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COMMENTARY
November 12, 2011
Dark horse
For a person of conservative persuasion, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate debates have been a source of pain. It doesn't help that there are too many candidates on stage, and responses are limited not only by current TV practice, but by necessity to 30-second clips. But we have candidates up there who cannot fill 30 seconds.Those smug liberal democrats who say the Tea Party can't field credible candidates, are being vindicated. Those who twist the knife a little more, and say Sarah Palin looked good compared to this lot, are unintentionally right. Though I'll insist, through the mockery, that Palin is indeed among the most intelligent and articulate of U.S. politicians; that she seldom says things downright foolish; and that her Alaska background equipped her fairly well. In particular, she articulates an understanding of the way citizen and government interact, truly worth hearing out. And the way she was slandered in the media was outrageous. Paradoxically, the proof she was the best offering from the Tea Party field, came with her decision not to run for president. She is a grown woman, very far from a narcissist. She understood that her candidacy would be counter-productive, and she put party and country ahead of her ambitions. I will continue watching her over the long run, because I think she is among those rare politicians who, even through the daily persiflage, fake scandal, and genuine controversy, continues to learn and grow. This is just what politicians fail to do, and why our dying cult of youth has in turn so failed them. We need politicians from outside the goldfish bowl. Those who have spent most of their lives inside, cannot do much growing. Their attention is kept focused on the sound-bite battles, and the markets for political pork. Often they weren't such impressive young people to begin with; but whether or not, their intellectual and spiritual development is arrested by political careerism. The poll front-runners now are Mitt Romney and Herman Cain. Romney is smooth, shallow, and flourishing because he's a professional tactician in a field of goofs. He has no real convictions, no substance. His final victory is hardly inevitable, because he cannot inspire the Republican rank-and-file, and they don't trust him. Cain, the successful pizza-chain manager, though a good man and ambushed with sexual harassment charges, has little comprehension of the job for which he is now applying. His "9-9-9" proposal is pizzachain gimmickry, and his answers to questions that go beyond taxes show him out of his depth. Perry could have swept, but has self-destructed. Let's not waste space. Ron Paul, the libertarian standardbearer, is intellectually sharp and courageous, but working from premises that are simplistic and crazy. He can't win, but must be humoured sufficiently to discourage him from vote-splitting as a third-party candidate. And I won't bother even to name the others, who are at best attractive talking heads. None is any longer seriously in the running. Except Newt Gingrich. Here is another politician who has grown. He has done so since he held the speakership of the House of Representatives, when he advanced all the policies that made the Clinton presidency appear outwardly successful - the welfare reform, the balanced budget, deregulations, and other administrative reforms - all achieved by dexterity and persistence over Clinton's vetowielding opposition, then finally appropriated by Clinton when it appeared they were winners. Gingrich's fatal flaw was a streak of childishness that ultimately cost him most of the credit for what he had achieved. Character matters, and curiously Clinton and Gingrich were paired in another way: classic cases, in their (alas) only semiprivate lives, of boys from broken homes (Gingrich with less excuse). Both public policy wonks of a high order, and political tacticians ditto; both with clay feet displayed in reckless personal judgments. Clinton the greater charmer; Gingrich the better mind. With remarkable, and admirable candour, he claims to have matured. His Catholic conversion is not irrelevant to this; he has risen out of himself, as a political operator, and sees the landscape in a more elevated way. He does not quit, but will not play posturing games to win. I think he has been steadily rising thanks to the perception that he is the one full adult on the debating platform. He doesn't take cheap shots, is consistently civil, and is prepared to go into knowledgeable detail well beyond the 30-second time allocations. He sounds like the smartest candidate, because he is. His knowledge is both historically deepest, and geographically broadest: he has by far the best grasp of foreign policy issues, which are vital to the whole western world. On balance, I think he is the anti-Obama, and would do the best job of exposing Obama's weaknesses and failures in campaign. And from what I can see, his party is beginning to understand that. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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