Absence of Vision

Reading the more liberal columnists lately, there seems to be a general consensus that the Republicans have run out of ideas. Not surprising, really. In recent years, the GOP has nailed its colors to the mast, taking any number of irrational positions, such as:

• All taxes are bad; all tax cuts are good.
• Markets can always be trusted; government, never.
• Global climate change probably isn't happening, and it if it is, it's just a cyclical thing.
• A tiny bundle of cells with human DNA is entitled to the same dignity as a living person.
• Gun laws which make sense in the country and in the suburbs also make sense in our large urban areas.

Obviously, a political party which ties itself to this brand of political fundamentalism is bound to come a-cropper. And, though there are signs that less extreme conservatives - like my early prediction for the party's 2012 presidential candidate, Newt Ginrich - are moderating somewhat, there is no feasible way for a Republican nominee to run on a platform which denies the values which have been drubbed for decades into the receptive minds of the Republican "base".

What the liberal pundits - and the generally pro-Obama corporate media - refuse to acknowledge is that the Democratic Party has no more new ideas that the GOP. We live in an "age of faith" - as witness the nation's willingness to hand over the presidency to a man about whom we know next to nothing. Both parties are, in a sense, fundamentalist, ideological, and backward-looking. Even the President, who shows flickers of vision, seems locked into a retrospective mindset.

Thus, the need for an entirely fresh look at the state of the nation, and the world, as we approach the vernal equinox of 2009. Abraham Lincoln said it in words which every American high school student should be required to memorize:

"The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

In posts to come, I will be attempting to set forth some ideas which - in my judgment - might form the basis of a new view of reality.

For today, let's start with one: In this time of economic crisis, we don't need to create millions of new jobs. We need to move toward a society in which fewer Americans have jobs.

When I was teaching History, I used to observe to my students that, to the best of my knowledge, not one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, or the members of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, had a job. They were planters, farmers, lawyers, doctors, and - in one famous case - a printer; but they were all self-employed. In many cases, they were what we would call entrepreneurs.

They thought of themselves as independent, as indeed they were. They answered to no one, and thus, could think for themselves. Thus, the Founders.

Some forward-looking economists, including Charles Handy, have predicted that the present century will be one in which ever fewer people have actual jobs, in the sense of working for someone else. More and more, people will have small businesses and/or work as independent contractors.

And what's wrong with that? For some time now, the driving forces in America's economy - at least, the productive (as opposed to consuming) side of it - have been the small business owner and the highly-skilled independent contractor. Even in the good times, the big corporations weren't really creating that many jobs. And the jobs they created didn't provide high pay or good benefits.

Yet, even today, we continue to treat our educational system as though its mission were to produce factory workers - cooperative, punctual, unquestioning drones who are very good at memorizing trivia and very reluctant to take risks.

We need just the opposite.

Similarly, even as President Obama pours billions into sinking corporations in hopes of creating jobs, he is pursuing health care options based on the overall model of employer-provided benefits.

What if he truly "thought anew"? What if he envisioned a health care system which had, at its core, the liberation of Americans' entrepreneurial genius?

For some time - even before the recession - I have been arguing that there must be at least a million "dilberts" out there who have a dream of starting a business of their own, but who are held back by the fear that they would be unable to provide adequate health care for themselves and their families. If I'm right - and I'm confident that I am - a health-care plan that actually guaranteed quality, affordable insurance to individuals and families could liberate a million entrepreneurs. It might well be the biggest thing since the invention of the microchip.

Unfortunately, such a health care approach will be impossible so long as we focus on preserving an old system which doesn't work: a system in which health insurance is provided by big corporate employers, who buy it from other big health insurance corporations, to be spent (all too often) at big corporate hospitals and medical practices.

We're not going to build a new economy, or a better society, if we aren't willing to let the dinosaurs die. And, Detroit aside, I can't think of a more deserving group of dinosaurs than our big health insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical companies whose profits they underwrite.

At any rate, this is merely a beginning: One new perspective which might liberate us to think of ways in which our nation might be saved - and might move toward a better future.

Let's think in terms of fewer jobs, and more small enterprise and self-employment.

