Daniel Sutter: The challenge of political compromise
Kevin McCarthy reached a debt ceiling compromise with President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Unsurprisingly, fiscally conservative Republicans are criticizing the Speaker. Economics helps us understand the challenges in attaining the best bargain possible under given circumstances. House Republicans’ Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 revealed their debt ceiling wish list. Items included: rolling back discretionary spending and capping its growth, reclaiming unspent COVID funds, ending the student loan repayment pause and cancelation, rescinding the hiring of new IRS agents, repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s alternative energy subsidies, and strengthening work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps. Bargaining models offer several insights. The more patient bargainer, the one able to stay at the table longer, gets better terms. The party making the last offer has an advantage. A better payoff if no agreement is reached helps a party negotiate better terms. And failed negotiations result from imperfect information when one or both parties mistakenly think the other will accept bad terms. A government shutdown or default on U.S. Treasury Securities was the outcome from no agreement. The payoff for each side in this event would be voters’ allocation of blame. The negotiating process itself could affect this; voters might blame and punish in 2024 a party refusing to bargain. Neither side wants the other to think they will accept bad terms. This illuminates the Biden Administration suggesting challenging the constitutionality of the debt ceiling law before the negotiations. Successfully executing a ruse is difficult, as small tells reveal to a shrewd negotiator a willingness to accept less favorable terms. Speaker McCarthy and Senator Schumer both represented others who had to approve a deal. Representation creates a way to appear inflexible. Many union leaders have told management that their members would never accept given terms. People not in the room cannot give off any tells. Studying economic models only helps so much. A good negotiator must be able to put insights to work in real bargaining. Political bargaining is difficult for a second reason, namely, discerning which goals to compromise on. A deal including every item in the Fiscal Responsibility Act is clearly good. Deciding which goal to not compromise or whether a half measure advances a goal is much more complicated. Bargainers inevitably face Monday morning quarterbacking. Every Republican can claim he or she would have gotten a better deal. We cannot replay this negotiation with another Republican in charge, making such claims untestable. Compromise is often unsatisfying. People who care strongly about a vision of a good society and the government policies needed to implement this vision will dislike compromising their values. We admire frequently uncompromising politicians. The changing media environment over the past forty years – talk radio, cable news, the internet, YouTube, and live streaming – have given voice to purists on the left and right. Republicans think that uncompromising leaders – instead of Bob Dole, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, or now Speaker McCarthy – would put liberals in their place! This criticism confuses consistency in personal life and politics. We can always live by our personal values. We can always conduct our business and professional affairs by our (hopefully high) standards or treat others with decency and respect. Politics is the making of government decisions affecting everyone. Liberals and conservatives cannot both implement the policies needed to attain their visions. America is a liberal democracy based on the moral equality of citizens. This implies that only the consent of the governed legitimates government and that all citizens should consent. Only compromise between the values of the left and right can secure consent of all the governed. Advocates of no-compromise politics seemingly do not view those they would impose upon as their moral equals. Did Speaker McCarthy get a good deal? Only political insiders can possibly judge this. The willingness to negotiate a deal acceptable to both sides is good news if we want America to remain a liberal democracy. Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Will Sellers: Saint Hannah and her sinner son
The summer of 1974 in Washington DC was a political bullfight; there was one bull, but a host of matadors, picadors, and spectators galore just waiting to watch President Richard Nixon in his last gasps of political power. Congressional hearings, articles of impeachment, and an administration completely insular and unstable were all coming to a simultaneous head. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger metaphorically described this as the highest pinnacles of success descending into the deepest valleys of distress. Over the course of the prior few years, President Nixon had won the largest landslide election victory to that point in history, successfully concluded American involvement in Vietnam, and achieved the monumental foreign policy objectives of detente with the USSR, stability in the Middle East, and rapprochement with China. But in August 1974, all these achievements were forgotten, and with an atmosphere of political intrigue thick with smiling hatred, the bull in the ring faced the final cut. Almost everyone had deserted him as key members of his staff faced indictment, trials, and prison. