Independents

What About Paul?

September 4th, 2012 // 12:19 pm @ Oliver DeMille

I got a lot of responses to my article on why everyone should vote. Most were in agreement, and readily shared it on social media. Of those who took exception, the concerns they expressed boiled down to two main thoughts:

1. What about Ron Paul?

2. But Romney’s not really for limited government!

Both have real merit.

1. What About Paul?

First, I think Ron Paul is a great man, and I have been a fan of nearly all his suggestions and policies since I first read a book by him clear back in, I think, the 80’s. He is right about so many things. I have a few disagreements with him too, but less than with the two major candidates.

As you will note from my article, my main point was that everyone should vote, and if you don’t like the main candidates then write in a name. If this is your plan, I think Ron Paul is an even better write-in than those I suggested in the article (mostly tongue-in-cheek, as I did not want to promote a particular candidate per se). My point was to vote, but to be aware that a write-in vote is more for being able to argue your case for good government over the next four years than for actually swaying the election. A vote for Ron Paul does just that.

If you want to sway the election, do two things: first, already be a voter in a swing state, and second, vote for one of the main candidates. If you don’t meet these requirements or don’t want to vote for either major candidate, by all means, write someone in.

2. But Romney’s not for Limited Government!

Second, presidential politics always come down to imperfect votes. If you want a perfect candidate, look to your House of Representative election and get a candidate that is truly ideal to your wants. If there isn’t such a candidate, you’ve got two years to help find one and help him/her get elected.

That said, for those who don’t think Romney is much of a limited government candidate, I have two words for you: Barack Obama.

President Obama has shown that he is a committed big-government president, and the next four years under an Obama Administration will be a massive move to bigger government, more regulation, etc. If you want the bigger government choice, vote for Obama. If you want a possibly limited, but definitely more limited than Obama, government, I have two words for you: Paul Ryan. We need major fiscal responsibility, and soon. If that’s what you want, you have two choices: Romney/Ryan, or a write in candidate to make a statement, but not actually derail the Obama candidacy. That said, there is a great American tradition of protest voting.

If you are in a swing state, your vote could decide the election. Do you want bigger government? Vote Obama. Do you want a growing government in the Bush/Bush style, possibly better but maybe not, but not massive growth Obama government: vote Romney/Ryan. Do you want real limited government: get seriously involved in getting the right House of Representatives in, now or in 2014, and decide whether Romney/Ryan is a good start in your mind or if a protest vote that says “Reagan or Bust” is better.

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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Citizenship &Current Events &Government &Independents &Politics &Statesmanship

A Choice Election

August 15th, 2012 // 8:08 pm @ Oliver DeMille

(And a proposal for a Cable TV Debate between Barack Obama and Paul Ryan)

With the selection of Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential candidate, Mitt Romney turned the 2012 campaign into a Choice Election.

This is rare in modern times.

The norm has been for Republican candidates to stay centrist—this pattern was followed by Bush, Dole, Bush and McCain.

Not since the Reagan-Carter contest have we seen a true Choice Election, where the sides are clearly divided and both passionately appeal to their base instead of tacking to the center.

Senator McCain may have attempted to create a Choice Election in 2008 with his selection of Governor Palin as running mate, but it appears Ryan’s fiscal conservatism may resonate more with independent voters than Palin’s social conservatism.

Romney’s choice also signaled two departures from his campaign to date.

First, it was bold and risky, which hasn’t been his m/o so far in this election.

Second, it was a significant move toward a big, overarching vision of American greatness.

The Romney message isn’t yet Reaganesque, but it seems to be at least trying to head in that direction.

Ryan’s budget proposals in the past few years have made him a controversial figure, and his inclusion on the ticket may signal that Romney has decided to go all in.

The choice couldn’t be clearer: The Obama/Biden message is that an increasing number of people are dependent on government, and that Washington simply can’t let them down—therefore, it must raise taxes on the rich and increase regulation on business.

If it wins, it will finally be able to do this on the grand scale, in the U.S. and internationally.

This worldview considers government the arbiter of fairness and often feels that government jobs are more honorable than those in private enterprise.

The Romney/Ryan view is precisely the opposite: Free enterprise is the hope of the future and America needs to rekindle its belief in limited government spending, minimal regulation, and a more business-friendly environment that encourages private-sector economic growth.

