Thus far the presidential campaign has been wildly
disappointing. In a nation faced with a number of serious problems – the economic
slowdown, the instability of the financial sector, the Euro crisis, the
unsustainable Medicare program, global restructuring that has meant that many
of our jobs will never come back, the declining educational standards among our
young, etc. etc. – all the two camps can do is throw trivial partisan charges
at each other, many of them half-truths or outright lies.
One might have hoped for a spirited substantive debate on
how best to handle these national problems. Liberal and conservative thinkers
and economists do have differing approaches, and it is not immediately obvious
to anyone (including themselves) which of these approaches is best. A wide-ranging public debate, based on facts
rather than just ideological myths, might have helped us all find workable solutions. It might also have helped educate the America people
as to the realities of our problems, and better prepared them for the
inevitable adjustments that must come, whether we plan and manage them wisely
or they are thrust upon us by crises. That, apparently is not to be.
Here is my current reading of the two parties:
The Obama administration, and President Obama himself, are
certainly smart enough to understand both the nature and the magnitude of the problems
we face. The fact that they have, in almost four years in office, failed to
address them or make any substantive proposals to address them suggests that
they have made the political calculation that beginning to administer the
necessary hard medicine would cost Democrats heavily – that the America people
are too dumb or too self-centered to reward long-term thinking over short-term
hardships. And of course they may also
be blinded by their ideological commitment to larger government involvement in
our lives, and restrained by the need to not alienate some of their largest
supporters, like the unions.
From a purely short-term political point of view these may
be smart tactical moves, and may even win Obama re-election to a second term.
Continue to promise to maintain the status
quo, continue to kick the can down the road and hope that the other party
will be in power when the inevitable crisis arises, so that they get blamed for
it. But it is hardly statesmanship, and
it is hardly what we all hoped for when Obama took office. If he is re-elected, I assume he would continue to follow the same policy of ignoring the oncoming problems and leaving the consequences to his successors.
The Republicans have, in the primaries, seen off a series of
lightweights and far-right religious extremists, leaving us with a solid,
experienced, if uncharismatic, Mitt Romney. Far from worrying about his Mormon background,
I find it reassuring, because although Mormons have (from my point of view)
some strange religious dogma, they are in general (a) very good at business,
and (b) strongly patriotic and committed to the nation and to the frontier “work
ethic” values of the nation.
Now Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate. Paul
Ryan is the only elected official in either party to propose realistic,
substantive steps that might begin to get us out of this mess. His proposals
are not perfect, and I don’t agree with all of them, but they are a good “first
draft” from which to begin a discussion. (The Bowles-Simpson committee proposals
were also a good “first draft” to begin the discussion, but Obama pointedly
ignored them, even though he chartered the committee in the first place).
My hope (and it is so far only a hope) is that Romney’s
choice of Ryan signals that he is serious, if elected, about beginning to take
on some of these problems. He has been
reticent, thus far, to be definite about what he would do. This was probably essential political
strategy to get him through the primary battles, because the far right won’t
like the necessary medicine any more than the far left will, and if he had been
specific about his plans, he probably would never have won the primaries.
What will be revealing in the next few months is whether
Romney-Ryan try to swing the public debate toward substantive discussion of the
problems and possible solutions, and whether if they try they can succeed. I
suspect the Democrats strongly fear such a debate, and will work as hard as
they can to keep trivial charges in the news and deflect such a debate. I notice that several Democratic members of
Congress are trying desperately to keep from the upcoming debates any questions
to the candidates about the Bowles-Simpson recommendations (see story here).
Romney’s basic political calculation has to be much the same
as President Obama’s. If he tells it
like it really is, and proposes realistic and effective steps to address these
problems, will voters turn against him.
I’m not sure either what I would do in his place. As H L Menken once said
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
public”. He might, on the other hand,
continue to be vague in order to get elected, and then once in office begin to
do what really needs to be done, especially if he comes into office with a
working majority on Congress. Then again, once in office he might still lack the political will to do what is really necessary. It's hard to tell at this point.
It would be an interesting chess match to watch if so much
didn’t depend on it.
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