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Jewish World Review Dec 20, 2011 / 24 Kislev, 5772 Will Newt lose the neo-cons? By Ben Wattenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I came to know former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich when we were Senior Fellows at the American Enterprise Institute. As the Presidential campaign of 2012 developed I sent him some e mails with my views. An early one informed him that he could win the nomination if he took off weight. He wrote back saying he agreed.
Let me give you a sense of how I see things.
The other day he sent me a note suggesting I write a piece about "why neo-conservatives should support Newt." Of course, I can't speak for all Neos; but I am a card-carrying Neo. On the assumption that "Neo-conservative" can be defined, I decided to try.
Items in the Neo-con belief system include reasonable but not far-out domestic liberalism and robust but careful domestic spending. I worked for President Johnson and know how beneficial big spending can be. It changed America much for the better. But spending during the Obama administration has been stratospheric --- much of it due to extraneous events --- needed stimulus spending was the big one. Still, it's been too much and he will be held politically accountable.
The Neos believed in a vigorous national defense but not one to be used capriciously. How does the President fit this mold? Open to question. Obama and Vice President Biden trashed "the surge" in Iraq and said that the whole deal was dead. They've changed their mind. The Iraqis won their war for liberty --- thanks to the U.S.
The Neos believed strongly in civil rights but parted company when left-liberals morphed civil rights into quotas. Also, the neo-conservatives found political correctness distasteful.
The very tough Neo stand on rampant violent crime was rock-solid. Accordingly the Neos couldn't handle all the sociological Officer Krupke liberal softening of it as the years went on. Too many people were getting killed, mugged and robbed.
Other notes I have and will send Newt include plummeting birth and fertility rates around the world, the inherently healthy U.S. economy, the American lock on "soft power" everywhere, and the potency of political liberty in everything we do.
And --- the notion that we should measure how we stand not just by money but by the goods and services we can command. (It's what income sociologists call "The Index of Well-Being.") This puts aside the often hard- to-interpret dollar figures and concentrates on what we have and can command --- more, better and more affordable cars, air-conditioning, dazzling mobile electronics, more living space, and educational opportunities --- to begin a very long list.
Newt and the GOP have baggage, much of it picked up in Righter-than-Thou Republican primaries. There is a sense the Republicans only care about the well-to-do. Recently enunciated immigration policies are harsh (although Gingrich's is softer). But Gingrich's seminal Contract With America made sense. It mostly stayed away from hot wedge issues and stuck to structural reform --- one such, "all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply the Congress." Touche. One of the bills that was promised was "loser pay laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages to stem the endless tide of litigation."
The 2012 Presidential contest will likely be between two parties and two men--- President Obama and Speaker Gingrich. What is likely to happen?
Like Speaker Gingrich, President Obama is surely an historic figure. and not just because he is the first American President of African American descent. But he is much more than that. He has galvanized --- not the 99%, but the 33%, the lower third --- the poor, the under-employed, the less educated, the beginners --- and the over-educated limousine liberals.
How do they match up otherwise? By my lights the President and his political background puts him well on the left of the American political spectrum. His experience as a community organizer has put a political imprint on him. His Senate voting record was to the left. Gingrich has been well to the right --- but not to the far right --- note again his daring view on immigration.
In any event, national leaders --- Obama and Gingrich are the two major ones today --- gravitate toward the political center to win a general election and then govern. But where are their respective centers by the Neo-con criteria laid out today? We will likely find out during televised Presidential debates. How would an Obama-Gingrich contest stack up? Both are quick and articulate. All things being equal --- often they are --- what would be the likely result? All the recent polling evidence shows that a contest between a candidate of the center-left will lose to a candidate of the center-right. In this election, Neo-cons will likely be part of that winning coalition.
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Comment by clicking here. JWR contributor Ben Wattenberg has been a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of 14 books. He has just begun writing The Second American Century from which some of the material here is drawn.
© 2011, Ben Wattenberg. |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
