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Antipasto The Next President of the
United States
by Bruce Ramsey
Looking at the presidential candidates, it is tempting to
say that Americans deserve better. But really, they don't.
As I write, it is 20 months before the election of 2008. Already a gabble arises. Would-be Roosevelts are "announcing" campaigns that have been underway for months. The contest is wide open, meaning that the current miscreants can't run or, in Vice President Cheney's case, won't dare to run. And that leaves three serious candidates in each serious party.
| | Bruce Ramsey
is a journalist living in Seattle. |
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The Republican Party has, in addition, a libertarian candidate: Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. We like Ron Paul, but about the best he could do is be noticed for one idea. George Will did a column about him, which amounts to serious notice, and one of the writers at LewRockwell.com thought it was an attack on the idea of limited government, which it wasn't; but then it is difficult to satisfy some folks.
As part of being a limited-government candidate, Paul is against the Iraqi investment, but the Republicans already have a renegade on that issue, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, over whom the mainstream media have lately fawned. "Hagel is hot," gushed James Pinkerton of Newsday on Jan. 30. But Hagel is not hot among Republicans, where he polls at 1%, and already the heat begins to diminish. Alas, Hagel is a no-hoper.
The Democrats also have their no-hopers, including Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the perennial Ohio leftist who wants the federal goliath to disgorge its billions (well, our billions) into government medical insurance instead of war. There is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a believer in the usefulness of diplomats, having been Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations (and also secretary of energy). He is an actual moderate, who says he supports gun rights and is open to middle-class tax cuts. Still, he's a no-hoper. Another was Tom Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, who would end the war, declare a global war on poverty, and make the American economic engine run on fuel from plants. But Vilsack bailed out at the end of February, having realized what everyone else already knew.
Some of these candidates are fun to gnaw on, and some (not including Dr. Paul) may be considered for the vice-presidency, but at the moment there stand only six contenders: Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.
Let's begin with the Democrats. As the party of obligatory diversity, they offer a white woman, a black man and, for the party's Left, a white man.
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| My biggest complaint about Bush is that he
started a war. Giuliani might start another. |
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In the lead is New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is not from New York and who now downplays the name Clinton, running as "Hillary." Back in the '90s, Hillary was known for being to the left of her triangulating husband and for advocating a system of state-managed medical insurance. The triangulation worked better than the socialism, and she has learned it well. As a senator from New York, which was Ground Zero for al Qaeda's attack, Clinton moved rightward and voted in October 2002 to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq at his discretion.
At the moment Hillary is opposing Bush's decision to send 22,000 more soldiers to Iraq, and is also opposing all proposals for Congress to cut off money for the war. How does she justify staying in a losing war but not trying harder to win it? By staying on message. The issue is Bush. The war is the fault of Bush! When asked — repeatedly — whether she was wrong to have voted for the war in 2002, she has declined to spatter the image in the mirror. It's not her fault. She allows that if she had known what she does today, she would have voted No — which is no answer. That 21 other Democratic senators did vote No is not mentioned. None of them is running for president. That Bush is not running either is a fact of which one has to remind oneself when listening to Hillary Clinton.
On the domestic side, she says that the middle class is America's "greatest social achievement," and that it was created by the Great Society and the New Deal. (I guess there wasn't a middle class in the 1920s, and the middle-class neighborhood I live in, built between 1910 and 1930, does not exist, although there appear to be neighborhoods like it all over the country.) She says that abortion should be legal but rare, meaning legal, and that NAFTA was a bad bargain, meaning, I guess, no more trade treaties. In 2005 she was one of the sponsors of a just-for-looks constitutional amendment to allow Congress to criminalize the burning of the flag. And she says . . . but why bother? It is all a calculation. As Gerard Baker of the London Times has written, Clinton's trademark is "the sheer ruthless, unapologetic, unashamable way in which she has pursued this ambition [to be president] and confirmed that there is literally nothing she will not do, say, think or feel, to achieve it."
And she is the frontrunner in the Democratic Party.
In gorgeous second is Barack Hussein Obama, the senator from Illinois. With a name that rhymes with Osama, you might think people would be making fun of him, but not at all. He is the candidate of charisma, and at 45, of youth. He has marketed himself on Oprah, on the cover of Time, and in Men's Vogue. He says, "I want to transform this country." Into what, he does not say.
His badge is his race. Racially he is half African, meaning that in white America he is black and in black America he is questionable, because African is not African-American. Obama had a white mother and was not raised in black culture, whereas Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill fancied himself "the first black president." Barack was raised as Barry, and went to private schools in Hawaii and Indonesia. He began using his African first name as an adult. He does not seem to be an "angry black," which is an asset, because an Al Sharpton could not be a viable candidate in America. He is, as the Guardian called him, "The black candidate who makes white voters feel at ease."