This agenda affirms that Washington has a spending problem, and that government’s immediate focus must be getting our financial house in order and incentivizing business growth.

The common wisdom on the Right is that our nation is on the verge of significant decline, and that major financial and policy changes in Washington are desperately needed.

The Left generally feels that our economic struggles were brought on by weak government policies that allowed the “haves” to exploit the “have nots,” that far too many people are hurting right now, and that only government stands between them and even more widespread failure.

Here is how this all plays out.

Most conservatives will vote Republican, and most progressives will support the Democratic ticket.

As we’ve discussed in the past, the election will be determined by independent voters in the battleground states.

But the fact that this is now a true Choice election puts a different spin on the vote.

If independent voters in the swing states see America at a crossroads, on the verge of serious decline and in need of big, difficult changes to reboot our economy, create huge private-sector growth and compete with China, the Republican ticket will win.

Romney was clearly banking on this when he selected Ryan as his partner.

But if swing voters think the ideas of decline and a looming major financial emergency are overblown, they’ll opt for another four years of President Obama.

Most voters—Republican, Democrat and swing—generally support getting our fiscal house in order, but they don’t want to give up any specific government programs that benefit them directly (e.g. entitlement changes).

A Choice Election is emerging on two fronts.

First, as mentioned, one side wants to increase the size and scope of government to help more people in need, while the other promises to reduce spending, taxes, regulation and effectively revive the economy (whether it will actually do so once in office is a different topic).

Secondly, Republicans see an American electorate ready to take drastic steps in the face of imminent decline and the threat of our nation going broke, even as Democrats are betting that people are more concerned with maintaining their government benefits.

In short, one side sees Paul Ryan as an excellent choice and the other thinks Romney has made a fatal (if welcome) mistake with this selection.

The choice is stark, and only time will tell how independents in the swing states actually vote.

So far the Obama campaign has played the small game, focusing on Romney’s tax returns, offshore accounts, and attacks on his work at Bain, and now criticizing details of Ryan’s budgets.

Romney has opened a big issue campaign, and he will likely escalate with a full-blown vision of American greatness.

But Barack Obama has proven to be an able politician with an uncanny sense of timing, and savvy Americans expect his Carteresque tactics to evolve into a Clintonian crescendo in the weeks ahead.

President Obama frequently seems to bumble along, only to strike with a lightening success in things like passing Obamacare, taking out bin Laden, or making unexpected announcements that win him the loyalty of various groups from immigrants to women to supporters of same-sex marriage.

Expect at least two Obama surprises before November 6.

Indeed, three or four wouldn’t be shocking.

If Romney waits around and reacts to such surprises, he’ll get stuck on the defensive.

To win, the Republican ticket needs to go big, really big, as quickly as possible.

And neither side can afford to let the debates determine their momentum.

Frankly, I think I speak for most political watchers when I say there should be an Obama-Ryan debate.

It would be a top seller on Pay-For-View.

Charge $29.95 per watcher, have Chuck Norris and George Clooney moderate the event, and apply the profits to paying down the national debt.

The band One Direction can open for each debate, thus ensuring that nearly every home in America with young girls signs up and reduces our deficit.

Better still, hold three such debates Lincoln-Douglass style in the most contested battleground states.

Then have a fourth swing-state debate where Obama and Romney face off and we measure them against each other as the leaders of our future.

This last event will be high drama after the guaranteed fireworks of the first three.

This election is still up for grabs, but it is a very different election than appeared to be shaping up last spring.

The Supreme Court decision on Obamacare and now the Ryan selection have made it a real Choice, and an American crossroads is certainly ahead.

Whatever your political views, the stakes could hardly be higher.

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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics

The Most Important Election in Modern Times

July 10th, 2012 // 10:01 am @ Oliver DeMille

Most elections are called “the most important election” by those running for office—after all, if they can get more voters enthused and active, it improves their chances of victory.

But in 2012, the U.S. election truly may be the most important in our lifetimes.

We are at a crossroads, and November 6 will turn us in one direction or the other.

With the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare, the battle lines are clearly drawn.

And while many conservatives don’t want to admit it, President Obama is still the frontrunner.

