Columns such as this one by Michael Gerson in this morning’s Washington Post are certainly not helpful to the Mayor’s candidacy.? In it, Gerson speaks to the conservative who desperately wants to believe in Giuliani but keeps finding something to trip them up (see yesterday’s curious inclusion of Maureen Mahoney in an otherwise sterling lineup of judicial advisors).?
As a doctrinnaire Reaganite who was very close to backing the Mayor — prior to his unfortunate?remarks on public funding of a certain surgical procedure — you might expect me to relish the doubt Gerson’s column might raise in the minds of my fellow conservatives.?
But I won’t.? Gerson’s historic parallels are wanting in many important respects.
First, let’s hear from the former Bush speechwriter before discounting his thesis:
To begin with, the ideological shift would be greater than meets the eye. Giuliani plays up his continuity with the Republican past, particularly with Ronald Reagan. But Reagan, of course, was a committed social conservative who expressed reservations about choosing George H.W. Bush as his running mate because of his questionable pro-life views. Giuliani’s style and approach are actually much closer to those of another politically successful Republican president: Richard Nixon, pre-Watergate.
In his elections, Nixon appealed to conservatives and the country as a culture warrior who was not a moral or religious conservative. “Permissiveness,” he told key aides, “is the key theme,” and Nixon pressed that theme against hippie protesters, tenured radicals and liberals who bad-mouthed America. This kind of secular, tough-on-crime, tough-on-communism conservatism gathered a “silent majority” that loved Nixon for the enemies he made.
By this standard, Giuliani is a Nixon Republican. He is perhaps the most publicly secular major candidate of either party — his conflicts with Roman Catholic teaching make him more reticent on religion than either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But as a prosecutor and mayor of New York, he won conservative respect for making all the right enemies: the ACLU, advocates of blasphemous art, purveyors of racial politics, Islamist mass murderers, mob bosses and the New York Times editorial page.
This part of Gerson’s piece is least assailable.? But is also the part of the Mayor’s persona most loved by conservatives.? Few could argue that Giuliani would be a departure from the uninterrupted string of hyper-religious presidents America has elected over the last 30 years.? Nevertheless, one gets the distinct sense President Giuliani would be a friend to the faith community by virtue of his commitment to public decency.? President Giuliani might be a bit out of place at?the National Prayer Breakfast, but he would certainly not be hostile to it.? And his willingness to get into the periodic scrape with elitists would probably endear him to some of the folks that are today among his biggest critics.
Let’s move on to where Gerson’s?interesting analogy?begins to fracture.
But the Nixon example is also a warning. His presidency — from wage and price controls to the nomination of Justice Harry Blackmun– could hardly be called a conservative success story. As president, Nixon was a talented man without an ideological compass, mainly concerned with the accumulation of power. Giuliani’s 1994 endorsement of New York Gov. Mario Cuomo — the modern hero of Democratic liberalism — also indicates some loose ideological moorings. And, as with Nixon, Giuliani’s combativeness, on occasion, blurs into pettiness.
It has always been puzzling to me why the Left continues to hold Nixon in such disdain.? In many respects, Nixonomics could have been lifted from the public policy prescriptions of today’s Democratic Party.? His wage and price controls were disastrous and contravened market mechanisms much like today’s proposed?”windfall profits” taxes would do.? Their result was gas shortages and more inflation.? The Nixon Administration also launched a flurry of new bureaucracies that accelerated big government’s growth which started under his predecessor, LBJ.? Most notably, it was Nixon who opined in 1971 that, “we’re all Keynesians now.”
By contrast, Giuliani has been the?first presidential candidate since Steve Forbes (who backs the Mayor) to clearly and consistently articulate the imperitive of low taxes for economic growth and capital creation.? He is the supply-side candidate in the race.? Moreover, Giuliani was a budget hawk during his tenure of New York.? There is every expectation his fiscal policy would mirror this approach.?
