Peas in a Pod
The Mitt Romney video that Ben Domenech has posted below deserves attention. It demonstrates – if the point needs demonstrating – that Romney is a managerial progressive. His initial response to Obamacare was to want “to repeal the bad and keep the good,” and among the things he thought good about the President’s healthcare reform were the incentive structure (i.e., the individual mandate enforced by fines) and the provision that insurance be provided to those with pre-existing conditions who had not seen fit to pay for insurance when they thought that they were healthy (i.e., making the responsible pay for the irresponsible).
In short, Governor Romney sees us as children who need to be policed in a thorough-going way for our own good. His objections to Obamacare are those of a social engineer. This is the real Romney. The fellow now calling for the wholesale repeal of Obamacare is, as I have argued at length in an earlier post, a chameleon. He will do what he needs to do to attract our votes, or, at least, in his awkward, inept way, he will try. And in this one particular he may feel bound to keep his promise. But once in office – like Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush One, and Bush Two – he will drift into extending the power and scope of the administrative entitlements state. In most regards, he will consolidate what Barack Obama has initiated.
I would like to think that Newt Gingrich represents a genuine alternative. His record in office as Speaker of the House of Representatives is much more conservative than Mitt Romney’s record as Governor of Massachusetts. But his record since then is even more disappointing than I thought it was when I described him as the wild card.
I was inclined to give Gingrich the benefit of the doubt with regard to the consulting work that he did for Freddie Mac. I was wrong. As The Wall Street Journal points out in an editorial in this morning’s newspaper, Gingrich publicly defended both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as late as April, 2007 when he remarked, “While we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself.” He defended Fannie and Fred on the ground there are times “when you need government to help spur private enterprise and economic development,” and he described himself as being “in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservatism.”
As the Journal points out, Gingrich was notably silent when Congressman Richard Baker, Senator Richard Shelby, and Bush White House aide Kevin Marsh went to “the barricades” in an attempt to force a reform of Fannie and Freddie:
As for the destructive duo's business model that Mr. Gingrich said he didn't want to change, this was precisely their problem. Far from a private-public partnership, they were private companies with a federal guarantee against failure. Their model was private profit but socialized risk. This produced riches on Wall Street and for company executives. But taxpayers bore the risk of loss—to the tune of $141 billion so far. Why does the historian think they were called "government-sponsored enterprises"?
The real history lesson here may be what the Freddie episode reveals about Mr. Gingrich's political philosophy. To wit, he has a soft spot for big government when he can use it for his own political ends. He also supported the individual mandate in health care in the 1990s, and we recall when he lobbied us to endorse the prescription drug benefit with only token Medicare reform in 2003.
As late as Thursday night's debate, Mr. Gingrich was still defending his Freddie ties as a way of "helping people buy houses." But that is the same excuse Barney Frank used to block reform, and the political pursuit of making housing affordable is what led Freddie to guarantee loans to so many borrowers who couldn't repay them. Yesterday's SEC lawsuit against former Fannie and Freddie executives for misleading investors about subprime-mortgage risks only reinforces the point.
In short, Gingrich is a lot like Romney. Neither man recognizes that the source of our problems is government meddling and the distortion that this produces in what would otherwise be a free and relatively efficient market. What they think of as a cure is, in fact, the disease. Fannie and Freddie, with the help of a Federal Reserve Board that kept interest rates artificially low for a very long time, produced the subprime mortgage bubble and the subsequent economic crash. If healthcare is outrageously expensive and health insurance can be hard to get, it is because of the manner in which the federal and state governments structure and regulate the market. What these managerial progressives in their desperation to manage the lives of the rest of us fail to understand is that the intellectual presumption underpinning the aspiration to “rational administration” that they embrace is the principal cause of our woes.
Romney can perhaps be forgiven for his folly. He is not an especially well-educated man. He is the son of a businessman, and he is himself a business-school product. He understands management; he believes in management; and he is ready, willing, and able to manage our lives for us. Like many Republicans of similar background, he has given next to no thought to first principles.
For Gingrich, there is no excuse. He poses as an historian, and he was trained as one. He is a lot more thoughtful than Romney, a lot more imaginative, and a lot better informed. But he also lacks perspective – for he has been inattentive to the American Founders. Or he has read them through the eyes of the Progressive historians of the early part of the twentieth century.
Alexander Hamilton and Teddy Roosevelt do not belong together. The former was an exponent of natural rights and an advocate of limited government; and, despite their differences, he had far more in common with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson than with the Progressives of a later day. In office, Jefferson and Madison embraced much of what they had once found objectionable in Hamilton’s program.
