Recently, I paid a visit to the Reagan Library and was surprised to see how many problems of the 1970’s, seeming so overwhelming and unsolvable at the time, are also difficulties we face today. With largely the same collective shrugging of the shoulders that embodied the anemic leadership of that era, issues like high unemployment, slow economic growth, inflation fears, energy instability, an uncertain Iran, and a general disenchantment with Washington are all too familiar to the modern day observer.
Soon after my trip to the library, I came upon another parallel between then and now when I noticed a cable news ticker on the night of the Republican New Hampshire Primary: Romney is the first GOP nomination candidate with significant opposition to win both Iowa and New Hampshire since Ford in 1976. On the same token, over recent years President Obama has drawn relentless comparisons to the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter; and more and more, Mitt Romney seems to encapsulate the country club, Nixonian fused with the uninspiring style of Gerald Ford. Of course, Ford’s main primary challenger in ’76 was the dark horse, Ronald Reagan. Because Reagan was considered the less safe of the two in the general election, due to his lack of incumbency and what some would consider rhetorical “bomb throwing”, Ford was given the nomination, going on to loose the Presidency and, in turn, the country suffered through the Carter administration.
Perhaps primary voters, once again, are facing the question of Ford or Reagan with the current contest between Romney and Gingrich. The former seems safe and established while the later appears to be a riskier gamble. Romney seems more akin to the business side of the party while Gingrich speaks to its conservative culture. It’s true that they’re certainly each there own person but I can’t help but hear The Ramones playing in the distance as I wonder if history is re-dealing a past hand.
Romney has been attacked in recent weeks for his role as a venture capitalist--investing in new companies that lack funding or ones that are in trouble, attempting to make the best of their profitability. Venture capitalism can be a solid tool in the free market to get great ideas off the ground. Many businesses that create innovative products never would have existed if it hadn’t been for the investment end of the economy. Often times, Romney’s endeavors did strengthen the economy, helped society, and kept people employed or created new jobs altogether. On rare occasions, however, this meant liquidation of both resources and workers--not a pleasant scenario despite how seldom this occurred. It’s obvious why this isn’t a pretty picture to defend on the campaign trail.
The larger issue, though, is that Romney has been made a poster boy for unmitigated greed and a lack of ethics in big business, viewed by some as a symbol of one of the reasons for the economic instability of recent years. But there’s a larger point that needs to be understood. Not only does business bare the responsibility but so does the citizenry. How can we expect business to care about more than the bottom line when we don’t? For instance, here’s just one example I hear little about: The majority of Americans have money in the stock market in some form, whether it’s actual publicly traded stock ownership, mutual funds, 401K’s, or other avenues. Investors big and small in publicly traded companies primarily care about one thing--earnings. Now don’t get me wrong; profit is generally a positive thing. It makes jobs and raises tax revenues. But if you own stocks then you probably are checking the current values before anything else. You aren’t looking to see who got fired that day or finding out whether a factory closed in a small town. No, you’re looking at the price next to a symbol on a ticker. So, trying to pin the bubble’s downfall on venture capitalists without seeing the soullessness of our own personal venture capitalism is an incredible deficiency of critical thought--what some would call a double standard.
Not to mention, that the various criticisms coming from more than one candidate have been hijacked and exaggerated by the collectivist occupy types that care more about their bottom line than any sense of social justice. And that’s why I’m glad to see that Newt Gingrich has repudiated the efforts of his “unaffiliated” super PAC, which has been laboring to promote this inaccurate, anti prosperity rhetoric. Personally, I think business should be about success in various ways including, not only, profits but nourishing one’s surroundings and promoting creativity and innovation. I’ve seen it before and it’s good, sound business. I think Mitt Romney probably fits this recipe better than your average E Trade customer. And I’m convinced Gingrich is championing such a culture, although, his criticisms have become oddly questionable. Actually, I’d like to think that Gingrich was trying to exploit the chasm that exists between fiscal conservatives and cultural conservatives, an important distinction to make. But now it’s snowballed into something else and he should just leave it alone.
This whole line of attack is, of course, a response to the ads in Iowa that were funded by Romney’s “unaffiliated” super PAC and emboldened, if not given the green light, by the collective power of the GOP establishment array of columnists--Steyn, Coulter, Krauthammer, and the editors of the National Review. Even Beck joined in, clamoring for anyone but Newt. And although I generally hold the opinions of most of these figures in high regard, they have initiated an ugly and unnecessary dialogue that became more than it should have been.
A look at Newt Gingrich’s missteps certainly gives pause but in the political realm they are only brief stumbles compared to the enormous turnabouts that seem to define Mitt Romney. There are still some things where Newt and I don’t agree, but we largely do and we always have. But, furthermore, his talent and eloquence is unmatched and his ability to create and communicate innovative ideas and remind us of those bedrock fundamentals that the fog of modern thinking has allowed us to forget is an absolute necessity to electrifying the base--the sleeping giant that must awaken to reestablish a conservative White House for, what is, a conservative country. Perhaps I’m romanticizing this way too much, but I can’t help but remember a history teacher turned congressman that had Reagan’s back and later took Goliath’s head in the form of 40 years of Democratic congressional dominance. And I must admit, I relish the thought of him rhetorically decapitating our Carter of a president on a daily basis every time a camera or a microphone points his way. It’s 1976 again and the low expectations of perceived safety that acquiesced to a Ford nomination are burgeoning ahead. It’s South Carolina or nothing. It’s Reagan or Carter. It’s Gingrich or Obama.
