I upset a few people recently with my announced support for Pres. Obama’s re-election. Now that Romney has named Paul Ryan as his running mate, some people have asked whether I’ve changed my views. I have to answer no. A vote for Romney/Ryan is, my view, still worse than a vote for Obama. Here are my reasons.
Since 1996, the Republican Party has been effectively purging every element of the Goldwater/Reagan legacy. It began with Bob Dole, whose lack of principle led him to bar any Goldwater conservatives from the podium at that year’s convention, and who announced in his acceptance speech that there were five things he wouldn’t compromise on—and freedom was not among them. The situation worsened with George Bush, Jr., who ran on the platform of being an unprincipled ally of liberalism—and whose record proved it. It rotted to the core with the nomination of John McCain, a man with outright contempt for the Constitution of the United States. And now, again, it’s resulted in the nomination of an empty suit named Mitt Romney, who invented Obamacare before he was against it.
Each time, we who believe in limited government and individual freedom have been told “you’re right that Dole/Bush/McCain/Romney is an unprincipled career politician, but he’s the only nominee who can beat Clinton/Gore/Obama, so support him now and you’ll get half a loaf later.” And the half a loaf turned out to be a combination of deserved loss at the polls or giant expansions of the regulatory welfare state.
TARP and the bailouts, remember, are a Bush Administration program, and the Tea Party represented a movement within the GOP to end those things and revive at least some degree of interest in freedom. And that movement has been, in many ways, a great success. But in the end it has not been enough. The Republican Establishment has done again what it did in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008—it has taken for granted the support of the Goldwater Conservatives while spitting in their faces and telling them “support our guy ‘cause you have no other choice.” I for one will not fall for that again.
Second, as I’ve argued before, we are better off with a government divided between a Republican Congress and a Democratic president. This check-and-balance approach protects us from the welfare statism of the Democrats and the welfare statism of the Republicans more than a united government of either would do.
People typically respond, “What about judicial appointments?” But the Republican record is just as bad here as on everything else. Republicans gave us John Roberts, who upheld Obamacare, Antonin Scalia who upheld the Controlled Substances Act, Samuel Alito whose views on free speech are unsupportable, and Clarence Thomas—whom I respect a lot, but who doesn’t believe in substantive due process or a right to privacy and who thinks it’s constitutional for states to send armed government agents into your bedroom to drag you from the arms of your loved ones for “moral” purposes. Romney’s identified Robert Bork—the worst influence on conservatism in a generation—as an advisor for picking judicial nominees. On balance, there’s just no reason to think that Romney will choose better judges than would a Democrat.
To emphasize, I’m not saying a candidate must be perfect. If there were some reason to think that Romney’s liberalism were just a disguise, that might be a different matter. If there were some reason to think that Romney was really strong on some issues, that might offset his weakness on others. Chris Christie, for example, is awful when it comes to the Drug War and marriage equality, but he’s great on the fiscal stuff. With a candidate like that, the calculus would be different. But Romney is none of this. He is simply a politician, whose desire is not to accomplish this or that reform, but to hold political office. He will say anything necessary at the moment—but he will not take a principled stand in support of freedom. There is just no reason whatever to support him, except that he is not Obama. And that is not enough.
Most of all, the Republican leadership simply must be sent the message that they cannot continue to put forward anti-freedom, big-government Establishment candidates and count on the support of those who believe in free markets and limited government. We can no longer tell ourselves that we will accept a candidate who has nothing in common with the Goldwater/Reagan legacy “for now,” on the promise that some day we will get a genuine pro-freedom candidate. We tried it that way with Dole, we tried it that way with Bush, and we tried it that way with McCain. What has it got us? Every election we hear the same thing: “Accept this unprincipled, Establishment candidate, because he’s the only guy who can win, and then maybe you’ll get some crumbs later.” This just means, My Party, Right or Wrong. And that is not for me.
Update: Here is a contrary view from Craig Biddle. I don’t find it persuasive for two reasons. First, it’s absurd to say that Obama is “dedicated to destroying America.” Obama has deplorable policy views, but he is obviously not “dedicated to destroying America.” Second, I think that at this point, it’s far more important to concentrate on reforming the Republican Party than on winning national elections. As George Washington said, “If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.”
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