Gerson does touch on the preeminent anxiety conservatives have with a Giuliani presidency:? the federal judiciary and the Constitution.? It was precisely the Mayor’s strident defense of “strict constructionism” that first got me excited about his candidacy — just as it was his comments about Roe and federalism that first began to turn me off.? So what to make of Giuliani’s judicial appointments?? Well, yesterday’s judicial advisory panel was welcome, as was today’s speech in Iowa reaffirming his commitment to originalism.
So while Gerson offers some intriguing similarities between the 37th President and the would-be 44th president, his?simile?is unsatisfactory?in many important respects.? The question for the Giuliani campaign is whether the pro-life community is willing to settle for a presidency which is likely to yield them significant public policy victories without the corresponding moral bully pulpit.?
July 18th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I think Gerson’s point is that Nixon masqueraded as a conservative while, being a power-hungry pragmatist, acted as a liberal on certain occasions. Heck, just a few months before imposing wage/price controls he lectured his cabinet about how there would be no wage/price controls and that there would only be jawboning.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a G-man, but its an interesting read nonetheless.
July 18th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
As long as Spiro T. Agnew is not the next V.P. I could care less
July 18th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Woah, Gary, hold on there.
Giuliani as the only candidate who “articulates the imperitive of low taxes for economic growth and capital creation”?? Have you not been following Romney’s policy releases and speeches? Check out his speech to the Detroit Economic Club: http://www.mittromney.com/News/Speeches/DEC_Speech
And Giuliani as a “budget hawk”? Are you joking? Under Rudy’s watchful care, NYC debt steadily went from $26.6 billion to $43 billion, an increase twice the size of Rudy’s tax cuts! At the end of his term, 15% of NYC taxes went into covering the interest on its loans. Budget hawk? Give me a break!
July 18th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Yep Murph… Rudy and that darn fiscal liberal Ronald Reagan really did a number on their respective constituencies!
July 18th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Just sayin’, Kavon. What kind of budget hawk increases debt 60%?
July 18th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Murphy,
Mitt Romney has an abysmal economic record — in fact, he even appeased liberal Democrats in Massachusetts.
Liberal Congressman Barney Frank: “‘I was very pleased,’ Frank said afterward. ‘Here you have a freshman governor refusing to endorse a tax cut presented by a Republican president at the height of his wartime popularity.’
Ouch.
See the Brownback for President campaign’s Mitt Flop File for more details: http://brownbacker.com/?page_id=14
Have you been there yet, Murphy?
July 18th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Billy,
I’ve been there. You deleted my comments correcting the record, apparently because they cast Mitt in a better light and took the wind out of your sails.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Billy, i think brownback lost all credibility on that flip flop meme with this stunt.
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/06/28/a-new-attack-ad-meet-senator-switchback/
July 18th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Billy,
Here’s one of the Romney quotes you omitted from your post, and which you deleted from the comments section:
“I very much support an economic stimulus,” [Romney] said. “An economic stimulus is a good thing for Massachusetts.”…Pressed further, he said, “I don’t wade into national politics. I will let our delegation sort that out.”
July 18th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
on the econ stuff…I have been pleased with both Rudy and Romney talking pretty strong on taxes and spending…on healthcare, unfortunately, Mitt will not run away from Massachusetts on the one issue he should…his health insurance “reform”
July 18th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Au standard,
Romney’s MA reforms are one of his strengths in a general election (and in the primary for that matter). Health care is a huge national issue, and Romney has shown that it is possible to reach out to the general public not by becoming more liberal (as some candidates have done), but by offering an innovative conservative solution to a problem.
I have yet to hear someone be critical of the MA plan and simultaneously offer a constructive solution to free-loaders billing their medical problems to the state taxpayers.
