Phil Klein and Beyond
Phil Klein, whose thinking is referenced by Ben Domenech below, is in all likelihood right. Mitt Romney is no more a socialist than Bloomberg. But he has never been a conservative, and in the past -- before he moved to the national stage -- he distanced himself as much as possible from conservatives and even from the Republican Party. In the 1990s, when he was the Republican nominee for the Senate in Massachusetts, he insisted that he was not the same kind of Republican as Ronald Reagan. A decade later, he insisted that he was "a progressive" in his views and that he should be thought of as "a reformer" and not as a Republican. His record in office as Governor of Massachusetts -- with regard to Romneycare and global warming, for example -- is consistent with this. He deserves our support in the upcoming election but he has not earned and should not be accorded our trust.
That having been said, I would not rule out the possibility that Romney will as President earn that trust. Circumstances -- and I have in mind the grave fiscal crisis threatening the administrative entitlements state -- may persuade him to rethink. He is a man of goodwill and evident integrity. Moreover, he knows a failing enterprise when he sees it; he recognizes the limits of the state's capacity to extract revenue from those who actually work; he has seen the threat that the administrative entitlements state poses to religious and political liberty. If he is in any way intellectually agile, he will by now have realized that the path he was on as Governor in Massachusetts is unsustainable and that, when pursued at the federal level, it will concentrate power and influence in the hands of the federal government on a scale inconsistent with our retention of the liberties we have enjoyed for more than two hundred years.
I realize that there is something to the adage: "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks." At my previous university, I watched one new president after another arrive on the scene, and I learned that, if I really wanted to know what he would do, all that I had to do was to call someone who worked at the institution he had most recently served. But I persist in entertaining the possibility that some old dogs do learn new tricks. At Bain Capital, Romney got a reputation as a chameleon. He took on the coloration, so to speak, of the institution he was trying to turn around. He adopted its culture; he joined its team.
Romney's flexibility is, needless to say, worrisome. But it offers hope as well.
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Sep '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Perhaps Romney is the wrong man to do the right thing that Milton Friedman told us to try for.
Jul '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
If he takes on the sacred cows I'll respect him. Our debt will kill us and somebody in charge needs to be honest with America and do something very proactive. Ryan had the idea but a slower timetable than I'd like but at least he's talking. History is calling and Romney may well answer.
May '12
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Gov. Romney clearly is a very smart man and definitely recognizes a broken enterprise and has good ideas to fix it. Unfortunately all we really know about how that translates to him as president is a 59 point plan to slow the growth of federal government and that he isn't Barack Obama.
Jun '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
I'm OK with trusting, but verifying.
At least Romney's affect and accent will lead none of us to look into his heart and see something conservative that's not there.
Dec '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
I'm hopeful that Romney will grow into the office and the demands of the times. The fact that Obama has atrophied in the office and offers no such hope makes this election a no-brainer. I'm not looking for a savior in national politics, just a decent capable man with potential. Romney qualifies.
Feb '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
I grew up in North Carolina in a time when a Republican running for statewide office had virtually zero chance of winning. The ones who eventually began winning didn't advertise that they were Republicans. Jesse Helms was a Democrat in more than registration weeks before he ran for Senate the first time. I suspect it was like that in Oklahoma when you were growing up. Massachusetts is like that now. So why is it surprising that Romney didn't proudly proclaim to be a Republican or a conservative even?
As for trusting politicians of whatever proclaimed flavor, anyone who does is naive.
Edited on May 25, 2012 at 6:40pmOct '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
"At my previous university, I watched one new president after another arrive on the scene, and I learned that, if I really wanted to know what he would do, all that I had to do was to call someone who worked at the institution he had most recently served. But I persist in entertaining the possibility that some old dogs do learn new tricks. At Bain Capital, Romney got a reputation as a chameleon. He took on the coloration...of the institution he was trying to turn around. He adopted its culture; he joined its team."
And therein lies the difference between spending a life in the public sector and a life in the private sector. In the private sector you adapt or you die. No such threat exists in the public sector.
