It should escape no one that, in the latest Iowa polling, there was a tie for the lead on the Republican side between the real estate mogul and casino and golf course developer, Donald Trump and the retired neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson. In third was the former corporate executive Carly Fiorina. Trailing those three were the other 13-14 candidates in various stages of polling.
You may ask why I indicated the profession of the three leading candidates, and that's pretty much the point. Not one of the three poll leaders, and each of the remaining ones, has a history of elected office, unless there's a class presidency from high school somewhere in their background I missed.
I know this would be where I start to write about the difference between career politicians and career business or professional people and why the three are leading in the polls and the others trailing. Well, that's actually not the point.
The point, such as it is, is that we will need very soon to start contemplating the fact that one of these three may find himself or herself in the White House in January 2017. Certainly any of them could win a debate against the stiff, truth-estranged and unlikable Hillary Clinton, the avuncular but gaffe-prone and accomplishment-thin Joe Biden, or the geriatric redistributionist Bernie Sanders.
Presidents, the incumbent monarch notwithstanding, do not make law. In the normal environment, they set the tone for a direction for the country, propose budgets that provide an executive guidance for the legislature (Congress) to fund, and use the bully pulpit to advocate for legislative choices.
We have had a recent history (prominently excepting the Reagan Administration and the part of Bill Clinton's term after the country threw the Democrats out of the House as a reaction to the overreach of Hillarycare) of difficulty between the White House and Congress on those priorities. The tendency of the country to vote in presidents and Congresses of different party, exacerbated by the hyper-partisanship that came from court-ordered redistricting, has led to entrenched gridlock.
Entrenched gridlock means nothing gets done. And no one likes to go to work, and not have to do anything, more than elected officials. All they need to do is get reelected, and with no real legislating going on, there is plenty of time to spend most of their day campaigning.
Yep, really good for the old USA.
Clearly the presidents of current and recent vintage have done nothing to alter that, or even get it on the front burner of the national dialogue. Sure, they complain about stonewalling, but even that is simply a ploy to help their own reelection campaigns.
Until, that is, we get a president who is, shall we say, not of that particular mindset. I think it is quite fair to say that if Trump, Carson or Fiorina becomes the next president, things, as they say, will change and change quickly. And that, friends, is where I want the thinking to start from this column.
I have not really hid my contempt for the inert Republican leadership in both houses today. We voted their party in in 2014 as a clear response to the grotesque, totalitarian overreach on the part of the president, and they have responded by turning back to their own election campaigns and doing essentially nothing. I even wrote before the election, begging the Republican leadership to have at least a governance plan to show that conservatives were far better leaders and more capable of getting things done.
I wrote: "The next Congress needs to show its ability to present [a] legislative
vision that will break that ice and encourage the trust [which] business needs
to invest in capital expenditures and long-term hiring -- and then get
credit."
"Vision"? No. We didn't get any of that. What we seem to have gotten is an extension of the old "do nothing, complain about the other side, and try to get reelected" M.O., for sure. Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could -- and should -- have spoken out with a strong, candid platform in December and January, and gone ahead and passed the bills, sent them to Obama's desk and let him use his famous "pen and a phone" to veto them, putting the onus on him. They did nothing of the kind. No PR campaign for their platform, no spate of bills passed. And that's what we had voted for -- no wonder we're sick of Washington politicians!
So what happens if the Republicans indeed hold on to both houses of Congress and face a president of their own party, but not of their own stripe? What I asked for the Republican leaders to do if they won both houses is precisely what Carson, or Trump, or Fiorina will do the day they're elected!
They will go straight to the people, thank them for entrusting the presidency to them, and immediately explain what they're going to start off with the day they're inaugurated -- here is the goal, and here is the plan. Letting the country know where they stand, and how and why the path will be what it is. They'll communicate; they'll explain.
You know, doing what leaders do.
If any of us is wondering why the Iowa polls are what they are, and why there's a kind of geothermal inversion going on there, well, it's not an Iowa thing. It's an American thing. We thirst for leadership, and we're going to the bar where it gets served.
I know I'm ready for it.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There's a new post from Bob
at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving
new meaning to "prolific essayist." Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at
bsutton@alum.mit.edu.
The current model, what I refer to as the "Keep an idiot busy" style of governing after those old joke cards with "Keep an idiot busy - Flip over" printed on both sides, is the result of unrestrained two party dominance and the massive cash market of the 24/7 campaign cycle.
ReplyDeleteIn essence, we have two massive parties with massive cash influxes who seem to exist for the sole reason of raising more money to run more campaigns. The easiest way to raise money, of course, is to blame all the problems of the country on the other party and say you can fix it (Without, of course, stating how). When the country flips the card, you continue to do nothing and say it's still the other party. Continue to fundraise while being paid to do nothing.
Oh, and once you're in, you're set for life. So it doesn't matter how well you do the job, you can be in there for just one term and you're paid and given benefits for the rest of your life. So when the card is inevitably flipped yet again, you're already set. Or you're hired to go back and lobby the people you were just working with for a 6-7 figure salary.
So we're left with three groups of people in the country: Rabid "Liberals" who latch on to everything the Democrats say and demonize the Republicans, rabid "Conservatives" who latch on to everything the Republicans say and demonize the Democrats, and everyone else. That last group is fortunately the largest and fastest growing but unfortunately the least active because they've been written out of the process. Probably because the rabid ones are easier marks for fundraising.