As I’ve written in the past, most red states will vote for Governor Romney and most blue states for President Obama, but the election will be decided by independent voters in the battleground states.

Right now, Obama is 2-3 percentage points ahead with independents in these swing states.

That’s not a huge lead, and polls will almost certainly shift several times in the months ahead, but Romney isn’t ahead.

Conservatives also struggle with why President Obama is still popular.

But in every election since 1952 the candidate who seemed more like a leader has won.

And Obama is still popular with swing voters in battleground states.

Conservatives tend to determine popularity based on policy, as do liberals, but many independents decide who is popular on the basis of non-political factors.

Moreover, the President’s policies on education have impressed many independents.

He gave more schools increased local controls and took on the teacher’s unions (though not enough).

Where George Bush centralized control of education more to Washington, Obama went the other, better, direction.

Many independents also like President Obama’s belief in more open immigration.

Though critics are quick to point out that we’ve deported more people under Obama than under any other president, Obama’s announcement that we won’t deport those who came as children is very popular among independents—even more in most battleground states.

Because of the high numbers of Hispanics in swing states, this one issue may sway the election.

Typical Republican criticisms that Democratic Presidents are soft on foreign policy won’t sell to independents in the post-bin Laden era, which scores points for the President among swing voters.

With all this, the President’s biggest asset may still be his personality.

Though his opponents scoff at this, he really does come across as a guy everyone wants to like.

He sings well, dances well, plays basketball well—in short, he’s cool.

If you hate his politics, you think being cool is beside the point or even unpresidential, but a majority of independents in the contested states really like having a cool president.

Besides, Obama came across sincere and committed when he went to Washington to change things—like a Jimmy Stewart character.

A lot of people still hope that’s the real Obama, and they’re waiting for him to truly lead.

Unfortunately, they think, the partisan extremes of Washington D.C. don’t allow a president to really lead anymore, but if he doesn’t have to worry about another election he can just lead like he always wanted to.

Most conservatives underestimate how much swing voters really like Barack Obama.

On the other hand, the big challenge for Obama with swing voters is Obamacare, and this hits hard in three ways.

First, is it overwhelmingly unpopular with American voters.

Only 28% of Americans thought the Supreme Court decision to uphold the law was a good ruling.

And swing voters dislike it almost as much as conservatives.

Independents haven’t found the Obama Administration’s explanations of Obamacare credible, and its unpopularity is growing.

Second, Obamacare is the main Obama achievement of the last 4 years, and many independents see it as the only major Obama accomplishment.

The problem is that voters elected Barack Obama to fix the economy, and many feel that he put healthcare (and, as a result, government expansion) ahead of jobs and economic opportunity.

In both the 2008 and 2010 elections, swing voters strongly supported the candidates they perceived as best for job creation.

Now they wonder: Why hasn’t President Obama done anything major about jobs? Why did he put all his capital into Obamacare?

Third, the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare puts the debate in stark relief: Big Government vs. Jobs and the Economy.

The Obama Administration has become the poster boy for “Bigger Government, Fewer Jobs.”

The campaign is talking itself blue in the face trying to reverse this view, but swing voters aren’t listening.

Which brings us to the real consequence of the Court’s decision—the Congressional elections of 2012.

Regardless of who occupies the White House for the next four years, the future of the nation will be determined by whether Congress is for More Big Government or Drastically-Increased Economic Opportunity.

The problem, as independents know, is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are proven fiscal leaders.

Democrats spend on domestic programs, and Republicans often outdo them in international spending.

While many Republicans are loudly decrying Obama’s massive domestic spending and increasing debt, few independents have forgotten that Bush tripled spending over the Clinton years and that big-spending Republicanism came when Republicans held the White House and both Houses of Congress before 2006.

Though Obama has overused the point, it remains true that Republicans gave us the Great Recession.

We need to elect Free Enterprise candidates, since big-spending Republicans are as bad for our economic future as big-spending Democrats.

Still, if Congress remains split (Republican House vs. Democratic Senate), or goes all Democrat, we are headed for bigger government with more socialist tendencies.

If Republicans control both houses, there is a chance for our freedoms and economy—and this time the people will send a clear mandate that they want smaller government and a growing free economy.