Teddy Roosevelt was in no way a conservative. He was a sharp critic of the American Founding and of the Constitution it produced. He was prepared to jettison natural rights and limited government, and he did so in a dramatic fashion ninety-nine years ago when he ran for the Presidency as the nominee of the Progressive Party on a radical platform advocating the creation of what is now known as the administrative entitlements state.
A few weeks ago, Robert K. Landers reviewed in The Wall Street Journal a book by Scott Farris, entitled Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race and Changed the Nation. Among the influential losers discussed in the book was Thomas E. Dewey, who ran unsuccessfully against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1944 and Harry Truman in 1948:
"Dewey, along with his protégés Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon," Mr. Farris writes, "moved the Republican Party away from an agenda of repealing the New Deal to a grudging acceptance of the permanent welfare state." Dewey—who had been a nationally renowned prosecutor and then a three-term governor of New York—called himself a "New Deal Republican." He favored the pursuit of liberal ends by conservative means. "It was fine for the federal government to initiate social reforms, Dewey believed, but those reforms should be implemented at the state or local level, and they should be funded in a fiscally responsible manner that did not increase the national debt."
Dewey was the heir of Teddy Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, as was every Republican Presidential nominee since his time – apart from Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are cut from the same cloth. As New Deal Republicans, they are peas in a pod, and they have a lot more in common with Barack Obama than with Alexander Hamilton.
It is a scandal that the Republican Party cannot do better than these two at a time of opportunity like the one in which we live.
- Comment (170)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (6)
Comments:
Re: Peas in a Pod
Aaron Miller
Paul A. Rahe
.... I would like to think that, after the election, the conservative base will keep up the pressure.
I'd like to think that we will keep up the pressure during the election. People seem to be forgetting that campaign season is when we, the voters, set the terms for the election.
Instead of meekly surrendering to all the foolish independents who pay no attention to politics and just want more government expansion, we should make it clear to the candidates available to us that we, too, must be appeased. The less pressure Republican candidates feel from conservatives, the more likely they are to bend to pressure from supporters of the progressive norm. · Dec 17 at 5:37pm
Amen. Let me add, for what it is worth, that to an every-increasing degree the independents share our fears. That is what makes this a time of opportunity.
Sep '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Paul A. Rahe
My own guess (right now) is that Romney is preferable. But I have little confidence in my judgment in this particular. Gingrich (or even Perry) might be the better choice. I would like to think that, after the election, the conservative base will keep up the pressure. · Dec 17 at 5:21pm
Maybe that's the key to this whole thing. Maybe these flawed candidates are what we need. If Paul Ryan were to run for example and won, and then began to change into a "managerial progressive" in front of our very eyes, we would be so star struck we wouldn't figure it out until it was too late. However, with these flawed candidates, we expect them to do it and will be on them like white on rice whenever they stray off the preferred path. Constant suspicion might just be what we need to hold our candidate's feet to the fire.
Re: Peas in a Pod
Michael Tee: I'll add this. It's very hard to take Mr. Rahe seriously when he is plain dead wrong about history my son is learning at the age of seven.
But yeah, page-views.
Might as well post a picture of Erin Andrews. · Dec 17 at 4:31pm
Edited on Dec 17 at 04:36 pm
I do hope that your seven-year-old does not rely on Wikipedia (which you link) for his information concerning Hamilton. What he said and did at the Federal Convention was a very small part of the story, as both Rick Brookhiser and I make clear.
I see that your have given up defending Newt Gingrich -- which is good. It makes no sense resolutely to ignore what he has recently been advocating. One needs to see the whole picture -- the accomplishments, the moral defects, and the bad, bad judgment. Don't you agree?
Re: Peas in a Pod
Conservative Episcopalian
Paul A. Rahe
My own guess (right now) is that Romney is preferable. But I have little confidence in my judgment in this particular. Gingrich (or even Perry) might be the better choice. I would like to think that, after the election, the conservative base will keep up the pressure. · Dec 17 at 5:21pm
Maybe that's the key to this whole thing. Maybe these flawed candidates are what we need. If Paul Ryan were to run for example and won, and then began to change into a "managerial progressive" in front of our very eyes, we would be so star struck we wouldn't figure it out until it was too late. However, with these flawed candidates, we expect them to do it and will be on them like white on rice whenever they stray off the preferred path. Constant suspicion might just be what we need to hold our candidate's feet to the fire. · Dec 17 at 5:48pm
Let's hope.
