On the Contrary

This Sunday there were a couple of themes that came out in the Sunday News shows and the editorials that I think are worth reiterating here.  The first has to do with how the Republicans have campaigned, who they are campaigning to, and the second has to do with our economy, its fix, and its future.  Let’s start with the Republicans.

David Brooks, the conservative, opined in “Ceding the Middle”, that modernizing the Republican party was critical to a win and that John McCain “…never escaped the straightjacket of a party that is ailing and a conservatism that is behind the times. And that’s what makes the final weeks of this campaign so unspeakably sad.”  David is arguing that there is still great value in conservative values, but that by not modifying their approach to the challenges of today, the party missed a major opportunity to revamp and revitalize the Republican Party.  He still thinks John McCain would be a great president, but I would argue that if he couldn’t lead his own party out of yesteryear, how would he lead the nation out yesteryear.  But the real question here is that if you are appealing to old tired out ideas, just exactly who is your base who thinks these ideas work?

Without the blinders of conservative philosophy, Timothy Egan opined in “The Party of Yesterday”  that the Republicans have focused their whole approach on the less intelligent and ignorant of our population. A recent study identified the most educated cities in our nation based upon percentage of college graduates:

“Among the top 10, only two of those metro areas — Raleigh, N.C., and Lexington, Ky. — voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election.  This year, all 10 are likely to go Democratic. What’s more, with Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia now trending blue, Republicans stand to lose the nation’s 10 best-educated states as well.”

Is this the less American parts of the country that Sarah Palin refers to?  The point here is very simple.  The Republicans have a campaign focused on anti-intellectualism, jingoism, and a fear based appeal by claiming we are moving to socialism, elitism, and consorting with terrorists.  They have not argued effectively on the issues and have focused on character instead to appeal to our less educated citizens.  I think the conclusion is obvious.  When your conservative philosophy for our future doesn’t really address the challenges we face, all you have left is to try appeal to those who don’t think deeply about the issues and react to fear.  Hopefully this election will be  a referendum on that kind of thinking.

The other theme was about what kind of an economy will we have for the future.  With the nationalization of the banking industry are we moving toward a much more nationalized capitalism?  Although conservatives see the need for strong intervention now, they would prefer far less government control and say in how banks operate.  But after the bank failures in 1929 and the reforms that were instituted to prevent such a catastrophe again, we forgot those lessons in conservative pushes to get government out of the markets.  The real issue here is when does government intervention limit the necessary risk taking that is the hallmark of a vibrant and innovative economy.  Thomas Friedman opined in “If Larry and Sergey Asked for a Loan”  that we need to regulate but in a careful and thoughtful way:

“Bottom line: We must not overshoot in regulating the markets just because they overshot in their risk-taking. That’s what markets do. We need to fix capitalism, not install socialism. Because, ultimately, we can’t bail our way out of this crisis. We can only grow our way out — with more innovation and entrepreneurship, which create new businesses and better jobs.”

The point here is that the world has changed and even progressives see how the market place is critical to our recovery and we must strike a balance.  But note a balance is a far cry from the conservative dogma of laisse-faire capitalism.  But I think the most important comment about where our economy is going was made by Paul Krugman in his editoral, “Desperately Seeking Seriousness”.  In this piece, Mr. Krugman opined that the Republicans were running a frivolous campaign and it was working until the economy focused the voters on serious issues.  He closed his editorial with this:

“Will the nation’s new demand for seriousness last? Maybe not — remember how 9/11 was supposed to end the focus on trivialities? For now, however, voters seem to be focused on real issues. And that’s bad for Mr. McCain and conservatives in general: right now, to paraphrase Rob Corddry, reality has a clear liberal bias.”

The point here is that we can always go on doing stupid things if they don’t have consequences that are immediately felt.  But reality has focused us on our economy and the market system as it has been working in this country.  The market place of the future will not be the market place of the past if we are to regain our leadership in the world.  It will be a market place that does have a liberal bias, but also as Mr. Friedman points out, a market place with “smart regulation”.  This is not a world for slogans and conventional wisdom, but for well thought out policies for our future.  These are not the voters that the Republican’s have targeted and is why they will lose because they are not thinking deeply about where we are going or presenting policies that can address our challenges.