July 18th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Gerson’s piece is off base and its premise and its analogies are totally wrong. Richard Nixon campaigned in 1968 as a conservative (a mider version than Goldwater but a conservative nonetheless), advocating a strong foreign policy, military superiority over the Soviet Union, limited government, reduced spending, free market economic policies, and a “secret plan” to end the war in Vietnam. But once in office, Nixon did a 180 degree about face on most all of these issues. To state it more succinctly, Nixon campaigned as a conservative but governed as a liberal. In fact, one of my Democrat friends refers to him as “the last liberal president.” Rudy Giuliani, however, governed as Mayor as he campaigned. Like Reagan, his policies and operational governance were consistent with his campaign themes. Like Reagan, he delivered the goods as promised–perhaps even exceeding expectations a bit (also like Reagan). Personally, I am very weary of all this constant comparing of current candiates with past presidents, so I apologize for doing so here but I feel it necessary to prove a point. Gerson is so far off base. He has little actual background in conservative/libertarian/Republican politics or philosophy [no, being the lead speechwriter for George W doesn't count--the results speak for themselves there] and it shows in this very flawed column.
July 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
my greatest hesitancy with guliani is the supreme court situation. I don’t trust him to appoint the right judges at all. too important to risk it with him. 8 of 9 of every of teh 75 judges he appointed as mayor were dems who are not known for being strict constructionists.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2957.html
July 18th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
The real question about Brownback is if he is stupid enough to stay in the race, can he even win his own state? The answer is no, by the way.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
[...] Race 4 2008 IÂ examine Michael Gerson’s contention that Rudy Giuliani is the 2008 embodiment of Richard Milhous [...]
July 18th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
murphy: I have read that part of Romney’s MA plan is to force employers to pay:
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/07/problems-begin-to-creep-in-with-romneys.html
That sounds liberal to me so where do you get that Romney is a conservative?
I’m tired of commentators on this site making references to Thompson and Ronmey as conservatives.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Tom,
Check again. The provision forcing employers to pay was inserted by the legislature over Romney’s veto.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
In personal style Nixon and Giuliani are eerily similar.
However their political histories and issue positions are different.
A Giuliani administration might *feel* like Nixon’s but its policies wouldn’t be similar.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
murphy: While Romeny probably has a liberal legislature to deal with, he still signed it into law.
See Conservative Scholars Laud Giuliani Health Plan:
http://www.nysun.com/article/56131
July 18th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Is forcing employers to pay worse than forcing taxpayers to pay? Look at what Wal-Mart does, they encourage their employees who can’t afford healthcare to sign up with free government programs.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Tom,
Yes, he still signed it into law. The overall program was a far greater step in the right direction even with the employer mandate that Romney vetoed.
It sounds to me like you’re advocating that politicians sit on their hands if they can’t negotiate the *perfect* conservative bill with a 90% liberal legislature.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
“Under Rudy’s watchful care, NYC debt steadily went from $26.6 billion to $43 billion, an increase twice the size of Rudy’s tax cuts! ”
“What kind of budget hawk increases debt 60%?”
A Republican supply-sider, of course.
How much empirical evidence do you guys need anyway? Reagan QUADRUPLED the national debt with his lunatic policies.
George W took a surplus and will end up giving us 8 years in a row of deficits, adding another 2 trillion or so to your childrens fiscal burdun. And yes, Rudy too.
Bush the Elder had it right – its voodoo economics. At some point, the most glowing ideological hypothesis must come to grips with empirical reality. Supply-side doesnt work.
Or perhaps, in a sense, it really does. Despite the way it is sold to us, in the masses, it was conceived by the greedy wealthy who dont want to pay their fair share of taxes, the nation’s fiscal health be damned. On that level, it works just as planned.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
With all fairness to Reagan, I believe he wanted spending cuts and tax cuts but was only able to get the tax cuts through Congress.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Murphy: Like Congress’s sneak of putting in the minimum wage increases into the recent military appropriations bill?
The Democrats and liberals, if not synonymous, knock Iraq based purely on political reasons to push a social agenda.