This is why I don't worry about Mitt. The things for which he seems suspect happened a decade or two decades ago. He's shown the ability to adapt, to learn, to evolve. The University presidents never showed that ability, so their past actions were good predictors of their future actions. They're dinosaurs. Mitt's not.
(FWIW I've never been sMitten with him)
Dec '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
I saw a bumper sticker once that said "Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall not be disappointed." Charles Krauthammer once said that the blessing of cynicism is that you expect nothing, receive less, and yet remain serene. I can't help but feel the best course of action at this time is to be a cynic with low expectations. It's the only way to be either right, happy, or both.
Apr '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
He did not say that he was not the same kind of Republican as Ronald Reagan. He said that he was not Ronald Reagan, in response to Ted Kennedy saying that Romney's welfare reform would have the same results as Reagan's.
Romney's views on welfare were different from Reagan's (and more conservative); his proposal was essentially the reform that passed a couple of years later, with some additional pro-family aspects (single mothers got less money).
If you look at the platform he was running on, outside of welfare, it wasn't very different from any conservative running in 1994. School choice, capital punishment and tougher sentencing, welfare reform, low taxes, balanced budget amendment, a robust foreign policy, term limits, ending public financing of campaigns, opposing federal intervention in healthcare.
Taking a lengthy campaign, seizing on the worst quote from it, mischaracterizing that quote, and thus claiming the campaign liberal is tawdry. Analogously, your heretical opposition to means testing doesn't make you a liberal.
Nov '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Romney was telling the truth when he said he was not like Ronald Reagan. Unlike Reagan, Romney has few if any core conservative principles. Dan Henninger pegged it when he said over a year ago that conservatism does not come naturally to Romney, and it never will. Romney will always have to be nudged to the right, said Henninger.
No kidding. Without constant pressure from conservatives, Romney will drift left on every issue. Believing that Romney can be trusted or that he will grow in office is wishful thinking. Romney is not the right one for conservatives. The hope for a conservative Romney administration, if there is any such hope, lies not in trusting or wishing but in constant pressure to force him to do the right thing. He will never become a conservative. It’s not in him and no amount of wishing and hoping will ever change him into one.
Buckley was right. Waiting for the right people to be elected is foolish, it probably won’t ever happen. Certainly not in 2012. What is necessary is to build a political climate that forces the wrong people, such as Mitt Romney, to do the right things.
Edited on May 25, 2012 at 7:20pmApr '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
His record on Global Warming saw Massachusetts do less than its neighbors, despite being more liberal than its neighbors and being ground zero for a lot of the Harvard based activism. Taking the position that there may be warmist solutions out there, hiring a couple of liberals to find those solutions, tying people up in negotiations over those solutions, and then not implementing them does not constitute a big government record. It constitutes a record of successfully avoiding the desired outcome of an 85% Democratic legislature that could (and did) override any vetoes it cared about. Arguing the science would have made people who care about words happy, but accepting the science and arguing the funding landed positive, conservative, results.
There were also consent agreements with three older power stations to clean up, but they were mild, and trivial in terms of the state's finances. He talked them up, as did the power station's owners, but Romney's Republican predecessor, Celluci, worked on far tougher measures. Romney's tough words protected Salem from closure.
Mar '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Friedman would still probably prefer a leader who can lead over one who needs to be led, but you're right.
Repeal Obamacare and ease the foot of the State off of the throat of the business community while bringing back a semblance of sanity to spending. That is the bare-bones miniumum. If he fails at that, damnatio memoriae.
Edited on May 25, 2012 at 7:38pmApr '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Other than balancing the budget, repealing Obamacare, increasing federalism, expanding free trade, and defeating unions, what would you want from a conservative government, fiscally? Or is your objection to Romney having a detailed, 59 point, plan?
If you mean that it doesn't include foreign policy, well, that's true, but his foreign policy document does; there's a reason Ambassador Bolton endorsed Mitt despite Newt and Santorum actively begging for his endorsement. If you mean that you're unclear about his position on the Mexico City Policy or DOMA, then you can fix this by briefly perusing his record as governor, or talking to Maggie Gallagher or someone similar.