More than that: he is the black candidate who makes white voters feel redeemed. Wrote Washington Post columnist Clarence Page: "A lot of Americans hope he can rescue us from doubts about our country's ability to be fair." And besides, a lot of people find him sexy.
What does he believe? Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal finds Obama "touting old-fashioned self-reliance and ingenuity, with nary a hint of racial resentment." But a writer for Rolling Stone notes that Obama attends an African-American church whose minister, Jeremiah Wright, believes that America is a deeply racist society. The Rolling Stone correspondent wrestled with Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," and writes, "The surprising thing — for such a measured politician — is the depth of radical feeling that seeps through, the amount of Jeremiah Wright that's packed in there."
I'm still thinking: "transform this country" into what? What does this measured politician believe?
Well, some things. He believes in ending the war. He was not in the Senate for the October 2002 vote, but would have voted No. He is also for humanitarian intervention abroad. He recalls being on an airdrop of food to a starving village in Ethiopia and says, "By investing now, we avoid an Iraq or an Afghanistan later."
Investing. A Democrat word.
Obama believes in government. "In Africa," he told Roll-ing Stone, "you often see that the difference between a village where everybody eats and a village where people starve is government. One has a functioning government, and the other does not. Which is why it bothers me when I hear Grover Norquist or someone say that government is the enemy."
Hind teat among Democrats is Sen. John Edwards, the party's vice-presidential nominee of 2004, who ran on the theme of the "two Americas." He knows both of them, having famously grown up in two rooms but now able to knock around in a country estate the size of a small airport, with seven bathrooms, a basketball court, a squash court, and a four-story tower, all paid for by his winnings from suing rich corporations.
Edwards is the "wing" candidate, the leftmost of the three center-left D's. He is wooing the unions. He is for making us all buy health insurance whether we want it or not and for raising taxes on the successful to pay for the doctor bills of the other people. He is against the war. In October 2002 he voted to give Bush the power to invade Iraq, but unlike Sen. Clinton he has said he was sorry. Well, he is behind, and hind teat calls for gumption.
| When listening to Hillary Clinton, you have
to remind yourself that Bush isn't running for
reelection.
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Thus the Democrats. With Hillary Clinton you get the prospect of President Bush followed by President Clinton followed by President Bush followed by President Clinton — a succession of dynasties lasting more than a quarter of a century. With Obama you get a Statement. With Edwards you get — but you're not going to get Edwards. Maybe you'll get Al Gore. But if he's to run, he'd better jump in soon. The clock's a-ticking.
On the Republican side the problem is Bush and his war, which 60% of the electorate have decided was a bad idea, but which is still supported by most Republicans. They are in a pickle. They want to win, but they can't repudiate Bush, who, if he could run again, would lose.
The longest-running Republican is Arizona Sen. John McCain, who in 2000 wooed the press by doubting Bush's proposed tax cuts for the "rich" and by worrying about the wealth "gap." McCain also won the fawning of the press by championing a campaign-finance law that restricts freedom of the press, and by attacking the Christian Right as "agents of intolerance." But McCain, another calculating fellow, has remade himself. Now he says the problem is not taxes but spending, and he meets with opponents of gay marriage and calls for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Predictably, his favorite-Republican status with the national media has expired. He is the new Bob Dole.
In some respects he has not changed. He always did think it was a swell idea to invade Iraq, and always was for using more troops. He supports Bush's "surge," and probably would follow it with a bigger surge of his own. More importantly, he supports the idea that the domination of Iraq is part of a wider "war on terror" that pits the good West against the evil Muslims.
At least he's a hound dog on spending. In the Senate he has loudly barked at it, opposing such pork barreling as the Boeing 767 tanker contract, and as president he might well veto a lot of it. That would be a welcome change from the spendthrift Bush.
As a former prisoner of war in the "Hanoi Hilton," McCain is also a candidate with a compelling personal story — a much more compelling story than Obama's if anyone were comparing, which they are not. But McCain's is an old story, and McCain is an old guy. He will be older on inauguration day — 72 — than Reagan was. And that was too old.
