran his campaign like it was 1860, not 2008. He had heard people wanted someone who talked issues, so he issued long and involved issue papers. People said they wanted more than a soundbite, so he issues a great You-Tube video of 16 minutes on the case for Fred. We have said recently we want people who are not obsessed by power, and he ran as someone for whom the run for Presidency was about patriotism, not about personal power. The problem is, we really don’t want all that stuff.
So Fred lost, and in losing him we lost the only voice for comphrensive and intelligent conservative policies that could actually be implemented and make changes. I was big for Newt, but Newt backed out when Fred came on, and the fact remains that Fred and Newt think about conservative policies better and deeper than anyone else. But alas, neither man is ever going to be President
Rudy Guiliani – as I write this Rudy has just gotten out after Florida, the one state he actually ran in. Rudy is someone I want on my team, no matter what we are playing. He is hardnosed and serious. But his personal life was a wreck, his social values were essential that of Hillary Clinton, and for most of us what he did in NY City in the 1990s and on 9/11 are now old news. He never gave a compelling reason for his race.
Mitt Romney – What to say about Mitt? He is hard not to like. He is solid, dependable, and very competent. All of which are positives. But it is also hard to get excited about Mitt. He is everyone’s 2nd choice candidate, and that pretty much sums him up. Do I believe he is a conservative? Sure. I believe him on his pro-life conversion. I think in the main he means what he says. But he just does not get you excited. Alas, that does matter. Excitement needs to be backed by substance (see Barak Obama for the danger when it is not), but to win in politics you have to get people excited about seeing you up there as President. Romney has done that for few people outside of Hugh Hewitt and Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review.
He is of course my choice now in the Colorado primary. I do so without having to hold my nose, but I really did want to vote for someone with glee in my heart. Could he beat McCain still? Sure, this is still a close race, but he has to do so soon. Remember, if Romney wins in Florida instead of McCain, this race is Romney’s to lose. So, the race can turn on one big win.
Can he beat Obama or Hillary in November? Yes, but it will be hard. He will have to become more open about himself. He will have to pen Obama down on “what have you done that make you think that Looney idea will work” and Hillary on “I can get things done that matter, you can only help yourself.” But it will be hard.
Mike Huckabee – I have been meaning to write on Mike H for a while. I must admit candidly I really don’t care for Mike. Mike is quite simply William Jennings Bryan for the 2008. Might I remind you that Bryan lost 4 separate elections for President? Progressive talk wrapped in the Kingdom of God speech is both exclusionary (one gets the point that Huck has little use for Catholics and Jews), and ultimately a bad form of Demagoguery.
Some have compared Huck to European Christian Democrat Paries, which are center-left by our politics (center-right in Europe), but believe essentially that government is the primary tool for introducing elements of the Kingdom of God into the world. Want to end poverty – government program. Want to help this group – government program. Ultimately the government because an extension of God’s arm for people like Huck and CDP parties. But for those on the recipient end of government, the government becomes God.
The sad thing is that in over two hundred years of American and European history, the government has proved wholly inadequate at bringing people out of poverty and creating a positive new life for them. Yes, government, because of its scope and reach can be an agent of crisis management – like in the floods of the 1920, in the Great Depression in keeping people from starving, and in the Tsunami in 2004. At the crisis point people do not direction, they need food or clothing, or heat. But in the long-term, people need to develop a vision for their life, they need a way of evaluating what they should do next, what is best for them and their family. The government cannot and should not do this. The government by nature has to give a “one size fits all response” to people. It cannot address the spiritual issues involved in poverty and disease. It cannot walk with people through the stages of loss and recovery. Only people can do this, and only people who have compassion in their heart make a difference.
It is not just that governments ability to deal with crisis has given people the idea that it should take over the larger role of transformation. When people pay large amount of taxes and see all the government systems that are available to serve their neighbour, it relieves one of the responsibility to be involved. What Government-led initiatives to introduce the Kingdom of God end up doing is failing to change hearts while at the same time driving people with compassion and skill in these areas away from the problems. It creates an impudent church. We see this now in Europe and Canada, where the traditional roles of churches as haven for rescue and recovery for those down on their luck has been replaced by government offices issuing checks and secular advise reduced to its lowest common denominator. The churches, kept away by finances and the lack of manpower and by the fact that “this is government job” have lost their ability to address societal problems, and with that have lost any sense of purpose except as a warehouse of spiritual goods, which increasingly can be “purchase” through non-traditional means.
I know that Huck talks a good game, and he gets a lot of Christians excited about changing people’s lives. But it is the way he wants to do things, through the power of the government rather than the power of the Spirit, which should not only make us pause, but make us ask, “How is the government, which cannot even issue a driver’s license in a easy manner to only the correct people, going to help a single mother of three kids get out of welfare and into a prosperous life? On the whole it cannot, and that is why Huck is simply William Jennings Bryan, offering government solutions to spiritual issues all while offering an increasingly narrow vision of America that leads to massive rejection at the polls.
So, in the end, I am discouraged about politics. All the men who are running are good men I believe, and as I have stated earlier, I genuinely like Hillary Clinton, though I am troubled by Barak Obama’s empty suite politics. 2008 is shaping up not to be a year of CHANGE or TRANSFORMATION. Every election since 1800 has been shaped as this kind of dynamic, and the reality is most of the time nothing really ever happens because only great people make great changes, and even then only when the people are ready for great change.
I think that the election of 2008 is going to be a lot more like the election of 1908 or 1888 than like 1980 or 1932. We have good people with great shortcomings who are promising great solutions to a nation that, when you really examine the statistics, is relatively happy with the way things are in their own lives. This does not mean the election does not matter, but simply that whether it is McCain or Romney, Hillary or Obama, the end result is going to disappoint historians who are desperate for a good transformational period to write about.
