Inexperienced
This weekend, I failed to avoid eye contact with Roland Straten, Republican congressional hopeful, as I passed him on the sidewalk, and he handed me a brochure. Ordinarily, I’d toss it in the nearest trash can, but there was a line at the ATM, so I had a few minutes with nothing better to do, and I read it.
It was small, no more than 4”x8”, and reads pretty much like a laundry list of Republican talking points: lower taxes, reduced government, keeping America safe, making healthcare “affordable” rather than available. The brochure is a little vague on specifics, which I suppose is only to be expected from a 4” by 8” slip of paper, but there is an irony there, as he claims to offer “effective solutions, and not just rhetoric” to various challenges the nation faces. There is a web address which the interested can consult, but it’s rather shy on specifics, too; all that extra text is expended either on expanding the list of things he’s for—private schools, lower interest rates, fighting on in Iraq, thinking twice before jumping on the global warming bandwagon, a national ID card—or on fluff like equating Democratic programs with communism. To give you an idea of the ‘effective solutions” he is offering, in contrast to “just rhetoric,” consider his bullet-point approach to social security:
“The basic principles that I will follow when asked to make a decision on solution are:
• A long-range solution must be put into place.
• The Elderly are able to retire with financial security and dignity.
• The young are able to keep more of the fruits of their labor.
• In achieving the first two principles, the economy is benefited and not burdened.”
All laudable desires. Not too specific. Indistinguishable, in fact, from “just rhetoric.” The whole web site reads like that. In a bullet point list on the economy, he is for “wise monetary policy.” He is against corruption. He acknowledges a need for limited regulation, but feels “burdensome irrational regulations” hurt the economy. He does not attempt to define which regulations are burdensome and irrational—or indeed identify a single one—he seems to feel it is enough simply to promise to work to do away with them. On other pages, he explains that he is for choice. He is against unreasonable regulations. He is against partisan gridlock. He also refuses to compromise his core principles.
The reason I actually went to his website and found these non-very-detailed details instead of simply blowing the whole thing off is one specific line on the brochure, which made me so curious that I wanted to go and ask him about it in person, only to find he had run off while I was at the ATM. The coward.
The specific line is one of a list of bullet-point rhetorical questions. (Mr. Straten likes bullet points.) It reads:
“Do you feel that running the United States is too important a job to leave to career politicians with no business experience?”
Just mull that over for a minute. The longer you examine it, the stranger it seems. It’s designed to make refusal sound damning, as though answering “no” means you don’t feel the job is important.
Mr. Straten seems to feel, like Calvin Coolige, that the business of America is business, because he doesn’t ask whether we should elect officials with, say, military experience for the times they must make decisions about military affairs, or whether we should elect officials with legal experience for the times they must make decisions about civil liberties, or whether we should elect officials with scientific experience for the times they must make decisions dependent on scientific understanding. No, the proper measure of suitability for public office, in Mr. Straten’s mind, is a business background.
Even if that were true, if national politics really were first, last, and always about business, then career politicians would have business experience. By definition. It would be their career. If professional experience is the way to go in choosing a candidate, then running the United States should be left precisely to the career politicians. That’s what they do, for heaven’s sake.
So what does Mr. Straten’s ideal look like? How would a country governed by businessmen, instead of lawyers and generals and similar professionals ignorant of hierarchical decision-making, operate? Well, that’s open to speculation, but perhaps we could get some kind of indication by looking at the White House. Bush the lesser was the first US president ever with an MBA, and drove several businesses into the ground before being abruptly injected into political life as Texas governor. Cheney came directly from a seat as CEO of Halliburton. Donald Rumsfeld served as CEO of pharmaceutical G. D. Searle & Company, CEO of General Instrument Corporation, and sat on the board of engineering giant Asea Brown Boveri. Beyond that, the Republican party has been generally cozy with big business, and specifically eager to sell favors for campaign donations; to a lesser extent, the Democratic party, insofar as the DLC has its hands on the tiller and in the till, has as well. Their attitudes towards the relationship between business and government have proven disastrous to the nation. Mr. Straten shares those attitudes.
And that’s what I wanted to ask Mr. Straten about, had he not vanished before I got a chance. “This is really the platform you intend to be elected on? Really? That ‘running the United States is too important a job to leave to career politicians with no business experience?’ That businessmen, as exemplified by the current administration, are the best choice to run the country—and, more to the point, what voters want in this election cycle? Wow, man—you’ve got some serious balls.”