The young Republican in the race — 59 but looks much younger — is Mitt Romney. Like John Edwards, he has the placid good looks of a soap-opera star, and like Hillary, he is a political chameleon. In 2002 he won the governor's office in the nation's most left-leaning state, Massachusetts, by running as a RINO. (That's "Republican In Name Only.") Romney's biggest achievement in office is signing a law making everyone in Massachusetts buy health insurance, whether they want it or not. But in November 2003, when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recognized homosexual marriage, this pro-gay-rights man turned a corner. He was also a Mormon, and the court ruling was too much. Since then he has recut himself on abortion and recocked his mind on guns — and decided to run for president as a right-winger. In his official announcement, he said:
I love America and I believe in the people of America. I believe in God, and I believe that every person in this great country and every person on this great planet is a child of God. I believe that we're all sisters and brothers. I believe that the family is the foundation of America and that it needs to be protected and strengthened. I believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe that people and their elected representatives should make the laws, not unelected judges. I believe that we're overtaxed and government is overfed. Washington is spending too much money! I believe that homeland security begins with securing our borders, and I believe that our best days are before us, because I believe in America.
The Mormon Romney appeared with his wife — his first and only wife — and their platoon of kids, reminding Republicans that McCain (an Episcopalian) has been married twice and Giuliani (a Catholic) had made lifetime vows three times. Giuliani had also carried on with No. 3 while still married to No. 2. But in the polls he is still No. 1.
Giuliani, then. He's a candidate who supported New York City's gun-control laws when he was mayor there, and is for gay unions and keeping abortion legal. So far, he has managed to appeal to Republicans without changing these stands, with the help of the Federalism Card. For example, he's for gun control in New York City. "You might have different laws in other places," he says. Federalism.
Marriage and "civil unions" are also a state issue. Different laws for different folks. He's for keeping abortion legal, but he would be appointing more Supreme Court justices like Roberts, Alito, and Scalia, who might overturn Roe. But that would not make abortion illegal. It would make it a state issue. Federalism!
Giuliani supports school vouchers, which he didn't support when he was elected mayor of New York. He says he was converted by the frustration of dealing with the city's public schools: "The whole notion of choice is really about more freedom for people, rather than being subjugated by a government system that says you have no choice about the education of your child."
The conservative (and, to some extent, libertarian) case for Giuliani was made by Steven Malanga in City Journal. As mayor, Malanga says, Giuliani imposed a work requirement on welfare and cut the rolls by 600,000 people. He ended open enrollment at the City University of New York, an action followed by a 168-point gain in SAT scores by the class of incoming freshmen. He inherited a $2.5 billion budget deficit and closed it with spending cuts. By modernizing the police department and paying attention to small crimes, he cut the murder rate by 67% — from 1,960 murders per year to 640 — and cut the number of car thefts by 78,000 per year. He cracked down on graffiti, turnstile jumping, public urination, and the squeegee men. After 9/11 he rejected a $10 million check from a Saudi prince who wanted a tip of the hat to Muslim sensibilities, and, Malanga writes, "Giuliani was fearless in confronting racial extortionists like Sharpton."
Now wooing the Republicans, Giuliani says he is for a "strong foreign policy, smaller government, lower taxes." He says, "I lowered taxes in New York 23 times."
Giuliani's attraction is executive ability. He did things. He was successful. He confronted crises. He was a leader. Among all the candidates he's your man if what you want is a president who wields power effectively.
There is value in having a president like that — and danger. There is an intolerance in this man. In 1999 he objected to a painting of the Virgin Mary spattered with elephant dung and tried to pull city funding of the show that exhibited it. We can get legal about this and say the issue was city funding, and libertarians would be against that. We can get cultural and say that an image of the Virgin Mary spattered with dung is a nasty attack on the Christian faith, and is bad art besides. I tend to think that way. But the vehemence of the whole episode also shows something about Rudy Giuliani.
A painting is not that important, but the statement about "strong foreign policy" is. It means a muscular foreign policy. The fact that Giuliani is supported by the Bush administration neocons tells something about him. My biggest complaint about Bush is that he started a war. Giuliani might start another.
All these candidates, then, ought to be unsatisfactory to a libertarian. Yet one may be better, given time and circumstance, than another. There is the question of war, which suggests a vote for a Democrat. And there is the question of the administrative nanny state, which suggests a vote for a Republican. In my home state, Washington, the legislature is nearly two to one Democrat, and is eagerly spending most of the windfall gains of an economic boom. Probably it will pass a bill that will make more than half the kids in the state eligible for Medicaid. Don't discount the arrogance of Democrats.
Looking at the presidential candidates, it is tempting to say that Americans deserve better. But really, I think, they don't. The candidates have squinted into the national mirror and tarted themselves up to be exactly what the people want them to be. If you don't like them that way, the problem is that you just aren't in the mainstream.
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