Which 2008 GOP Candidate Inspired Genuine Enthusiasm?

[bobbyw24]

Ross:

Before the 2008 election, almost nobody outside Alaska and Arkansas had heard of Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee. But in a long and crowded campaign season, they were the only Republican politicians who inspired any genuine enthusiasm.

This is not entirely true. Obviously, Ron Paul inspired very intense enthusiasm. It is fair to say that this did not translate into much electoral success, but ultimately the same is true of Palin and Huckabee. What seems worth noting is that Rep. Paul inspired this enthusiasm on the strength of his substantive policy positions, which also tapped into some existing currents of public distrust of government. Huckabee and Palin, I’m sorry, thrived almost entirely on their personalities and charisma. That may be a bit unfair to Huckabee, insofar as his social conservative credentials were well-established and actually related to how he had governed in Arkansas, but on the whole it is true.

It is interesting that the one 2008 Republican candidate capable of generating much enthusiasm also happens to be leading the charge for accountability and transparency at the Federal Reserve, and this is producing real legislation that proposes to put greater scrutiny on how the central bank operates, and that will begin to address significant public dissatisfaction with the central bank. This is the sort of republican populist reform that Palin pretends to advocate and to which Huckabee mostly pays lip service. If much of the rest of Rep. Paul’s domestic policy agenda does not necessarily resonate with most Americans, his criticism of the Federal Reserve does. As Greenwald observes, this is because criticism and scrutiny of the Fed answer broad public outrage at how government and major private institutions conduct themselves that transcends party and ideological lines. It is worth noting how readily most observers, including more than a few Paul sympathizers, scoffed at how much attention he paid to the Federal Reserve and the ongoing depreciation of the currency, when these are proving to be two of the most important financial and economic matters of the day. Despite having had minimal electoral success in the Republican primaries, Paul’s candidacy has proved to be the more significant one as far as pushing reform legislation is concerned.

When Ross and I were at Princeton last month, I spoke of the need for a credible reform conservatism to challenge the interests of concentrated wealth and push for the reduction of the warfare state. There were not many takers. Regarding the latter, Ron Paul is virtually the only Republican office-holder who has any interest in such reform, and the audit of the Fed could be the beginning of a more serious effort in pressing for the former. There are many reasons why the idea of reducing the warfare state has so few Republican politicians behind it, and it would take a longer post to work through all of them, but what struck me about Ross’ post and his column today was that policy wonks are “waiting for the reformers” to some extent because they have already ruled out listening to the reformer(s) that do exist. There is at least one elected reformer that we have on the right, but as far as most wonks are concerned he wants to fix the wrong things (or they regard his solutions as disasters). Some of Paul’s proposals already command significant public support, and that would seem to point the way Republican reformers should start moving. Otherwise, the reform-minded wonks are going to continue to wait, because their domestic policy agenda leaves their natural constituents cold and their foreign policy horrifies two-thirds of the country.

Filed under: politics, populism

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009...still-waiting/

[Jamsie 567]

Good read thanks for posting!

[bobbyw24]

You're welcome

[bunklocoempire]

Liberty sells itself!


Bunkloco

[Expatriate]

Nasty comments at the bottom though. Maybe someone could take the time to post a comment thanking the author instead of criticizing him?

[james1906]

This thread isn't about Jim Gilmore?