M2RB: Heart, live Midnight Special, Memphis 1977
With Governor Romney’s selection of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan
as his running mate, the vague contours of the presidential race have
suddenly become sharper. Up until now, partly because Romney’s image has
been so fuzzy, we were looking at a referendum on President Obama
rather than a clear-cut contest between political philosophies. Now,
given Ryan’s prominence as a budget hawk and entitlement reformer, the
public has a choice to make.
On the one hand, President Obama and Vice President Biden stand
foursquare for the growth of what I’ve been calling the blue social
model. In terms of government policy, they want to continue to grow the
mix of interventions, guarantees, entitlements and programs that FDR
launched in the New Deal, that Lyndon Johnson extended in the Great
Society, and that various presidents (of both parties — think of Nixon
and the EPA and W and the prescription drug benefit) have extended
since.
This is a bolder stance than the Clinton approach. Bill “the era of
big government is over” Clinton was a small ‘c’ conservative: he aimed
to conserve the bulk of the entitlement state by trimming a few of its
less popular features like welfare payments not linked to work.
President Obama, who succeeded at passing health care where Clinton
failed, has bigger ambitions, and intends to press ahead with the
characteristic direction of American politics in the last two thirds of
the twentieth century — towards a more powerful, more purposeful and
more intrusive federal state.
Beyond that, Obama and Biden will be running on the blue social model
as a way of life. The mass production, mass consumption society of
Fordist America saw stable employment at good wages for most people in
the US. For Obama and Biden, that kind of America is what Frank Fukuyama
called the end of history: a relatively egalitarian income
distribution, a stable employment picture, defined benefit pension
programs for more and more workers, a gradually rising standard of
living, more kids spending more years in school from generation to
generation and a government of Keynesian macro-economists who keep the
economy on an even keel.
For the Obamians, this is the ideal form of society. The apparent
creaks and strains of the last thirty years — rising income inequality,
stagnating real wages, economic volatility — are the result of policy
errors rather than historical forces. Bad, selfish people have
dismantled the regulations and controls that kept a healthy middle class
economy in place and like Toad of Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows,
reckless rich nincompoops have driven the national economy — and the
blue social model — into the ditch. President Obama’s goal is to bring
back the good old days, and make them better yet. His methods are
classic tools of the progressive movement of the twentieth century and
he believes that there is much, much more than government can do to make
our country richer and our society more just.
The Republican challengers will be attacking this vision head on.
They will be arguing that the blue social model is driving us all into
the poorhouse. The costs of the entitlement state are relentlessly
escalating. Regulatory capture means that the federal agencies supposed
to protect the public from the plutocracy end up serving the plutocracy:
crony capitalism rather than enlightened public administration is what
happens when the state becomes too powerful and too large. They will be
arguing that the way out of our present economic stagnation is to
unleash the powers of enterprise and competition.
To President Obama, this sounds like the worst kind of anti-FDR,
anti-New Deal reactionary Republicanism — Taft rather than Eisenhower.
When the President denounces tax cuts for the rich as “trickle down”
economics and as the cause of our problems rather than solutions, he
means it. Romney and Ryan, he will charge, want to take us back to the
individualistic economics of the Roaring Twenties, policies that in his
view were directly responsible for the Great Depression, just as their
revival under George W. Bush brought on the Great Recession.
The President will have some strong arguments — and large
constituencies, which are very much more useful — on his side. Americans
don’t by and large like budget deficits very much, but they are quite
fond of entitlement programs. Think of the 19th century, when populist
pressure led the government to reduce the price of federal lands until
the Homestead Act allowed any American who wanted one to get a free
farm. Bad for the budget deficit — especially after the Civil War when
the national debt reached astronomical levels — but that had little
impact on the voting habits of Americans who wanted free land.
The incumbents will also have a solid majority of the chattering
classes and the intelligentsia on their side. Intellectuals (and I
suppose that also includes low lifes like bloggers) had a special role
in the progressive state. Social scientists and credentialed experts
were empowered on the basis of “objective research” to provide policy
guidance for the state. The growing federal government hired a lot of
white collar college graduates, and even today Washington DC and its
suburbs are unusually rich and the median educational level there is
unusually high. There will be no shortage of thumb-suckers and chin
strokers backing up the president’s talking points and demolishing
Romney’s.
There are other constituencies with a stake in the status quo.
African-Americans benefit from both government hiring and government
spending. There will be farmers who look at Paul Ryan as a possible
enemy of the farm subsidies they love so well. There are a significant
number of Wall Street interests linked to the state and municipal bond
market, to the state pension funds, and to other economic interests that
benefit from the entitlement state.
The selection of Paul Ryan unifies the many constituencies of the
Democratic Party, and allows its standard bearers to run against what
they will portray as a threat to middle class prosperity, economic
fairness, racial minorities and both science and reason. On the
Democratic side, this is going to be a corker of a campaign: all the
tribes will march and all the flags will fly.