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled he had to provide tape-recorded conversations to prosecutors, the House Judiciary Committee passed the first article of impeachment for obstruction of justice, and a group of key legislators informed him that he didn’t have the votes in the Senate to avoid removal from office. Nixon even called Alabama Governor George Wallace to enlist his support, but Wallace refused to intervene on his behalf with members of the Alabama congressional delegation and other Boll Weevil Democrats. After the call with Wallace, Nixon turned to Chief of Staff Alexander Haig and said, “Well, Al, there goes the presidency.” And so the true “man in the arena” faced the final curtain all alone. The day before, on national television, Nixon announced his intention to resign, and now, on the morning of August 9, in an impromptu moment, Nixon addressed the White House staff for the last time as president. In what has been described as rambling, unprepared, and certainly unscripted remarks, Nixon, perhaps for the only time, opened his soul and summed up his life’s work. These off-the-cuff remarks were recorded, and for history’s sake, transcribed for all of see. In the midst of a rambling apology, Nixon reflected on his youth and his parents and then, out of the blue and with no context, said: “Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother – my mother was a saint. And, I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three years in Arizona and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own. Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint.” An old saying, perhaps, said to comfort women of a different age and justify their sacrifices states: “The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world.” So, Nixon’s mother, Hannah Milhous, at least for five-and-a-half years, ruled the world. No book has ever been written about her, but the life of Hannah Nixon and the impact she had on her son and his consequential role in American politics and international affairs is worth consideration. Hannah Milhous was born in 1885 in Butlerville, Indiana, into a devout Quaker family of farmers. She was one of nine children; seven girls and two boys. Her father, Franklin, was an orchardist, who, seeing brighter days ahead, moved his entire family to California in 1897 to establish a tree nursery and orange grove with other Quakers in Whittier, California. While a “birthright” Quaker, Hannah’s branch of the faith expressed itself in a more evangelical bent, and at the age of 18, she had a religious experience that made her very devout and committed. Hannah was intelligent, and after completing high school, she attended Whittier College, where, by all accounts, she made good grades and was on the path to becoming a teacher. No stranger to hard work, she helped her mother with various household tasks, assisted with her father’s farm, and stayed up late each night studying. Her life would be forever changed when, at a Quaker Valentine’s Day party, she met Frank Nixon. They feel in love and married four months later. Hannah’s family never really approved of Frank and thought she had married beneath her. The fact that she married before finishing college was also a sore spot with Hannah’s family, who never seemed to warm up to Frank. But Hannah truly loved her husband, and, having completed her sophomore year of college, seemed ready to start her own family. Within a year of their marriage, Harold Nixon was born, followed by Richard in 1913. She had five sons in all, named after the early English kings; Richard, for the Richard the Lion-Hearted. By all accounts, Frank was uncouth, argumentative, and a tough father. Upon his marriage to Hannah, he converted to the Quaker faith but never truly left his Methodist roots. Hannah was the complete opposite – quiet and inclined to see both sides of an issue. She was also compassionate, and one area of disagreement with Frank was Hannah’s willingness to help the destitute. Frank wanted someone to work before receiving assistance, but Hannah would never turn away a tramp from the door and ran the household like a charitable operation. Even when the family had enough money to employ a “hired girl,” Hannah insisted that the servant eat with them at the table. Hannah was religious and committed to her faith, but she was also had a deep sense of privacy and was not a show-off when it came to piety. At night, she went into her closet to say her prayers. As was true of most Quakers, neither she nor Frank smoked, drank, or cursed, and she expected that her children would accept these same restraints. Hannah’s influence was so
William Haupt III: We need a new contract with America
“Until someone is prepared to lay out the systemic problem, we will simply go through cycles of finding corruption, finding a scapegoat, and eliminating the scapegoat.” – Newt Gingrich Bill Clinton’s first term in office marked the beginning of the Republican Revolution. His promise to reform health care was soundly defeated. His executive order lifting the ban against gays in the military failed to energize leftist activists. And a barrage of political and personal scandals plagued the Clintons during his first term. The most deleterious scandal was that Clinton illegally profited from a back door involvement in a failed savings and loan on the Whitewater River in Arkansas. But none was more injurious to Clinton than the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA created a common market for goods, services, and investments with Canada and Mexico. U.S. workers were forced to compete with global competition for jobs that hurt their standard of living and threatened their future. This ill-fated agreement angered the unions and labor-friendly