There is more to this, and I'll pick up the thread next time. But my point is this: Based on the evidence thus far, the Democrats - and their new president - don't seem to be any more future-oriented than the Republicans. They simply have the advantage which comes, for a brief while, when your one and only opposition falls flat on its collective face.

By 2012, the Democrats might well have done the same, in which case, one party of old ideas will again replace the other in a continuing process of nothing new.

Commonwealth Book Club update.

The Commonwealth Book Club will discuss "Three Cups of Tea", by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, at its March 14 meeting. Location TBA, but most likely the Hopewell Library. New members are welcome.

The Commonwealth Book Club is in its fourth year. We have around twelve active members and average about seven per session. Our goal, thus far met, is to read and discuss ten "serious" books per annum. Upcoming authors include Thomas Friedman and Malcomb Gladwell, and I'm lobbying the group to read a good biography of Andrew Jackson.

"To Govern is To Choose"

It's an old saying, but age does not lessen its truth: "To govern is to choose."

The more I watch our new President, the more I doubt his understanding of this fundamental principle. The stimulus package seemed to have something - indeed, a great deal - for almost everyone. There was little evidence of choice. We can do it all, the President said - borrowing a trillion or two now and paying it back later.

Now comes the new budget outline, following the same paradigm. Plenty for everyone, and it will all be paid for (and the deficit halved) by rising receipts when the boom-time economy magically returns in a year or two.

Once again - for the third presidency in a row - I have the impression that there are no adults in the White House. Clinton made choices, true, but his choices were political choices - forced upon him when the opposition took control of Congress. Bush spent like a Democrat - especially on his war and his military toys - fully expecting the prosperity bandwagon to roll on forever. And now, Mr. Obama seems bent on outdoing them both!

The great irony is, of course, that the very generation which worked ceaselessly to elect Mr. Obama stands to pick up the tab for his undisciplined approach. When the bills eventually come due - which can hardly be that long - it is the Millennials who will face the huge interest payments, dwindling discretionary funds, bloated bureaucracy, decaying environment, and hordes of foreign creditors demanding their pound of flesh.

Three years ago, I was a Democrat - a member of the Virginia State Central Committee. But the longer I hung around Democrats, the more I realized that most rank-and-file Democrats live in a parallel mental universe where nothing has a cost and good intentions justify the worst policy choices.

The best thing that can be said for Democrats seemed to be this: They aren't Republicans.

But that wasn't enough. I quit the Democratic Party (for the second time) and have decided from now on to have nothing to do with either party. Neither has the slightest idea of fiscal discipline - or of making any hard decisions which conflict with their desire to win elections.

I say, "a plague on both their houses!" We need something new - a party of virtue, willing to declare that the Emperor (Republican or Democrat) has no clothes.

Let it start here.

Obama is a superb politician, but nothing more. He looks very good right now, because he is willing to promise everything to everyone, at no cost to anyone. But that will pall, in time. Americans, too accustomed to facing their own dismal finances, aren't about to believe Mr. Obama's sub-prime budget-making for long.

Too bad their only alternative is to elect Republicans in 2010, or 2012...

There's Something about Barry.

Just a quick thought for this busy day: I keep wondering when President Obama will move beyond campaign mode and start outlining a future for the country.

As the candidate of the "out" party, running against a monumentally unpopular President - and make no mistake, Mr. Obama ran against President Bush, not John McCain - candidate Obama consistently defined himself in terms of his differences with the last administration. Even when his tone was positive, he spoke in terms of what he wasn't for, what he wouldn't do.

It worked brilliantly, but this is no longer the campaign.

The other day, in The New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert quoted the President as follows:

“Now, I have to say that given that they were running the show for a pretty long time prior to me getting there, and that their theory was tested pretty thoroughly and it’s landed us in the situation where we’ve got over a trillion-dollars’ worth of debt and the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, I think I have a better argument in terms of economic thinking.”

Read that carefully. The central assertion goes something like this: "I must be right, because the other guys were so very, very wrong."

As a rare progressive supporting John McCain, I ran into that logical fallacy again and again during the campaign. In essence, the case for Mr. Obama seems to have been, "Sure, he's not very experienced or tested. But at least he's not Bush. Bush has been so awful, Obama's got to be an improvement!"

