I've been busy this past week with my day job as director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth. The year 2008 marks two anniversaries for us: 100 years since Nelson Rockefeller was born and 25 years since the Center was founded at Dartmouth. We are using the coincidence of the Centennial with the 2008 elections to examine Rockefeller's legacy in the three decades since he retired from public office.
This week, we hosted public lectures by two people with a lot to say on the matter. Yesterday, Richard Norton Smith gave a wonderful discussion of the biography he has been writing on Rockefeller for the last several years. On Thursday, Governor Christie Todd Whitman visited campus. She may be the only unabashed Rockefeller Republican with any political prominence today. A brief writeup of her talk is in the campus paper. She articulated as well as anyone I've heard recently the case for decentralized, responsible, and effective government. If she were running this year, she would have my vote.
So I started to wonder whether she might be a viable candidate. She would be an odd pick as McCain's running mate in 2008, particularly if Obama is the Democratic nominee. But what about 2012 against a Democratic incumbent? She seems to have recovered from her frustrating years at the EPA and has parlayed her success with It's My Party, Too
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Andrew: The RLC and your degree of support?
Andrew,
I am, for the most part, with you in supporting the positions of the Republican Leadership Council (if I may infer from your comments regarding Christie Todd Whitman that you support the RLC's positions).
I came across the RLC last year, and found it to be largely consistent with my policy preferences and philosophy. But with one concern.
Per their website:
The Republican Leadership Council supports:
* Low taxes with balanced budgets;
* Strong national defense;
* Engaged foreign policy;
* Protection of the environment; and
* Less government interference in individual lives.
[end of quote from website]
I'm with them on all of those broad policy/philisophical positions, BUT it was not at all clear to me that they would be willing to accept, let alone advocate and support, tax increases, or even to oppose tax cuts. They say "Low taxes with balanced budgets". Well, I think you and I agree that tax cuts today are inconsistent with the goal of balanced budgets in the short- and long-term, since it is neither desirable nor politically feasible to solve our fiscal imbalance problem solely on the spending side. In fact, resisting tax INCREASES is inconsistent with this objective.
Do you know what Whitman's position is, and what RLC's position is, on tax cuts/increases?
If she/they favor tax cuts, or oppose tax increases, does that diminish or limit your degree of support for her/them?
to spend or not to spend, that is the question
The Republicans came to power based on these ideas, and then promptly abandoned them to spend money on all the aspects of life that make rich people richer and poor people worse off. They obviously need this idea to stay relevant in their platform if they are to regain any semblance of respectability. It will still take at least 15 years for this to happen. Question, how would the RLC view the federal governments role in the Bear Sterns Bailout. Would it be consistent with low taxes and balanced budgets? And does the order above mean than protection of the national defense and protection of the environment trumps less government interference where these collide?
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