Democrats who needed union support. And America turned to the GOP to right the sinking ship. Prior to 1994, Democrats controlled the House for 40 consecutive years, with a coalition of liberals in the north and east with southern blue-dogs. Since Democrats held the House for 58 of the last 62 years and the Senate for 34 out of 40 years, they had no fear of Republicans in the 1994 midterms. According to the University of Colorado’s Paul Teske, both Bill and Hillary Clinton were easy campaign targets for the GOP. From Hillary Clinton’s failed health care bill to numerous corruption cases in Congress and Bill Clinton’s foray into NAFTA, America was ripe for the GOP revolution. “Every revolution seems impossible at the beginning, and after it happens, it was inevitable.” – Bill Ayers It was obvious America needed a change. Liberal Democrats in the north and the good-ol-boy-left in the south had dictated Congressional policy for almost five decades – which wasn’t working. They were about to be reminded that the “political pendulum always swings both ways if it is balanced.” The late senator Bob Dole reminded Republicans that they had been the minority in Congress for so long that they had forgotten how to take charge and govern. He said in order to win, they needed a platform that had national appeal with universal solutions for all Americans, not just Republicans. In an effort to unite Americans under a common goal, six weeks before the 1994 midterm elections, House Reps. Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey introduced a “Contract with America.” As ballots were cast, this not only gave Republicans control of Congress, it would also save the Clinton presidency. The Contract with America was a legislative agenda by the Republican Party for all of America. It detailed the actions the GOP promised to take – if they became the majority in the U.S. House for the first time in four decades. This was a true bipartisan effort to solve major problems confronting our nation. “We are in a struggle over whether or not we are going to save America.” – Newt Gingrich The contract’s text included eight reforms the GOP promised to enact and ten bills they committed to bring to the floor if they took over the House. It included issues that had been polled during the first years of the Clinton administration that 60% of the American voters collectively wanted remedied. The text of the proposed bills included in the Contract was released before the election. They represented significant changes in federal policy that included a balanced budget requirement and tax cuts for businesses, families, and seniors. It also included term limits, reforms to Social Security, and tort and welfare reform. It avoided controversial matters such as abortion and school prayer. Gingrich purposely excluded how these bills and policies would be enacted and what they would cost. He did not want to distort his goals. He knew these issues concerned voters, and they wanted them fixed. And if he didn’t deliver, it would cost him his job. He only wanted to impress voters that if the GOP took over Congress, they would make changes in government that all of America wanted. Lou Cannon of the Washington Post wrote, “Democrats attacked the plan as extreme and radical, and its solutions would make America worse.” They claimed that a balanced budget, tax cuts, and welfare reform would hurt the poor and do irreparable damage to institutions that had been in place for decades.” Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan protested, “This contract is a ‘hit job’ on Americans!” Although the liberal media and the polls minimized the importance of “The Contract with America,” Election Day 1994 proved fatal for Democrats. According to Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Gingrich was responsible for the “Republican Revolution,” with the GOP easily taking control of the House and the Senate. They also won 12 governorships and took control in 20 state legislatures. As predicted, many of the elements of Gingrich’s “contract” that passed in Congress were vetoed by Clinton, and the ones that he signed did not radically change America as the left had predicted. Although the proposed balanced budget Constitutional Amendment failed to pass, Newt Gingrich and the Republicans led the crusade to end 30 years of federal red ink and balanced the budget. Joe Biden’s regressive “contract for our nation” was to turn America into a progressive Shangri la, with no strings attached. He promised to redistribute wealth from the rich with punishing new taxes. He vowed to stop drilling for oil, increase welfare, pay people not to work, and to open our borders. “I promise that all increased spending on federal programs will be paid for by the rich.” – Joe Biden Last election, the liberal media convinced America to buy into Biden’s “contract with America” and take out Donald Trump. We are now energy dependent on rogue nations with record-high inflation, a broken supply chain, a labor shortage, and have security issues due
Bob Dole honored in Kansas as tough but compassionate statesman
