Romney’s search for a fresh issue

“Okay, fellas, what can I talk about that’s more outrageous than Obama’s mediocre economy?

“How about leading from behind in the Middle East, Governor? You could use your stuff about faith and free markets, our genius at starting bipartisan wars and at fixed things everywhere. You could hammer him about Egypt and Iraq’s monthly unemployment reports too!

“Gosh, I could look him in the eye and say: ‘They were dancing in the streets four years ago; but are Muslims feeling better today?’”

This transcript is incomplete; it’s only rough literary non-fiction. And it isn’t intended to slight Romney’s promise to protect Medicare and close any remaining gaps in the American social safety net—the one that tens of thousands of bleeding-heart sociologists and nutritionists have overlooked since the invention of the national census. It’s just one of those telling moments Bob Woodward hears about and then uses to explain big history for each fall’s bestseller’s list.

Nevertheless, for the first time since Ronald Reagan started reading speeches about markets, conservative strategists actually seem to be running away, not from one of their own mistakes, but from their own faith that the economy is their issue.

For a generation it didn’t matter if Democrats talked more about workers and consumers. Republican abstractions about tough management and tax cuts were supposed to be better for the economy and that’s what grown-ups had to vote for. However, is Obama’s "likability" outside of Washington and those tax-exempt shelters for faith-based politics now killing the economy as the issue for Mitt Romney? That’s the conclusion of economic historian neo-con Niall Ferguson.

“The economy's in the tank, yet Romney can't seem to gain an edge. One thing's for sure: this election is about personal likability. It's not the economy, stupid.”

Ferguson's logic is impeccable: it excuses his followers and questions the intelligence of everyone else.

Obama isn’t that likeable. The problematic elephant in the Republican war-room in Boston is not that the people are stupid or dazzled by the President. The problem is that the Republican economic alternative makes them nervous.

Obama’s uninspiring speech at his convention simply told Americans: he would guard their interests. He didn’t promise to transform anything or even to sweat like a business executive. He’s up nearly five points in the polls.

Jeffrey Sachs and Niall Ferguson: duelling visions, in person

One thing that made the 60s exciting—and great—was the vivid personal animosity between many of its best protagonists. Gore Vidal and William Buckley, Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ripped into one another in public and openly feared what the other’s ideas would do to America, and the world.

Now rising above the incoherence of statistics and pup-tents in parks, we finally have a duel of egos worthy of that earlier era of danger and change.

A week ago, on America’s blue-ribbon public affairs show GPS, Fareed Zakaria asked world economist Jeffrey Sachs and world historian Niall Ferguson what they thought of the OWS movement. Almost instantly, they went for each other's throats. A week later, Sachs made it clear in an interview in The Toronto Star that he at least has no desire to patch things up:

Star: You described the top 1 per cent as lazy. They’ve stopped trying, you said. That’s quite an indictment.

Sachs: Well, I was saying that many behaved to game the system. And I was specifically talking about Wall Street. The CEOs. The people who wanted the easy way to phenomenal wealth, even if that way was not through their economic prowess but through financial fraud or through corporate lobbying.

Star: On Fareed Zakaria’s show, GPS, historian Niall Ferguson accused you of overstepping the mark, moving from academic to demagogue. What is your response?

Sachs: Well, I thought he overstepped the mark moving to a blatantly inappropriate ad hominem attack.

Star: You seemed upset that he was calling you names.

Sachs: I thought he was obnoxious.

Star: What does Ferguson not get?

Sachs: He has long represented powerful interests. He works with financial companies... I don’t know. Those are his choices. They’re not my choices.

            Click on: www.thestar.com/news/article/1086149

Jeffrey Sachs doesn’t need to exaggerate to get attention. Furthermore, he’s not a trivial outsider with nothing to lose. He enjoyed tremendous influence during the glorious early days of neo-liberalism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Government of Russia and other post-totalitarian states turned to him for ready advice on how to create markets and appropriate regulatory infrastructure.  

Desperate places and big problems don’t intimidate him. Before writing his latest book, The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics after the Fall, he wrote The End of Poverty. He has twice been identified by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Sachs perspective on today’s problems is surprisingly radical. He doesn’t say that simply revving up the recently collapsed capitalist culture will be enough. Here’s his American agenda in today’s New York Times:

“Following our recent financial calamity, a third progressive era is likely to be in the making. This one should aim for three things. The first is a revival of crucial public services, especially education, training, public investment and environmental protection. The second is the end of a climate of impunity that encouraged nearly every Wall Street firm to commit financial fraud. The third is to re-establish the supremacy of people votes over dollar votes in Washington.”

Click on: www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-new-progressive-movement.html?_r=2

The prospect of thinkers like Ferguson and Sachs publicly fighting over what are the obligations as well as the competences of entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and politicians only makes it more likely that the next year of US national politics will be forward-looking as well as bitter.

Bring it on.