They are operating alike, whether it is in Mass or in national politics to make sure they get their agenda placed into bills. It’s ashame to make employers pay more when in fact it ultimately hurts the employees, i.e. creating less jobs, etc.
bjalder: I understand your point, but what happened to people taking care of themselves, i.e. individuals paying for their own health insurance, getting better jobs, better education, etc.? Why should the employer be forced to pay? The reason why employers offer health insurance is to try to obtain better employees and or in order to compete with other employers in order to obtain more competetive employees. The Walmart employees would still need to show indigent status in order to reap the benefits of the welfare system, so for some people the question is, why work at all when they could obtain welfare benefits?
July 18th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Oh Tano, you know better than that. I’m not sure what the “fair share” of taxes for the wealthy is, since its always “more than they’re paying now” according to liberals. But given that the top 1% pays about a third of thier income in taxes, I think we’re being more than fair. And given the track record of the 70s, I wouldn’t be bragging about the nation’s fiscal health in a time of 70% top marginal tax rates.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Tom,
It’s a shame that negligent employers in MA will be charged $275 per employee. It would be a far greater shame to charge the taxpayers of MA for the medical bills of hundreds of thousands of uninsured and financially stable workers. You are still arguing from an idealistic view point, pretending that no solution is better than a 90% solution.
July 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Just to note, I don’t approve of denigrating Mahoney. For all we know, she could be a very good Supreme Court nominee. The problem with her is that she’s a blank slate. She is universially acknowledged as a brilliant lawyer though and there’s no reason Giuliani should be ashamed of having her on his team.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Tom, it seems to me that they are going to have to pay for it themselves. It will become part of their compensation package. All this does is prevent people with jobs who can afford to pay for health insurance from neglecting to get insurance and then using government programs when they get sick
July 18th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Very good article. Nothing more to say.
But Tano…
“Despite the way it is sold to us, in the masses, it was conceived by the greedy wealthy who dont want to pay their fair share of taxes, the nation’s fiscal health be damned.”
Yes, what is “their fair share”? Whatever Tano says it is?
If it weren’t for the “greedy wealthy,” you wouldn’t be sitting at your computer typing, driving your car to work each day, eating all the food you’ve got stored in your house, or watching your favorite candidate (who are you for, by the way, Tano?) on television. Get real. Without those “greedy wealthy” people, America would be lost.
You should admire, not denigrate, those that produce and achieve — which happen to be the vast majority of wealthy people. Don’t punish them for being successful.
Wealth envy — it’s a pathetic thing.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Bjalder — God forbid we could stop having government health care programs, right?
There was an EXCELLENT article from the American Conservative about health care yesterday on RCP: “My Body, My Choice” attacking Romneycare. I recommend you read it.
It’s not a “ninety percent solution,” murphy, to punish people for making their own individual choices about health care.
How about this 90% solution instead: People who can afford private insurance aren’t allowed to use government programs? What the hell would be wrong with that? Most people who don’t want insurance are paying as they go anyway, and don’t use government programs.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Rudy’s plan differs because it does not force employers to pay, which is a a form of socialism. While Rudy’s plan entices individuals to purchase private health insurance accounts, it does not force the qualified employers to spend their resources where the government mandates.
I believe that since the health system contains abuses and or individuals who are not covered then a plan that rivals the state to state mandatory no-fault automobile insurance would fair better.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Individuals would take responsibility for their health and it would promote individual responsibility, which has made the U.S. a very successful economic system. Indiividuals would be required to carry insurance policies covering a minimum guideline and therefore, it would lead to better rates for everyone and also would lead to less redistribution of resources. I also like the private health/insurance approach as well, which would allow consumers to build a health account up through investment, etc., if the individual were healthy and which be coupled with an insurance package.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
No TLGuy.
Romney’s plan doesn’t punish people for making their own individual choices about health care. It puts the responsibility of payment back upon the free loaders who are milking the system. Currently you can show up at an ER and bill it to the state.