Fellow Kansans on Saturday celebrated Bob Dole as a tough but compassionate patriot shaped by small-town values, a strong partisan leader who could nevertheless work with political opponents, and a war hero who ultimately became “the greatest of the Greatest Generation.” Dole made his last journey to his prairie state for memorial services in his western Kansas hometown of Russell and at the Statehouse in Topeka. He was honored for the military service during World War II that left him severely wounded and the distinguished political career that followed his recovery. Elected officials and former elected officials from both parties said Dole embodied the state’s motto, “To the stars through difficulties,” and never stopped trying to help others. “He did not hide in a time of crisis. He looked for solutions,” former U.S. Rep. Jim Slattery, a Kansas Democrat, said during the Statehouse event. ”I often told Bob he was the toughest man I ever knew, both physically and mentally, but he had a tender heart.” Dole died Sunday at the age of 98 after a lifetime of service that included nearly 36 years in Congress and running as the GOP nominee for president in 1996. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who served more than a decade with Dole in the Senate and later surpassed Dole as the longest-serving GOP leader there, attended both Kansas events as well. Saturday’s events began with a public viewing of his casket and a memorial service at a Roman Catholic church in Russell, the small town some 240 miles (386 kilometers) west of Kansas City where he grew up during the Great Depression. Speakers for the state capital event Saturday afternoon noted that Dole’s career in elective office began in the Kansas House in the early 1950s. The dignitaries at both events included Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, Kansas’ two Republican U.S. senators, Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran, and former GOP U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts and Nancy Kassebaum Baker. Kelly said in remarks in Dole’s hometown that Russell was “where his roots run deepest.” Dignitaries in dark, formal business attire mixed in the congregation with local residents dressed in less formal farm and work clothes, a KWCH-TV live stream showed. “As we gather here today to come together to salute our state’s most favorite of favorite sons and the greatest of the Greatest Generation, we pause to reflect with immense gratitude on all that Bob Dole’s life meant to Kansas and to Kansans, to our nation and to the world,” Kelly said. Dole — known for a caustic wit that he sometimes turned on himself — also was honored Friday during a service at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden was among the speakers there. Another tribute followed at the World War II Memorial in Washington — a monument to Dole’s generation that he worked to get built. Dole became known as a congressional leader who could bridge partisan divides to pass legislation such as the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act aimed at preventing discrimination on the basis of disability. In Russell, Moran attributed that ability to Dole’s ties to a small town, where people who disagree on politics still mix in their daily lives. Speakers also pleaded for more civility in politics, with Kelly calling on her Statehouse audience to “pledge ourselves to be more like Bob Dole.” Moran added: “Think of all the things he’s been through and how hope had to be so important to his life to get through the day.” Dole will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but his casket was flown Friday evening to Salina, Kansas, then transported 70 miles (113 kilometers) west to his boyhood hometown, which now has about 4,400 residents. Oil production allowed Russell to boom when Dole was growing up, even during the Great Depression, with the first local well drilled in 1923, the year he was born. In Russell, Moran quoted Dole’s speech accepting the 1996 presidential nomination, in which Dole said, “the first thing you learn on the prairie is the relative size of a man compared to the lay of the land.” “His family and this community endured the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression,” Moran said. “In Russell, you could feel and see the challenges, the obstacles, the barriers that were put in people’s lives. Nothing was easy.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Senate leader, presidential candidate Bob Dole dies at 98
Bob Dole, who overcame disabling war wounds to become a sharp-tongued Senate leader from Kansas, a Republican presidential candidate and then a symbol and celebrant of his dwindling generation of World War II veterans, died Sunday. He was 98. His wife, Elizabeth Dole, said in an announcement posted on social media that he died in his sleep. Dole announced in February 2021 that he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. During his 36-year career on Capitol Hill, Dole became one of the most influential legislators and party leaders in the Senate, combining a talent for compromise with a caustic wit, which he often turned on himself but didn’t hesitate to turn on others, too. He shaped tax policy, foreign policy, farm and nutrition programs, and rights for the disabled, enshrining protections against discrimination in employment, education, and public services in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Today’s accessible government offices and national parks, sidewalk ramps, and the sign-language interpreters at official local events are just some of the more visible hallmarks of his legacy and that of the fellow lawmakers he rounded up for that sweeping civil rights legislation 30 years ago. Dole devoted his later years to the cause of wounded veterans, their fallen comrades at Arlington National Cemetery, and remembrance of the fading generation of World War II vets. Thousands of old soldiers massed on the National Mall in 2004 for what Dole, speaking at the dedication of the World War II Memorial there, called “our final reunion.” He’d been a driving force in its creation. “Our ranks have dwindled,” he said then. “Yet if we gather in the twilight, it is brightened by the knowledge that we have kept faith with our