If you mean that you don't know if he'd be like Bush on judges, take a glance at the view of Bush legal officials, and conservatives opposed to Bush (eg. Bork).
May '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
I'll celebrate a liberal like Romney any day of the week, and campaign for him as well. Especially against the current crowd.
But then, I like GW Bush, too.
Sep '10
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
James Of England
Arguing the science would have made people who care about words happy...
There were also consent agreements with three older power stations to clean up, but they were mild, and trivial in terms of the state's finances. He talked them up...
He "talked them up"? Nice understatement. What he actually said:
Do you suppose he was aiming his comments at the type of people "who care about words"?
Apr '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Mark Belling Fan
James Of England
Arguing the science would have made people who care about words happy...
There were also consent agreements with three older power stations to clean up, but they were mild, and trivial in terms of the state's finances. He talked them up...
He "talked them up"? Nice understatement. What he actually said:
Do you suppose he was aiming his comments at the type of people "who care about words"? · 1 minute ago
I meant that he talked up the agreements reached in office. That statement was before he took office. I agree that it was terrible language, but "that plant" did stay open, despite bipartisan agreement between the legislature and Celluci that the grandfathering clauses that allowed it to do so should be ended.
So, yes, I'd say that if the words mattered more to you, this wasn't conservative. If the actions matter more, the record is.
Mar '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Mr Romney may well be a Rino squish, in a similar way to Ricochet's Rob. But I agree with 'em both on most things.
I'd prefer a more conservative candidate, but we go to the election with the candidate that we have, and a conservative Congress and Tea Party will I hope continue to apply pressure to the right - as the Democrats accuse him of succumbing to far-right extremists.
We are seeing most of Mr Obama's attacks bouncing off Mr Romney for this reason, I think - so it may work out quite well, in the end.
Edited on May 25, 2012 at 8:40pmNov '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
The most conservative Romney you will ever see was the fellow who existed one day before he secured the GOP nomination.
As president, Romney will advance statist government more than Obama could have ever hoped, because Romney will confront no viable opposition to restrain him. The left will push him leftward, and the right will acquiesce because he's "our guy."
Does anyone doubt Romney will replace ObamaCare with some tricked up version of RomneyCare? (GOP planning for that process has already begun.)
Unlike ObamaCare, which we might hope eventually to overturn because most citizens will always view it as illegitmate, bipartisanship and GOP authorship will cover RomneyCare with a lasting patina of legitimacy that will prevent it from ever being overthrown.
In ten years RomneyCare will be indistinguishable from ObamaCare.
And Romney voters will have endorsed it!
Our only hope, our little glimmer, is to elect enough real conservatives in Congress to restrain Romney. That's where wise conservatives should put their money and effort!
The last thing I want is a Romney victory so overwhelming that he can claim it as a mandate to do whatever he wants. So I won't be voting for president this cycle.
May '12
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
James Of England
Other than balancing the budget, repealing Obamacare, increasing federalism, expanding free trade, and defeating unions, what would you want from a conservative government, fiscally? Or is your objection to Romney having a detailed, 59 point, plan?
I am not aware of a plan from Gov. Romney to balance the budget ever - 59 points or otherwise.
Apr '11
Re: Phil Klein and Beyond
Just to expand on that a little; Environmentalism was the one area where his words were consistently misleading. He's always said that he'd try to enact protections where they were cost effective, and always talked up the efforts to find those solutions, and always found that the solutions weren't cost effective and should thus not be enacted.
On the budget, he promised to cut dramatically, and cut dramatically. On Life, he promised not to change the laws, and fought vigorously (and partly successfully) against changes that would have promoted embryonic stem cell research and liberalized abortion. On the judiciary, he promised and delivered reforms to the selection process that discourage cronyism and bias. On education, he promised to protect school choice and improve services despite cuts and delivered improvements to Massachusetts' pre-existing #1 ranking. On the economy, less radically, he promised to reduce unemployment and took it from 5.4% to 4.6%.
The noise on environmentalism was just too great in Massachusetts, so he rolled with the punches, but he delivered there, too.