But if he unified and energized the Democrats with his pick, Romney
also solved two of his own most serious problems. Picking Ryan answers
some questions that so far Romney had not been able to address: Who is
Mitt Romney and what does he stand for? The answer is that he is a
business-oriented, pro-enterprise Republican who stands for limited
government, budgetary discipline and entitlement reform. The more
Democrats attack the choice of a “radical” running mate, the more they
contribute to Romney’s rebranding. Indeed, the more widely Dems denounce
Ryan as an extremist, they more they undercut the very telling line of
attack that Romney is a man without convictions who will say and do
anything to get elected. The more this looks like a gutsy, bold and
ideological choice, the more Mitt Romney looks like a bold and
principled leader rather than a flip flopping politician. More, as Michael Barone perceptively noted,
Romney’s personal experience and skills at Bain involve the kind of
numbers-crunching analysis that an election over the financial
trajectory of the federal government will involve. Romney hasn’t wanted
to talk about being governor of Massachusetts and most Americans don’t
have a clear picture of what investment bankers do. That makes him Mr.
Nobody from Nowhere — unless the election turns on issues where his
experience in turnarounds and financial workouts becomes suddenly
relevant.
The choice didn’t just define Romney; it energized the Republican
base and did it in a way that works well for the ex-governor. Romney may
be socially conservative, but because his personal views are rooted in a
religious faith that many of the most zealous Republican social value
voters deeply dislike, this connection can never make Republicans fall
in love with him. Fiscal conservatism, on the other hand, offers fewer
problems. It fits his life story and because he can point to business
experience rather than Mormon roots as the ground for his views, he
doesn’t turn the base off just when he wants to energize them.
And beyond that, whatever the problems of running against the
entitlement state, the country is much more interested in fiscal
conservatism than in social conservatism at the moment. A fiscal
conservatism campaign has a better shot at independent voters in 2012
than a socially conservative one; the Ryan selection unites the
Republican base on the ground most favorable to Romney from both a
personal and a political point of view.
Electorally, there is one more way in which the Ryan selection looks
smart. Unless the campaign goes very badly awry, Ryan is likely to
strengthen the GOP ticket among Catholics and in the Midwest without
weakening the GOP hold on the white southern and the Protestant vote.
Ryan may not deliver Ohio or even Wisconsin, but his presence makes the
ticket more competitive in the region from Iowa to Pennsylvania where
the GOP has its biggest hopes for flipping some states.
2012 looks like an election between two united parties who will both
be enthusiastic and both be convinced that the fate of the nation hangs
on the November result. That’s a good thing, on the whole, for the
country. Whatever else can be said about our electoral politics, nobody
can argue that they are inconsequential or that real issues have
disappeared. This is a serious election about important affairs and the
two sides will both be offering a coherent vision of American values
that allows voters to make a clear choice.
But if both parties are offering a clear vision of their values, I’m
not yet sure that either party has what the voters want most. From the
Democrats, they want some idea about how the entitlement state and the
blue social model more broadly can actually be preserved. The fiscal
trajectory does not look good; how exactly do Democrats plan to pay for
all the programs they want to protect and extend?
From the GOP, they want something else. How is this new economy going
to work? How will middle class Americans benefit from all these tax and
spending cuts? What will the GOP put in place of Obamacare and the
current entitlement program? Appeals to capitalist ideology and American
exceptionalism are all very well and they will likely hold the GOP base
together and deliver high turnout, but to win over swing voters, Romney
and Ryan will likely have to come up with a little bit more in the way
of showing how Americans can still get the benefits they most want and
need from a shrinking and fiscally sustainable federal government
.
Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan may or may not help him in the
Electoral College. But the selection has made this a better election,
clarifying the issues and giving the country something more
consequential than attack ads and gaffes to think about. We will have to
wait and see whether Governor Romney helped himself with this choice;
he has, however, helped the country and that seems like a good start.
Magic Man - Heart
Cold late night so long ago
When I was not so strong you know
A pretty man came to me
Never seen eyes so blue
I could not run away
It seemed we'd seen each other in a dream
It seemed like he knew me
He looked right through me
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"You don't have to love me yet
Let's get high awhile
But try to understand
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
I'm a magic man."
Winter nights we sang in tune
Played inside the months of moon
Never think of never
Let this spell last forever
Summer over passed to fall
Tried to realized it all
Mama says she's a worried
Growing up in a hurry
"Come on home, girl" mama cried on the phone
"Too soon to lose my baby yet my girl should be at home!"
"But try to understand, try to understand
Try try try to understand
He's a magic man, mama
He's a magic man"
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"I cast my spell of love on you a woman from a child!
But try to understand, try to understand
I'm a magic man!"
When I was not so strong you know
A pretty man came to me
Never seen eyes so blue
I could not run away
It seemed we'd seen each other in a dream
It seemed like he knew me
He looked right through me
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"You don't have to love me yet
Let's get high awhile
But try to understand
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
I'm a magic man."
Winter nights we sang in tune
Played inside the months of moon
Never think of never
Let this spell last forever
Summer over passed to fall
Tried to realized it all
Mama says she's a worried
Growing up in a hurry
"Come on home, girl" mama cried on the phone
"Too soon to lose my baby yet my girl should be at home!"
"But try to understand, try to understand
Try try try to understand
He's a magic man, mama
He's a magic man"
"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"I cast my spell of love on you a woman from a child!
But try to understand, try to understand
I'm a magic man!"
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