Re: Peas in a Pod
Larry Koler
LowcountryJoe
Both Mitt and Newt prefer solutions planned from above; they're too friendly toward the state and wish to manage within the current frameworks rather than re-working the frame. · Dec 17 at 4:31pm
Because Newt is conversant and dealing with real problems does not make him a progressive. It makes him thoughtful -- and sometimes wrong. That's all.
Ideological purity tests get the Libertarian Party nowhere. We conservatives need to learn that lesson. And the Republicans need to stop going down this road. · Dec 17 at 4:38pm
Larry, keep in mind that Newt started out as a Rockefeller Republican in 1968 (which is to say a big-government Republican). Then, think about his recent embrace of the anthropogenic global warming hysteria. Then, consider his 2007 defense of the basic model for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. One does not have to be an ideological purist to think his judgment poor.
And Romney? There is no substantive difference between Romneycare and Obamacare. One does not have to be a purist to notice and be appalled.
No one who is even half-way conservative could enthusiastically embrace either of these candidates.
May '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Aaron Miller
Instead of meekly surrendering to all the foolish independents who pay no attention to politics and just want more government expansion, we should make it clear to the candidates available to us that we, too, must be appeased. The less pressure Republican candidates feel from conservatives, the more likely they are to bend to pressure from supporters of the progressive norm. · Dec 17 at 5:37pm
Aaron you are exactly right. This is the time for principled conservatives to put the heat on the contenders.
Oct '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Michael Tee
Paul A. Rahe
Mr. Tee. Rick Brookhiser, whom I knew as an undergraduate, got much of his take on Hamilton from a book entitled Republics Ancient and Modern. I wrote it. Let me suggest that you read the chapter on Hamilton. You might learn a thing or two.
As for Rick, you are, to say the least, misrepresenting his take on Hamilton's overall intention. · Dec 17 at 4:08pm
Edited on Dec 17 at 04:10 pm
Oh, my what a silly statement.
Page 66. "The elected governor-for-life, analogous to the British king, was the proper executive of his system..."that such an Executive will be an elective Monarch."
Perhaps you should have read what you wrote?
I would think that you might not take such a pedantic tone, since you know, you're wrong... · Dec 17 at 4:29pm
Hay! Don't talk to Professor Rahe that way.
Oct '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Professor Rahe, thank you very much for an interesting and thought provoking post. Thank you also for the graciousness with which you handled some of the comments. I basically concur with both katievs and A. J. Chianese. As a conservative, I have a problem with both Romney and Gingrich, but am leaning towards Romney. We must prevent President Obama from being re-elected, and begin to reign in the administrative state. We have a long hard road ahead of us.
Re: Peas in a Pod
katievs
Paul A. Rahe
My own guess (right now) is that Romney is preferable. But I have little confidence in my judgment in this particular. Gingrich (or even Perry) might be the better choice. I would like to think that, after the election, the conservative base will keep up the pressure. · Dec 17 at 5:21pm
These are my thoughts exactly.
The fact that Ryan seems to prefer Romney is big for me.
But it worries me that great conservative stalwarts like Mark Levin and Rush disagree. On the other hand, that will be a consolation if Newt ends up with the nomination.
Either way, I fear we're in for a bumpy ride. · Dec 17 at 5:35pm
Here is the irony: Levin and Limbaugh backed Romney in 2008. I agree with you about Ryan. Since he has been in the public eye, he has not put a foot wrong. Also, too many of Gingrich's former colleagues really loath the man. Some of this is no doubt sour grapes, but some of those who dislike and distrust him are people worthy of our admiration. It gives one pause.
Re: Peas in a Pod
Alas, we do. Perhaps, also, in the course of the caucuses and primaries, we will learn a bit more. I will add to what I said in response to Katie that people who have worked closely with Romney tend to like and respect him.
So much of what we are called on to do in a situation like this is guesswork. And one can easily blunder.
Jul '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Joseph Eagar
Hay! Don't talk to Professor Rahe that way. · Dec 17 at 6:03pm
C'mon, Joseph.... Professor Rahe is knocking these softballs out of the park..... and with style to boot.
I should elaborate: they are softballs to Professor Rahe, not to many others.
Edited on December 18, 2011 at 3:23amOct '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
I think anti-Obamism will drive conservatives to the polls; turnout in 2008 for McCain was actually pretty high. The problem is that we're very good at applying pressure in primaries, but totally ineffective once our candidate is elected. We need a post-2012 strategy.
The only politician I know of who really has espoused conservatives views credibly is Sarah Palin. She seems to represent a new, purer form of conservative populism. Unfortunately, it's undeveloped and not yet mature as a political force.