Which, of course, ignored the fact that John McCain, also, wasn't George W. Bush. The fundamental mistake of McCain's campaign was his failure to make that apparent - and, indeed, doing almost everything he could to make himself look like America's least popular politician.

But it also ignored the very real possibility that a bad president can be succeeded by another equally bad, or even worse. Take, for example, Franklin Pierce and his successor, James Buchanan.

Here's my point: President Obama is still working that same line. The Bush policies were a failure, therefore mine will be better. They were wrong, so I must be right.

Look at the quotation again. Mr. Obama never actually says what his argument is. He says that the Bush policies were disastrous - which is manifestly true - and then insists on the conclusion that "I have a better argument".

Really?

The deeper we go into this recession, and the longer I watch this administration, the more I fear that there is no guiding vision behind the Obama economic policy. It seems to consist of gestures and sound-bites, e.g., protectionist steel policy in the stimulus package, balanced by assurances that the new legislation means nothing if it contradicts our treaty obligations.

That's campaign stuff: A gesture to Group A, another to Group B. Baffle 'em with bullshit. Make policy after you're elected.

Well, you've been elected, Mr. Obama. The first of your 48 months has flown by. And we still don't have anything like a vision of the America which will emerge from this economic crisis.

The campaign is over, or should be. If you start running for re-election this early, I promise you, it ain't gonna happen.

This is one of those relatively rare times when the best political strategy is to govern well.

A Fresh Start.

I have been away from this space for too long - from writing for too long. The hiatus I took from the Village News last fall has evolved into a permanent parting of the ways. I wish my old weekly well, but we are no longer moving toward the same horizon.

This blog, and its sister, must of necessity become my principal outlet. When we survive this economic crisis - and if newspapers do - I'd like to see my thoughts in print again. But for now, here we are - a little blog, with aspirations.

Above all, my hope for this blog - and for everything I do in the public sphere - will be to create a movement for a third political entity. For lack of an alternate term, a third party - but with this distinction. I'd like to see a third party which defined itself - not in terms of winning elections - but in terms of moving the public conversation forward. A party inspired by the example of the anti-slavery parties of the 1830's and 1840's - the stubborn, righteous little parties which eventually shattered the Whig coalition and gave rise to the intelligent, forward-looking, and relatively virtuous Republican Party of Lincoln.

I'll stop for a moment to reiterate this point, because it seems so utterly at odds with what the "political scientists" preach. I'd like to build a party which defined itself in terms of moving the national conversation forward. A party willing to lose an election - or many elections - in order to make itself heard. A party willing, indeed, to sabotage certain types of candidates - particularly those cold-blooded narcissists who run in the name of good ideas and noble ideals, but in the service of themselves, alone.

It will take me some time to define with any precision where this party would stand, but a starting place would be with the liberal Republican tradition - the tradition of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, of Wendell Willkie and Everett Dirksen, of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christopher Shays. I seek a party which can balance a maximum of individual liberty with an understanding that we all have a moral, as well as legal, obligation to the greater good - what the Founders would have called the commonwealth philosophy. A party which, as part of that greater good, felt a strong commitment to preserving a liveable environment for our children and grandchildren.

A party which, if it held a few seats in the present Congress, would be equally impatient with the right-wing Republicans' capitalistic myopia and the Democrats' Euro-socialist opportunism.

A party which might support the new President from time to time, but which would consistently urge a longer-range vision.

For this much is certainly true: America - and the rest of the world - will be remade by the current crisis. There is a way to emerge from this as a better society, and that way is almost certainly not to be found the in ideas of New Deal-New Frontier-Great Society statism. Nor is it to be found in propping up an obsolete automobile industry; nor in preserving legal and policy environment which has enriched the developers and bankers and given us suburban sprawl; nor in infusing new life into an employment-based health insurance system which serves to keep bright people working for large corporations instead of freeing them to start new, small enterprises.

I hope my old readers and friends will find me here - and that they will give me the time to make my case. Much of what I say will be uncongenial to supporters of President Obama - and downright heresy to the supporters of his predecessor. Indeed, supporters of each will be horrified to learn that I regard them as more similar than otherwise - as I find their two parties more alike than the only two alternatives in a political society have any right being.

At any rate, I ask you to come with me on a continuous thought experiment. I've always thought outside the box, and my regular readers have learned that I occasionally come up with a thought worth pondering. It's all a matter of turning off that internal editor which automatically rejects anything truly different.

