I made my first donation to any political campaign the other day.
In the past, the one guy who I would have donated to readily and freely was the one person I wasn’t allowed to, by law, donate to. That was my boss, Gordon Smith. I was forced into early retirement by the voters of Oregon in 2008, and found myself unexpectedly sympathetic with former Congressman Dick Tuck who said on the night of his re-election loss, “the voters have spoken, the bastards!”
There have been other worthy candidates to donate since then, but I never felt to donate. Why?
Well, to answer that, I must first present my political manifesto:
I believe that “no government can exist in peace except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.”
I believe that politics (or, political campaigns) are the means to that end.
I believe that in supporting and voting for politicians to achieve those ends noted above, we must select good, honest, and wise representatives.
I believe that there are good men and women on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as dirt bags on either side.
I believe there are honest men and women on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as dishonest on either side.
Where the wisdom lies, of course, depends on the political philosophy one adheres to. I am conservative. For reasons why, see my July 15, 2010 blog. I see more wisdom in conservative thinking than I do in liberal thinking.
So, in the great contest of the 2012 presidential primary, I will, for the time being, limit my thoughts to the Republican candidates. Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. How do these four candidates rate in the “good, honest, wise” calculation (while not entirely possible, for the sake of discussion I will treat the three characteristics as mutually exclusive)?
Newt: For reasons that have been splashed all over news, and have been circulating for many years now, I believe he is neither good nor honest, but does possess wisdom – yielding Newt a net +1.
And while I don’t want to dwell much longer on Newt, I must draw attention to something Peggy Noonan highlighted a few weeks ago. “What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don’t. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington.”
Ron Paul: Candidly, I don’t know much about Ron Paul because I can never get past the 3rd sentence of any set of remarks he makes. He seems like a decent man, and I don’t know that he’s ever been known to be brazenly dishonest. Score him +2.
But good gravy, his solutions to problems are so breathtakingly unwise, he is disqualified from my calculus even though he seems to have the 2 other critical traits.
Mitt Romney: Good, honest, and wise = +3. The guy is squeaky clean. You may not like his disciplined (aka boring) approach to politics, you may not appreciate his lack excitement or visible passion, but when did a presidential primary become MTV’s Real World or Survivor? This is a serious and sober business, and we need a serious and sober candidate.
Rick Santorum: Ditto to everything above about Mitt Romney. Good, honest, and wise = +3.
My answer to all the Paul-ites out there is to refer you to my August 30, 2010 blog.
Newt, Newt, Newt. As you’ve read, he got +1 because he seems neither good, nor honest. But, wisdom is something he possesses. He understands government, its weaknesses, limitations, and perhaps strengths. But in his zeal to get the nomination, he lost sight of the important principle that the ends don’t justify the means, as he layed waste on the capitalist economic system in an effort (an apparently successful one, at that) to damage Mitt Romney.
The capitalist economic system is the most effective means in society today to “secure to each individual … the right and control of property.” And because Newt assaulted one of my big three functions that government must deliver on, he not only caused me to scratch him off my list of prospective candidates, but he also drove me to contribute to his rival’s campaign.
Mitt Romney is my guy, anyway (for how I reconcile the “flip flop” accusation, see my February 7, 2008 blog). So he got the loose change from my pockets. He doesn’t need my donation, but he got it because of “Newt being Newt.”
(One might ask, why not Santorum instead of Romney? Santorum is a little bit further to the right than Romney, though, not as much as he likes to portray. I like Rick, and think he’d be a righteous Veep pick for Mitt because he’s got great street cred with the party, pretty decent with foreign affairs, and he knows the Hill and can be a good envoy for Mitt. But, being further to the right he’ll have a tougher time grabbing the middle in the general election, he’s less knowledgeable on the pressing issue of the day, the economy, and senators rarely make good presidents because of a general lack of managerial skills that Governors have.)