Unless you acknowledge the problem that Romney’s health reforms addressed with the uninsured free loaders, this is a pointless conversation. And unless you are advocating that hospitals turn away the uninsured, you’re in favor of taxpayers getting charged for someone else’s medical costs.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Tom,
That’s hilarious. The proposal you describe in the beginning of your #32 is exactly what Romney enacted. As a result of Romney’s reforms, basic health coverage in MA has dropped from over $400 monthly to an estimated $175 monthly.
And yet you criticize Romney for a fringe penalty (which he vetoed) applied to a small subset of employers, which is insignificant to the benefits that Romney’s plan is already reaping?
Class act, man.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Murphy: the caveat to your post located within comment no. 38 concerns that it is not individuals who don’t carry health insurance because if you have assets then the hospital and or the creditor would be able to go after that individual. It is the individual who does not have assets or hides his or her assets and that does not have health insurance. The free loaders are those who do not have jobs and or have illegal jobs, hide their assets and have no health insurance.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Tom,
When I speak of free loaders, I speak of people who could afford health insurance but choose not to buy it, springing for that nice plasma TV instead.
I don’t understand most of what you’re trying to say in #35, but over the course of this conversation I’ve gotten the feeling that you like Rudy’s plan because you like Rudy. Your criticisms are generally marginal, and the parts of Rudy’s plan which you named simply sound like a copycat version he stole from Mitt! Incredible!
July 18th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Murphy: You should submit that question for the next Presidential debate. The plans differ are similar but differ because of but not limited to the employer issue. All in all, I believe both Rudy and Mitt are excellent candidates when it comes to economic issues.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Any analogy between Rudy and Nixon is a narrow one, as Gary rightly recognized but as Gerson, not surprisingly, did not. Nixon and Giuliani cannot be analogized as occupying the same space in history; the former made his runs for the presidency first as a sitting veep and then as the nominee of the non-incumbent party, the latter is making his run as the former mayor of America’s largest city and is running for the incumbent party nod. Nixon and Rudy cannot be analogized economically; the former was a Keynesian, the latter is a Forbesian (heh). The sole analogy as far as Rudy and Nixon are concerned is the one that Gary identified: Rudy, like Nixon, is running as a friend to religious conservatives without actually being a religious conservative.
I’m not really sure why this would be a problem. The very fact that it’s being mentioned reminds me of a domestic squabble, where one spouse tells the other, “I don’t want you to to the laundry. I want you to WANT to do the laundry!” Here, religious conservatives don’t want Rudy to overturn Roe. They want him to WANT to overturn Roe. The whole thing seems a bit silly. As long as Roe gets overturned, what difference does it make how we got there?
Any religious conservatives who think that agreement over theology means agreement over politics need only look at one James Earl Carter to be quickly disabused of that notion.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
DaveG: As long as Roe gets overturned, what difference does it make how we got there?
What makes you think Rudy would give us the overturning of Roe? As far as he’s concerned, Roe is good constitutional law and the government is required to subsidize abortions. And that’s what he calls “strict constructionism”. So when he promises to appoint strict constructionist judges, he no doubt believes that such judges could potentially think that Roe is good law and requires subsidization too.
Then, of course, there are all the non-Roe related abortion issues. Such as innevitable legislative efforts at restricting or expanding abortion rights, and vision casting of the pro-life or pro-choice movement.
So it’s really not as cute an issue as wanting Rudy to want to do the laundry.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:00 am
DaveG,
Your laundry/Roe example is, quite simply, brilliant.
July 19th, 2007 at 8:54 am
#38 by DaveG: excellent points. the one about not just wanting Rudy to facilitate the overturning of Roe, but wanting him to WANT to facilitiate the overturning of Roe is accurate I believe. But, back to the Nixon analogy. The succinct point is that Nixon’s governing policies were opposite those on which he campaigned in ‘68. Rudy’s governing policies as Mayor were exactly those on which he campaigned. This is the key metric of
comparison (not the theological issue on which Gerson focuses) and here Rudy does not equate to Nixon but rather is the opposite.