For what we need now, most assuredly, is something different - something new. Perhaps something so old that it appears new.

And so, to begin...

'Tis New To Thee

In the final scene of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Miranda - upon meeting a number of gallant Milanese and Neapolitans - exclaims, "O, brave new world, that has such people in it!"

Her father, far older and more worldly-wise, replies, "'Tis new to thee."

Well, Miranda, you've done it again.

The American people - suffering from a chronic short-term memory deficit - have once again elected an inexperienced but appealing young Democrat to "change the way Washington does business".

As they did, with such indifferent results, in 1990, 1976, and 1960. It's a fairly reliable pattern, pointed out to me by my friend Adam Sharp. Every sixteen years since the era of black-and-white TV, the Democrats have offered up an appealing outsider and the citizenry - having had their fill of Republican government for the nonce - fall for him.

They vote for change, and they get a Democrat.

Two weeks into the Obama transition, it looks like we've got another, typical Democratic administration.

The mainstream media, having done their dead-level best to elect Senator Obama, are still congratulating us for our wisdom in following their lead.

But already, if you care to look, you can see the signs.

Rahm Emanuel, of the Clinton West Wing, for Chief of Staff. Eric Holder, Janet Reno's deputy, at Justice. Tom Daschle at HHS.

And abundant talk of Hillary at Foggy Bottom, if Bill will agree to curb his activities.

The media would have us believe that Obama is following the example of Abraham Lincoln, as portrayed in Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals - and so he may be.

But Lincoln was, for all his ambition, a profoundly humble man - a quality which not even the most fervid Obamaniacs attribute to their leader.

Moreover, Lincoln, the leader of a very new party confronted with a unique emergency, needed the advice and support of his erstwhile rivals to solve the secession crisis.

What Obama is doing feels different. It feels like a power-play - an effort to assert his control over the entire Democratic Party by co-opting the Clintonites, bringing aboard men who have held powerful leadership positions in the House and Senate, and adopting a mainstream Democratic agenda.

So far, this is only a feeling with me. I didn't vote for Senator Obama, but I believe any patriotic American would have to wish him well, given the present state of the nation.

Still, I have the strongest suspicion that - having bought a pig in a poke - we're about to learn that we have actually elected a very ruthless politician, with a Chicago ward-healer's approach to party discipline.

The two chief clues are these:

Rahm Emanuel is what Leo McGarry would describe as a "war-time consigliere". He's not the guy you bring aboard if you're going to take the collegial, team of rivals approach. He's the guy you bring in to enforce gleichschaltung on a notoriously unruly party.

And the proposed bail-out of Detroit's Big Three isn't the first policy initiative of a change agent - much less a defender of the environment or free trade. It's a big-spending, union-friendly, and enormously protectionist measure to satisfy powerful interests within the Democratic coalition - free trade and global warming be damned.

This blog has been on a lengthy hiatus while I watched in fascinated horror as the American people - including most of my friends - fell in love with Senator Obama.

I hope I'm reading the signs wrongly, but I have promised my friends that I reserve the right to say "I told you so!" - loudly and often - if their wunderkind turns out to be another Clinton, or Carter, or JFK.

I just hope that's the worst he turns out to be...

McCain’s Winning Strategy

Last year, re-reading The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam’s magnificent history of the Vietnam War, I encountered a passage which has since haunted me. Writing of President Kennedy in June, 1963, Halberstam reflects:

"It was as if he were liberated from the insecurities of his first two years with that one act [the Cuban missile crisis], and now, more confident of himself, more confident of the nation’s response to him; he was the President." [Emphasis added.]

Having grown up with the Camelot myth, it took some reflection before I could embrace Halberstam’s hard-headed assessment – that, for all his charisma, style and self-confidence, JFK had only begun to reach his potential when his presidency was brutally cut short.

But this reflection, more than anything, has led me to conclude that – despite significant differences of policy and philosophy – I must vote for John McCain this November. Simply stated, I fear that Barack Obama would prove another JFK – requiring at least half his term to become, effectively, President.

And, right now – in a dangerous world – we can’t afford that.