This really is the most important election yet in modern times.

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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics

A Vital Leadership Trend that Isn’t Yet a Thing

June 27th, 2012 // 5:42 pm @ Oliver DeMille

We need a whole new level of leadership. And we need it soon. Just consider some of our pressing national challenges:

75% of current Americans worry that another recession is coming.
U.S. consumer confidence in June is at a six-month low.
The average price of a gallon of gas in the United States was $3.88 at the beginning of the year and it is $3.48 halfway through the year. Most experts predict that it will be below $3 a gallon by the end of 2012. A few say it will be above $4. Either way, we have a problem. Lower prices look like a positive trend, but they keep us addicted to foreign oil. The pattern is to jack up prices until they hurt so bad that we begin seriously seeking alternative energy sources, then ease back on prices a little until we give up on finding a better way. Then, when we’ve stopped weaning ourselves from our addiction, jack the prices up again. Only the right kind of leadership will solve this for the long term.
President Obama’s support is down since 2008 in almost every voting demographic, but it is up 2 points among Hispanics. Few election experts believe Mitt Romney can win the election—especially in the battleground states—without a significant uptick in Hispanic support. And Romney came across to many as sharply anti-immigrant during the 2012 Republican primaries. Neither 2012 presidential candidate has yet shown the will to establish a truly effective national immigration policy.
The July 2, 2012 cover story of Time Magazine reads: “The History of the American Dream: Is it Still Real?” The Asian, European and South Pacific versions for the same date held an alternative cover story: “Made in China: Why Apple’s Future Depends on the World’s Largest Market.”
A June column in Newsweek calls this year’s graduates “The Not-So-Special Generation.”
Over two-thirds of Americans want the government to use unmanned drones to hunt down criminals, but two-thirds do not want the same technology used to patrol highways and issue speeding tickets. We want more government oversight of others, less of ourselves.
A majority of Americans want the government to decrease spending, but there is little agreement on cutting any specific program.

Many other serious national concerns could be cited, but one thing is certain: We are a nation deeply in need of more, and better, leadership.

Sadly, it appears increasingly evident that our political leaders may no longer be able to fulfill this role.

The story of Barack Obama is instructive on this point.

As a lifetime liberal with long experience and connections in the progressive community, President-Elect Obama took over the White House with big intentions of reframing our national politics into a less divisive, more cooperative endeavor.

He seems to have been surprised at the vehemence of the two-party system, and how quickly the opposing party lined up to get him out of office—regardless of what he did, or didn’t do, as a leader.

President George W. Bush, who came into office with big goals of creating a more compassionate conservatism, faced the same reality—the opposition lined up against him before he proposed a single policy.

Whether you are a supporter of President Obama, a critic, or more neutral, the reality of our new politics is frustrating.

The next president, either in 2012 or 2016, will likely face the same problem.

Welcome to the new system in Washington: A president isn’t judged for what he does as much as for which party he belongs to.

We are a nation with major struggles and we desperately need great leadership, but our political system has reached the point where our top elected officials have little chance of providing such leadership.

The system simply won’t allow it.

The next campaign starts the morning after Election Day, with no break between elections and no sense of a U.S. president we’ll all follow for four years.

Today’s system is more divided: the chief executive is now widely perceived as only as the president of the Republicans or the president of the Democrats.

We are at a crossroads in America.

We need great leadership as much as at any time in our history, but our political system no longer allows it to come from Washington.

We may have reached the point where only an Independent President will be able to get anything done.

Or, another solution may be a revolution of leadership, with leaders rising from other—non-political—arenas.

This may be one of the most important trends of the 21^st Century, but it is not yet a trend.

Needed: A generation of non-political leaders to help America get back on track!

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

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Type A Voters and the Simple Fix

June 7th, 2012 // 2:23 pm @ Oliver DeMille

Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago recently said in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2012):

For decades before the financial crisis of 2008, advanced economies were losing their ability to grow by making useful things.

“But they needed to somehow replace the jobs that had been lost to technology and foreign competition and to pay for the pensions and health care of their aging populations.

“So in an effort to pump up growth, governments spent more than they could afford and promoted easy credit to get households to do the same.

