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Jewish World Review Jan 10, 2012/ 15 Teves, 5772 ' Difficult Romney question By Robert Robb
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Mitt Romney's success in Iowa and probable victory in New Hampshire confronts Republican primary voters elsewhere with this difficult question: Does it matter that Romney seems to lack core conservative political convictions?
Romney and his supporters will protest, of course, that he does have conservative convictions. That, however, is difficult to accept.
Bill Buckley, the founder of modern American conservatism, came up with a useful distinction he first used to describe Richard Nixon, if memory serves. Nixon was conservative, but not "a conservative."
By that, Buckley meant that conservatives were the political team that Nixon instinctively identified with, but that he lacked a philosophical commitment to conservatism as a guide to his actions.
Buckley made the same distinction about the George Bushs and I borrowed it to explain where John McCain fit in the world of political ideology.
It is not at all unusual for Republicans to nominate someone who is conservative but not a conservative. In fact, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan are arguably the only true conservatives the Republicans have nominated in the post-World War II era.
Romney clearly isn't "a conservative." Moreover, it's not clear that he's even "conservative," as Buckley defined it.
Social conservatives worry about Romney's flip-flops on their issues. I think that worry can be set aside.
The fairest guess is that Romney just doesn't care that much about social issues, such as abortion. If elected president, Romney will also be the titular head of the Republican Party and social conservatives are the dominant force in the party.
Romney won't want trouble on issues he doesn't really care about. There's little danger he will flip back to the positions he advocated when running in Massachusetts.
More revealing, and disturbing, was Romney's repudiation of Reagan when running for U.S. Senate in 1994. He defiantly proclaimed that "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush." At that time, conservatives clearly weren't the political team with which Romney instinctively identified. In fact, he apparently found them repugnant.
That was a long time ago. But there continue to be indications that conservatism is a political suit Romney is wearing to fit in.
The most obvious this election cycle is his proposal to eliminate investment income taxes for those making less than $200,000 a year. This makes no economic sense. If reductions in investment income taxes are intended to stimulate investment, they need to apply to those with surplus income to invest, which is mostly those making more than $200,000 a year. Those making less already tend to have their investments in tax deferred programs, such as 401(k)s.
So, this is a political statement by Romney. And the statement is that he will abandon conservative tax principles if he finds them politically inconvenient.
The fairest guess is that Romney doesn't instinctively identify with any political team. Instead, at root, he's a problem-solving technocrat. And a pretty good one at that.
A strong argument could be made that a problem-solving technocrat is what the country needs right now as president.
The Republican Party owes the country a presidential nominee who will try to fix the federal government's finances. Romney could be such a nominee. But, at present, he's not.
Romney says he wants to cut spending, but is vague about where. He's better on entitlement reform, but in general is running on fixing the economy rather than the federal government's finances.
The pessimistic view here is that the federal government's finances won't get fixed until credit markets require it, as is happening in Europe.
Romney, of all the candidates in either party, would be best equipped to deal with that crisis if it happens. The hope was for more.
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JWR contributor Robert Robb is a columnist for The Arizona Republic. Comment by clicking here.
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