Mine is not a romantic outlook. My goals are decidedly progressive, but, as a student of history, I don’t believe charisma is a substitute for experience. Nor do I see Congressional Democrats – under untested leadership and shaky after eight years of knuckling under to President Bush – as prepared to govern without a steady hand in the Oval Office.

That said, I could be far more enthusiastic about John McCain if he used his candidacy to move the Republican Party toward the center – and not just as a matter of short-term campaign strategy.

For almost three decades now, Americans have been misgoverned by an entrenched, two-party system consisting of a party of bigotry, ignorance, greed, chauvinism, and superstition and a party of mere opportunism, with no principles beyond a desire to win the next election.

McCain can’t reform the Democrats, but – win or lose – he could use his campaign to move his party back toward the “big tent” which offered full participation to moderate and even liberal Republicans.

And, in my judgment, such a move would be McCain’s best chance for victory.

For this much is certain: If McCain continues wooing his party’s reluctant conservatives into the fall, he won’t be President. His winning strategy – which is also, I believe, America’s best hope – involves greater boldness and vision.

If McCain wants to win, he must embrace three realities:

First, while most Americans respect him, not many are excited about him. He has yet to energize a substantial group of citizens to counter the legions who have fallen under the spell of his charismatic opponent.

And this matters.

The election of 2008 won’t be won by eking out 270 electoral votes with a carefully crafted, swing-state strategy. It will be won by capturing the heart of America.

Second, McCain must address the age question. Few doubt his present vitality and fitness for the presidency, but the Oval Office exacts an enormous price from most occupants. McCain can certainly serve one four-year term, but it’s fair to assume he might not opt to seek re-election.

Thus, his choice of Vice-President – and his ability to elevate other potential successors – will be of particular importance, not only to his candidacy, but to the future direction of his party.

Third, McCain simply must address the challenge at the heart of Obama’s strategy – which is the suggestion that McCain’s election would, in effect, prove a third term for George W. Bush.

It’s really the only good argument Obama has – and McCain must meet it head-on.

In addressing these three realities, McCain should begin by reading one book – Christine Todd Whitman’s It’s My Party, Too – a moderate Republican’s appeal to restore the Republican “big tent” which social conservatives have worked so sedulously to destroy.

It’s a short book – McCain could skim during a single transcontinental flight.

He should read it – and then offer its author the second slot on his ticket.

He couldn’t do better.

Christie Whitman served seven years as Governor of New Jersey – constitutionally, the most powerful chief executive in the fifty states. She went on to head the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush – resigning when her sincere environmentalism ran afoul of the administration’s pro-corporate agenda.

Offering the Vice-Presidency to Governor Whitman would accomplish many things.

First, given her history with the Bush Administration, it would clearly signal that McCain’s administration would be no “third term”.

Second, choosing a running mate of clear presidential caliber would effectively blunt the age question.

Third, a Whitman candidacy would electrify two significant groups: Moderate-to-liberal Republicans, marginalized since the Reagan Revolution of 1980; and millions of women still unhappy with Hillary Clinton’s treatment at the hands of the Democratic establishment and the mainstream media.

Finally, a McCain-Whitman ticket would scramble the electoral contest in interesting ways.

1. New Jersey’s 15 electoral votes would come into play.

2. Whitman would help in the eastern half of vital Pennsylvania, among New England’s moderate Republicans, and with the “snowbirds” of Florida.

3. Looking beyond McCain’s presidency, Whitman – as a potential future candidate -- would offer the prospect of moving the Republican Party back toward inclusiveness.

But if putting on the ticket would energize moderate and liberal Republicans, McCain could go further in this direction by elevating a second prospective successor – America’s leading Republican moderate.

The day after the Democratic convention, McCain should fly to Sacramento and - standing next to California's governor - announce that his first legislative proposal to the 111th Congress will be a Constitutional amendment removing the bar to naturalized citizens serving as President.

With this announcement, McCain would claim the respectful attention of every immigrant group in America. He would also put Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California– with its 55 electoral votes – seriously into play.

These two steps – nominating Christie Whitman for Vice-President and proposing an amendment opening the Presidency to naturalized citizens – would hardly suffice to win McCain the White House.

But, by energizing millions of voters, quashing talk of a third term for the Bush administration, and moving the Republican Party back toward the American mainstream – it would considerably level the playing field.