comrades.” Long gone from Kansas, Dole made his life in the capital, at the center of power and then in its shadow upon his retirement, living all the while at the storied Watergate complex. When he left politics and joined a law firm staffed by prominent Democrats, he joked that he brought his dog to work so he would have another Republican to talk to. He tried three times to become president. The last was in 1996 when he won the Republican nomination only to see President Bill Clinton reelected. He sought his party’s presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988 and was the 1976 GOP vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket with President Gerald Ford. Through all of that, he carried the mark of war. Charging a German position in northern Italy in 1945, Dole was hit by a shell fragment that crushed two vertebrae and paralyzed his arms and legs. The young Army platoon leader spent three years recovering in a hospital and never regained use of his right hand. To avoid embarrassing those trying to shake his right hand, Dole always clutched a pen in it and reached out with his left. Dole could be merciless with his rivals, whether Democrat or Republican. When George H.W. Bush defeated him in the 1988 New Hampshire Republican primary, Dole snapped: “Stop lying about my record.” If that pales next to the scorching insults in today’s political arena, it was shocking at the time. But when Bush died in December 2018, old rivalries were forgotten as Dole appeared before Bush’s casket in the Capitol Rotunda. As an aide lifted him from his wheelchair, Dole slowly steadied himself and saluted his one-time nemesis with his left hand, his chin quivering. In a vice presidential debate two decades earlier with Walter Mondale, Dole had famously and audaciously branded all of America’s wars that century “Democrat wars.” Mondale shot back that Dole had just “richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man.” Dole at first denied saying what he had just said on that very public stage, then backed down and eventually acknowledged he’d gone too far. “I was supposed to go for the jugular,” he said, “and I did — my own.” For all of his bare-knuckle ways, he was a deep believer in the Senate as an institution and commanded respect and even affection from many Democrats. Just days after Dole announced his dire cancer diagnosis, President Joe Biden visited him at his home to wish him well. The White House said the two were close friends from their days in the Senate. Biden recalled in a statement Sunday that one of his first meetings outside the White House after being sworn-in as president was with the Doles at their Washington home. “Like all true friendships, regardless of how much time has passed, we picked up right where we left off, as though it were only yesterday that we were sharing a laugh in the Senate dining room or debating the great issues of the day, often against each other, on the Senate floor,” Biden said. “I saw in his eyes the same light, bravery, and determination I’ve seen so many times before.” Biden ordered that U.S. flags be flown at half-staff at the White House and all public buildings and grounds until sunset Thursday. Dole won a seat in Congress in 1960, representing a western Kansas House district. He moved up to the Senate eight years later when Republican incumbent Frank Carlson retired. There, he antagonized his Senate colleagues with fiercely partisan and sarcastic rhetoric, delivered at the behest of President Richard Nixon. The Kansan was rewarded for his loyalty with the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee in 1971 before Nixon’s presidency collapsed in the Watergate scandal. He served as a committee chairman, majority leader, and minority leader in the Senate during the 1980s and ’90s. Altogether, he was the Republicans’ leader in the Senate for nearly 11½ years, a record until Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell broke it in 2018. It was during this period that he earned a reputation as a shrewd, pragmatic legislator, tireless in fashioning compromises. After Republicans won Senate control, Dole became chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee and won acclaim from deficit hawks and others for his handling of a 1982 tax
Darryl Paulson: Candidate’s running mate rarely affects outcome of presidential election
The national conventions are less than three months away and, as the nomination phase comes to a close, attention will gravitate toward potential vice presidential candidates. Let’s focus on the factors that have been used in selecting vice presidents. Most conventional wisdom is wrong. To begin with, most people and many presidential candidates select a vice president who they believe will help them win the election. Few vice presidents have had any effect on the election results. Jack Kemp did not help carry his home state for Bob Dole and Paul Ryan did not win Wisconsin for Mitt Romney. On the Democratic side, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was not able to carry Texas for Michael Dukakis, nor did John Edwards help the Democrats win South Carolina or other southern states. One of the few times a vice president actually helped a president carry a state was in 1960 when John F. Kennedy picked Sen. Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. If Kennedy had not won Texas, Richard Nixon would have won the presidency. In like fashion, vice presidents are sometimes selected to provide regional balance, although there is no evidence that this helps. When Bill Clinton of Arkansas picked fellow southerner Al Gore as his vice president, many thought this unbalanced regional ticket was crazy. When the Clinton-Gore team captured the electoral vote of four southern states, something that Democrats had been unable to do in recent presidential elections, Clinton’s choice looked like genius. In addition to regional balance, vice presidents are sometimes selected to provide ideological balance. With increased polarization in recent years, this is becoming a less important factor. In 1976, Ronald Reagan announced Sen. Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his vice presidential choice prior to the convention. Reagan hoped to alleviate the fears of some that he was too conservative and needed a moderate to balance the ticket. More importantly, Reagan hoped that picking Schweiker would convince some Pennsylvania delegates to support his candidacy over incumbent Gerald Ford. The pick of Schweiker did not help Reagan and Ford went on to win the nomination. Many Democrats in 2016 see Hillary Clinton as too conservative and too establishment and have urged her to choose a progressive as vice president. In addition to Bernie Sanders, other progressive names being floated are Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. A vice president is sometimes selected to stimulate participation by a particular group. Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to get more women to vote. That pick didn’t provide much help. Mondale won only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia against Reagan. Vice presidents have been picked to add gravitas to the ticket. Concerns about Reagan’s limited government experience led him to pick George Herbert Walker Bush as his vice president. Bush had been a member of Congress, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and to China, head of the Republican National Committee and head of the CIA prior to his selection. Bush’s son, George W., picked Dick Cheney as his vice president to add heft to his ticket. Cheney had served as Chief-of-Staff to Ford, been a member of the House, and served as Secretary of Defense for George W’s father. In fact, Cheney headed George W’s vice presidential selection team and concluded he was the best candidate. Do any of these factors help a presidential candidate win? The answer is no. A study by two political scientists, Bernard Grofman and Reuben Kline, analyzed 11 presidential elections between 1968 and 2008 and found the net effect of a vice president was 1 percent at most. If Clinton is the Democratic nominee, she may pick a progressive or choose someone like Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro. Although not well known, Castro’s youth and Hispanic background might help stimulate Hispanic turnout. If Trump is the GOP nominee, it is easier to put together a list of people he would not select than those he would. There is little chance that “lying Ted,” “little Marco,” or “low energy Bush” would want to join forces with Trump. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is one possibility since he dropped out of the nomination race early before Trump had the opportunity to insult him. Chris Christie is another option because he was the first major candidate to endorse Trump after Christie withdrew. Another option is Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Florida is a “must win” state and Scott endorsed Trump as a “businessman outsider who will shake up the status quo in Washington.” Although most of the factors in the vice presidential selection process have been shown to have little impact, there are two general rules that no president should ignore. First, pick someone you feel comfortable working with. Second, and most important, pick someone who is ready to be president. Nothing else matters. *** Darryl Paulson is Professor Emeritus of Government at USF St. Petersburg.
George W. Bush: From South Carolina cameo to starring role
George W. Bush won a bruising South Carolina presidential primary on his way to the Oval Office, as his father did before him. Now it’s his brother’s turn, and for Jeb Bush, the most consequential foreign policy decisions of his brother’s time in office are suddenly front-and-center of his bid to keep alive his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination — thanks to Donald Trump. The former president had already announced plans to campaign for his younger brother on Monday in South Carolina, marking his most direct entry into the 2016 race to date, when the GOP front-runner used the final debate before the state’s Feb. 20 primary as an opportunity to excoriate George W. Bush’s performance as commander-in-chief. The former president, Trump said, ignored “the advice of his CIA” and “destabilized the Middle East” by invading Iraq on dubious claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. “I want to tell you: they lied,” Trump said. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none.” Trump didn’t let up as Bush tried to defend his brother, dismissing his suggestion that George W. Bush built a “security apparatus to keep us safe” after the 9/11 attacks. “The World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign, remember that,” Trump said, adding: “That’s not keeping us safe.” The onslaught — which Jeb Bush called Trump enjoying “blood sport” — was the latest example of the billionaire businessman’s penchant for mocking his rival as a weak, privileged tool of the Republican Party establishment, special interests and well-heeled donors. But the exchange also highlighted the former Florida governor’s embrace of his family name and history as he jockeys with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to emerge from South Carolina as the clear challenger to Trump, who won the New Hampshire