Edited on December 18, 2011 at 3:18amSep '11
Re: Peas in a Pod
I pretty much agree with Mr. Rahe that Gingrich and Romney are both undesirable progressives. However, I think we really need to order the candidates by how their positions address the fundamental security threats to the US. I would rank the threats to the US thus:
1. Electromagnetic pulse (natural or artificial.)
2. Congress and the Federal Reserve.
3. Aggressive Islam, China, and Russia.
So, given that, I have to support Gingrich first, Ron Paul second, and a conventional Republican third (any would do.)
Notes:
1. I don't like Gingrich, but since he is the only one talking about EMP, I have to hope for his election. EMP is the only thing reasonably likely to cause the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions of Americans within our lifetimes (prove me wrong--please!)
2. When I voted for Bush I had qualms about his progressivism, but I thought that militant Islam posed the greater threat. Now we see that Progressivism truly poses the greater threat to our way of life. Advantage Paul.
3. Paul sounds like a fool on Iran. So what? Everyone talks big, but only Israel will ever do anything about it (to our eternal shame.)
Aug '11
Re: Peas in a Pod
Professor Rahe writes:
"Romney and Gingrich are practical men -- sensitive to the bottom line. Obama is anything but. That is the difference."
I sincerely hope that Romney and Gingrich are sensitive to the bottom line -- with respect to government. Clearly they are sensitive to the bottom line in their personal businesses. But would a Romney, as president, be more sensitive to the bottom line than George W. Bush? Was he more sensitive to the bottom line as governor of Massachusetts?
Nevertheless, they would, as you point out, be more sensitive to the bottom line than our current president.
May '11
Re: Peas in a Pod
After having read all 67 posts as of this moment, it seems that some conclusions are possible. To wit:
1) The Republican Party has yet again given us a lousy choice.
2) The Republican Party as it currently exists is broken.
3) The Republican Party is not likely to change. I say this based on the past 40 years of personal voting experience.
One could make the case that beginning with Grant (maybe even Lincoln), Republicans have never been Conservative per se but instead less big government than the Democrats. Reagan was a huge anomaly in the Republican norm.
Looking forward to 2013:
It is probably too late to think in terms of a 3rd party for this election. Should the Tea Party form an actual, separate party in January 2013? Assuming we have a Republican president, what would a Tea Party party mean to the way he would govern? Or to the way the current crop of Republican Congress critters would govern specifically Boehner and McConnell?
Aug '11
Re: Peas in a Pod
Using basketball as an illustration, the difference between a free market conservative and a managerial progressive is that the free-market conservative is content to set the rules of the game and will allow the players to play the game and make their own tactical and strategic decisions.
The managerial governor (whether progressive or not) insists on scripting virtually all the moves of the game in advance on the theory that the players are not intelligent enough to make decisions on their own.
Aug '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Tenther: ...
1. I don't like Gingrich, but since he is the only one talking about EMP, I have to hope for his election. EMP is the only thing reasonably likely to cause the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions of Americans within our lifetimes (prove me wrong--please!)
Well, if it is hundreds of millions of Americans, then we have nothing to fear - since that is all of us. Something of that magnitude is an existential threat and would end our way of life - we wouldn't be voting for president in that case.
If you though global warming was bad, just wait for the power grab that EMP engenders. Just because Newt talks about it, doesn't mean he knows what to do about it.
Oct '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Paul A. Rahe
katievs
Here is the irony: Levin and Limbaugh backed Romney in 2008.
An unanswered question for me is whether their early emphasis on ideological purity and criticism of Romney was a factor in Ryan, Daniels, and Christie deciding not to be candidates.
May '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Another excellent historian, Ron Radosh, disagrees with Prof. Rahe about Teddy Roosevelt: http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2011/12/07/why-barack-obama-is-not-a-modern-day-theodore-roosevelt/
Aug '10
Re: Peas in a Pod
Pilli: After having read all 67 posts as of this moment, it seems that some conclusions are possible. To wit:
1) The Republican Party has yet again given us a lousy choice.
2) The Republican Party as it currently exists is broken.
3) The Republican Party is not likely to change. I say this based on the past 40 years of personal voting experience.
1) The party didn't give us a lousy choice, the ranking members didn't have the chops to put their hat in the ring - leaving us the field we have now.
2) True, but since they continually hire managers like Mike Murphy to tell them how to run elections, what do you expect. The Mikes of this world are great at crunching the numbers, but they fail to quantify the sentiment - focusing on the appearances and not the substance.
3) My local Tea Party recognizes that if the Tea Party tries to make a third party, we will lose, throwing future elections to the Democrats in-perpetuity. It is better to co-opt the Republican party away from the big government wing.