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The Slow(er) FIx

In The National Review Kevin Williamson writes The Thirty Years War [1]

Excerpts:

Unlike senators, governors have to do things — “governor stuff [2]” — which means that they have to make compromises, that they cannot be ideologically pure, and that they have to live in the real world. That leaves them vulnerable to puritanical homilies from senators, as in the ridiculous 2012 Republican primary that found former senator Rick Santorum and businessman Herman Cain, both of whom were far from the levers of power for excellent reasons, preening and posturing as Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, a governor and a former governor who had faced very different challenges, were raked over the coals for having taken reality into account as executives. Romney’s rivals pronounced themselves shocked that Romney had governed as though he were in one of the country’s most left-leaning states, and Perry’s opponents were scandalized that the governor of Texas took into account the large number of illegal immigrants residing there.

I like Senators Paul, Cruz, and Rubio; each has his own virtues and admirable characteristics. But none of them has done one single thing of interest in office other than campaign for president since about five minutes after being sworn into the Senate.

The Democrats did not build the welfare state all at once in 1965, and Republicans didn’t have an honest shot at repealing it all at once in 1995. Everybody has a big plan, and Washington is full of magic bullets: leash the Fed, enact the Fair Tax, seal the borders. But what’s needed — what might actually result in a stronger American order — is a thirty years’ war of attrition against the welfare state and entrenched incompetency. Federal crimes and misdemeanors ranging from the IRS scandal to the fumbling response to Ebola suggest very strongly that we have management and oversight problems as well as ideological ones, but holding oversight hearings long after (one hopes) Ebola is out of domestic headlines provides very little juice for a presidential candidate facing a restive base all hopped up on Hannity. Being the guy who gets up and demands the repeal of Obamacare might get you elected president; being the guy who fixes the damned thing simply makes you a target for talk-radio guys who have never run for nor held an elected office but who will nonetheless micturate upon your efforts from a great height.

HKO

The Democrats may moan about their guy during his term in office, but at election time their strength is in their unity. Republicans have several groups, each with its own litmus test.  They demonize RINOs more than the opposition.  Governess Mitch Daniels lamented the RIMOs- Republicans in Mouth Only, those like Kevin notes here, who would reject a compromise that moves closer to their goal because it never goes far enough at once. It is necessary to ponder the ideal in order to clarify the ends, but the elected politicians must compromise in order to govern.  We did not build this mess in once election and we will not likely fix it with the election of a single loyal ideologue.

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