primary, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the victor in Iowa’s caucuses. The approach tacks away from Bush’s months-long insistence that he’s running as “my own man,” but could be a perfect fit for South Carolina. Noted South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who ended his GOP presidential campaign in December and endorsed Jeb Bush in January, said: “The Bush name is golden in my state.” George W. Bush retains wide appeal among Republicans, from evangelicals to chamber of commerce business leaders and retired members of the military. All are prominent in South Carolina, with Bush campaign aide Brett Foster going so far as to say that George W. Bush is “the most popular Republican alive.” After the debate, some Republicans again suggested Trump had gone too far. Bush wasn’t alone on stage leaping to his brother’s defense, with Rubio coming back to the moment to say, “I thank God all the time it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore.” The attack on George W. Bush carries risk for Trump, given the Bush family’s long social and political ties in South Carolina and the state’s hawkish national security bent, bolstered by more than a half-dozen military installations and a sizable population of veterans who choose to retire in the state. Trump has repeatedly defied predictions that his comments might threaten his perch atop the field. And as he jousted Saturday with Trump, Jeb Bush said, “this is not about my family or his family.” But the Bush family does have a history in the state that’s hard to overlook. In 2000, George W. Bush beat John McCain in a nasty contest, marred by rumors that McCain had an illegitimate black child. McCain adopted a child from Bangladesh. Exit polls showed George W. Bush won nearly every demographic group. George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, won twice here, beating Bob Dole in 1988 and demolishing Pat Buchanan in 1992. One of the elder Bush’s top strategists, Lee Atwater, hailed from South Carolina and remains a legend in GOP campaign annals. Last week, Jeb Bush touted the endorsement of Iris Campbell, the widow of former South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell, a national co-chairman of previous Bush presidential campaigns. Yet even as he defended his brother’s presidency at Saturday’s debate, Jeb Bush found a way to distance himself from George W. Bush’s business affairs and to criticize Trump at the same time. The issue: eminent domain. Before entering politics, George W. Bush was part-owner of the Texas Rangers, and their home city of Arlington, Texas, used eminent domain to take private land and build a stadium for the team. Trump has defended such uses of eminent domain as a way to foster economic development. Retorted Bush, who argued eminent domain should be reserved for public infrastructure projects, “There is all sorts of intrigue about where I disagree with my brother. There would be one right there.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
History shows Marco Rubio resignation would be rare event
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s editorial on Wednesday that called on Marco Rubio to resign “and not rip us off” ignited a number of others to follow suit. It came as Rubio has continued to miss votes in the upper chamber of Congress while on the campaign trail and unapologetic about it. Instead, he’s indicated he doesn’t even really like the job. Historical precedent, though, indicates that if Rubio quit, it would be the exception to usual presidential politics. On his Smart Politics blog, Eric J. Ostermeier of the University of Minnesota writes that since 1972 there have been a total of 50 presidential candidacies by 45 sitting U.S. senators. Only one of these resigned before the presidential election: Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996. Dole only did so, in June 1996, after he had already secured the GOP nomination, and after the last batch of presidential primaries. During the past 40 plus years no other sitting U.S. senator running for the White House cut short their day job before the presidential election. Like Rubio, several of those senators were running for president in cycles in which their term in the nation’s upper legislative chamber was coming to an end – 12 in all: Four opted not to run for re-election: Democrat Fred Harris of Oklahoma (1972), North Carolina Democrat John Edwards (2004), Florida Democrat Bob Graham (2004), and Florida Republican Marco Rubio (2016) Seven failed in their presidential bids but still won re-election to their U.S. Senate seats that cycle: West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd (1976), Texas Democrat Lloyd Bentsen (1976), Washington Democrat Scoop Jackson (1976), Kansas Republican Bob Dole (1980), Texas Republican Phil Gramm (1996), Utah Republican Orrin Hatch (2000), and Delaware Democrat Joe Biden (2008) One is currently running for both offices: Kentucky Republican Rand Paul (2016) And one stat where Rubio would definitely like to emulate Barack Obama: Of those 50 senators who have run for president since 1972, only one – Obama – actually became president. Much has been made of Rubio’s voting record. He’s missed about 34 percent of his from from the start of the year through last week. However, as reported by PolitiFact, from 2007 to 2008, Obama missed more than 64 percent of votes. From 2003 to 2004, John Kerry missed 72 percent of votes, and former Florida Sen. Graham missed about 37 percent of his votes when he ran in 2003-2004. Ironically, the man that Rubio succeeded in the Senate, Mel Martinez, did leave his seat more than a year before his term was set to expire.
Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio bring Spanish fluency to 2016 campaign
Republicans are bringing something unique to the 2016 presidential campaign: an ability to speak to Americans in both of their main mother tongues, Spanish as well as English. Democrats can’t match it. Previous GOP candidates couldn’t. But now, paradoxically, the party that’s on the outs with many Hispanic voters over immigration is the party that has serious presidential candidates who are surefooted in their language. It remains to be seen how much Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio will use their fluent Spanish in the campaign. Rubio offered a few words of it in his presidential campaign announcement, quoting his Cuban grandfather, a small but notable addition in a speech meant for everyone to hear, not just a Hispanic crowd. Bush peppered his remarks with Spanish in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, making an obvious cultural connection with many in his audience. Even a modest amount of Spanish will be more than presidential campaigns have known. President George W. Bush rarely used his barely high school-level Spanish and, when he did, it was a token nod, not a real conversation. President Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton have gamely tried a few lines now and then. Bilingualism is a tricky issue in politics and you can be sure that careful calculations are being made on how and when to display it in the Bush and Rubio campaigns. Bush the former governor and Rubio the senator have spoken Spanish liberally in Florida politics and other settings. But this is a national campaign for the highest office. Republicans, on the one hand, want to win over Hispanic voters. On the other, they want to avoid upsetting some traditional supporters who — whether because of immigration concerns, nativism or simple cultural tradition — want English only. A second Hispanic-American in the Republican race, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has largely lost the language of his Cuban-born father and calls his Spanish “lousy.” (Another contender, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also is not fluent.) Should Bush or Rubio go on to win the nomination, and should Clinton take the Democratic prize, history is sure to be made in 2016. After having elected the first black president, Americans would now be putting either the first fluent Spanish-speaker, or the first woman, in the presidency. How much does language matter? No one thinks speaking Spanish is an easy ticket to Hispanic votes. Especially for Republicans, who saw Obama take 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012. But it’s a sign of respect, says Bob Quasius, founder of Cafe Con Leche Republicans, which presses for the Republican Party to become more inclusive of Hispanics. “Even if your Spanish isn’t very good, it’s welcome.” Hispanic turnout has increased in every election for nearly three decades, meaning it may top 10 percent of the electorate in 2016, according to Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center. Even so, among registered Hispanic voters, 83 percent prefer English or are bilingual, Pew has found. Only 17 percent identify Spanish as their dominant language. Spanish is much more heavily preferred among Latinos who are not registered to vote. “If a candidate can speak Spanish, it could at least get Hispanics interested,” Lopez said. “But it’s not going to be the deciding factor.” • • • Rubio The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio hails from heavily Hispanic West Miami and grew up bilingual. He shifts comfortably between the two languages while running Senate meetings, appearing at news conferences and interacting with people. Rubio delivered two versions of the 2013 Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union, in English and Spanish. As a Senate candidate, he used both languages with South Florida crowds. Al Cardenas, former head of the Florida Republican Party, remembers Rubio firing up volunteers in the two languages while working for Bob Dole‘s unsuccessful 1996 White House run. “He was then, and he is now, just as comfortable doing that in one language as the other,” Cardenas said. It’s too early to know how much Rubio will do that outside of Hispanic-heavy events in the presidential campaign. When he spoke about his grandfather to Iowa social conservatives on the weekend, he did not use Spanish. • • • Bush Bush speaks Spanish at home with his Mexican-born wife, Columba, and whenever he encounters people who approach him in that language. Like Rubio, he clearly wants to draw more Latinos behind his effort, and he can be expected to address a variety of Hispanic functions, as he was doing Wednesday in Houston. He earned thunderous applause in Puerto Rico at events where he mixed English with effortless Spanish. “I love it,” said Maria Elena Cruz, a 59-year-old government worker from Toa Baja. “He speaks Spanish just like us.” “That makes us feel good,” said Paola Bazzano, 72, a doctor’s assistant. “It’s a way to establish good rapport.” How far he will go with his bilingualism, though, is not yet apparent. His speech announcing his candidacy, whenever it comes, will offer a clue as to what he will do when speaking to a national audience. Will he say a few words of Spanish, like Rubio? Make a bolder statement, with even more? • • • CRUZ Cruz is the first Hispanic senator from Texas, where many residents are native Spanish speakers. He struggles with the language, however, and nixed a proposal for a debate in Spanish in his 2012 Senate campaign. “Like many second-generation Hispanic immigrants, he is conversational, though not fluent in Spanish,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said. “But that will not hinder his efforts to build a robust Hispanic outreach operation.” Republished with permission from The Associated Press.
