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COMMENTARY
March 17, 2012
Crop spray
Vulture capitalism has a bad name, and one can almost see why. The term, which Texas governor Rick Perry waved around Mitt Romney, plays nicely to certain social "values" shared ultimately by both Left and Right.The term is of course mischievously vague, but in the North American context I think it refers to an economic transformation that has been accelerating through at least two generations. Business itself becomes ever more centralized, and massive regulation makes big business and big government into conjoined twins. Economies of scale reduce most local business to franchise operations. In a "global economy," much production can be shifted offshore, to wherever labour is cheapest. The "American dream" is reduced to finding and keeping a job, or rather, the two jobs that are necessary to sustain an American family, after taxes. Capitalists adapt to the shape of the market, and Romney adapted brilliantly. Net, he created jobs, but was also ruthless in eliminating "inefficiencies." He made his fortune on enterprises like Staples, the big-box stationer he played a major part in founding. It creates unskilled service jobs that cannot be moved "offshore." And by its economies of scale, it wipes the landscape clean of all the small family businesses that once flourished in that line of retailing. Even "Romneycare," in Massachusetts - undeniably the model for "ObamaCare" nationally - is predicated on that big-box approach; and its "mandate" opened a stargate to new central intervention in every aspect of private life. From a "social conservative" perspective, there is no way to detach "social" issues from "economic" ones. The same revolution has been overturning received American values in both spheres. Romney, the clean-cut, smiling, former Mormon missionary who made a fortune beyond the dreams of avarice as a Wall Street turnaround artist, now uses part of that fortune to crop-dust his way through caucuses and primaries to the Republican nomination. A governor, and son-of-a-governor, he also nicely embodies a party establishment sufficiently risk-averse to have run boilerplate presidential candidates in nine of the last 11 elections. The singular exception was the unambiguously right wing Ronald Reagan, who won huge landslides in 1980 and 1984, and is now etched in memory like a face on Mount Rushmore. In Romney, Barack Obama has his dream opponent, not only to keep the presidency, but to improve Democrat representation in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. That Romney sucks air and enthusiasm out of a party that made huge advances in Congress less than two years ago, by swinging dramatically to the Tea Party right, should be clear enough. This is not clear, however, to an American pundit class that works almost entirely out of New York, Washington, and Hollywood, and for whom everything between the east side of the Adirondacks and the west side of the Sierra Nevadas is "flyover country." To these people Romney is the "moderate" who alone can hope to swing any part of the "independent" vote, which they in turn define as the narrow wedge of middlings trapped between the Democrat and Republican platforms. As up to half of the voting-age population in the U.S. doesn't vote, even in presidential elections, this is quite the assumption; and if I were a backroom boy, my question would be: What will make people who feel otherwise indifferent to, or alienated from politics-as-usual, actually rise off their tushes? Obama's decisive victory in 2008 was a case in point. His appeal levitated a considerable number of first-time voters, while inspiring the party base. The only candidate the Republicans have left this year who could possibly do the same, from the other side, is Rick Santorum - who appeals directly to two large, national, potentially "volatile" constituencies. The first is what pundits call "Reagan Democrats." That is, blue collar, often unionized, family-value worker bees, who can easily be persuaded that government exists to serve everyone else. The second, found generally a little farther from the big conurbations, consists of people for whom religion is actually more important than politics - religion, and a whole range of human activities that naturally resist politicization, yet are being politicized by the constant expansion of Nanny State. Nobody much loves Romney, who has so far accumulated 53 per cent of available delegates on 38 per cent of primary votes, and looks likely to clinch the nomination with his successful management strategy. That is to say, pouring millions into negative advertising to push state after state a few vital points toward a delegate haul, while discouraging overall turnout. This is what was referred to as "crop-dusting," above. According to one estimate, Romney's camp has spent an average of $17.14 for each vote he has received so far; Santorum's camp has spent $2.54. Were I a Republican warlord my thought would be: What could Santorum do with $5? And given what will be coming from Obama's billion-dollar re-election campaign, I'd recommend the candidate who can stand up best to crop spray. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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