“The growth that these countries engineered, with its dependence on borrowing, proved unsustainable.”

Now many of the nations in Europe, North America and leading Asian countries are facing the consequences of their reliance on debt.

We call it the economic crisis of 2008, or the Great Recession, but it began long before the Bush or Obama administrations.

Indeed, during the Ford and Carter eras of the late 1970s, constitutional scholars widely warned of this very problem.

Sadly, their recommendations went unheeded.

It now falls to our generation to deal with the realities of over forty years of bad policy, and the economic challenges ahead will likely be worse than economists are admitting.

The problems will likely still plague our children and grandchildren in their earning years.

Raghuram Rajan suggests the following fixes:

Stop using debt as the solution to increasing demands for government and private spending
Educate or retrain the sectors of workers whose jobs are being mechanized, replaced, or sent abroad
Create government policies that encourage entrepreneurship and innovation
Reduce regulations that hurt competition
Shrink government as needed to reduce unnecessary and unproductive functions
Move beyond attacks on bonuses and “the one percent” and emphasize the need to provide more entrepreneurial opportunity
Avoid calls for stimulus

Of course, not all nations will follow identical policies, but these are the general principles of overcoming our economic challenges. Rajan’s article outlines needed changed in more detail, and one quote is worth repeating:

Americans should remain alert to the reality that regulations are shaped by incumbents to benefit themselves.

If only we could stitch this quote in needlepoint, frame it and hang it in every American living room.

And get every voting citizen to read each issue of Foreign Affairs.

We have less of a Washington problem and more of a citizen problem. Too many citizens are on vacation from our duties. We want to be Type B citizens who vote, attend jury duty and watch the news, and to look down on Type C citizens who don’t do any of these.

But freedom depends on Type A citizens, who closely watch what government does and make their influence felt.

Imagine an America where the first branch of government consists of thousands of unelected citizens who study history and the great classics, read proposed treaties, important court cases, executive orders, budgets, and top bills proposed at the local, state and Congressional levels. That’s the formula for freedom, and no other formula has ever worked—in America or in all of history.

When the people don’t actively watch out for their freedoms, they lose them.

When Presidents, Senators, Governors, Justices and CEOs have an entirely different level of education than the average citizens, freedom will decline.

Again, there are no exceptions in history. In fact, there is a word for such a divide between the education of the leaders and the education of the masses. The word is Oligarchy.

As Christopher Hayes wrote in Twilight of the Elites, “In reality our meritocracy has failed not because it’s too meritocratic, but because in practice, it isn’t very meritocratic at all…. In other words: ‘Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.’”

Hayes also noted that, according to Pew Research, Canada is almost 2.5 times more economically mobile than the United States, Germany is 1.5 times as mobile, and Denmark is 3 times as mobile.

So a young person in Denmark is three times as likely to rise from the middle to the upper class as our children in America. Indeed, the only advanced nation where such progress is less likely than in the U.S. is Britain—the modern icon of class divides.

Again, the solutions are relatively simple: reduce regulation that dis-incentivizes economic growth, adopt policies that encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and stop relying on debt.

This will cause governments and households to tighten their belts in the short term, but long-term free enterprise will rekindle economic growth and widespread prosperity.

If only our leaders would take notice. As Hayes wrote in dystopian terms:

It would be a society with extremely high and rising inequality yet little circulation of elites.

“A society in which the pillar institutions were populated by and presided over by a group of hyper-educated, ambitious overachievers who enjoyed tremendous monetary rewards as well as unparalleled political power and prestige…, a group of people who could more or less rest assured that now that they have achieved their status, now that they have scaled to the top of the pyramid, they, their peers, and their progeny will stay there.

“Such a ruling class would have all the competitive ferocity inculcated by the ceaseless jockeying within the institutions that produce meritocratic elites, but face no actual sanctions for failing at their duties or succumbing to the temptations of corruption….

“In the way bailouts combined the worst aspects of capitalism and socialism, such a social order would fuse the worst aspects of meritocracy and bureaucracy.

“It would, in other words, look a lot like the American elite circa 2012.”

All of that would be fine, if the rest of the people lived in a society with true free enterprise. Let the super-elite act like elites always have, but let the regular people live in freedom.

Over time, freedom creates growth, opportunity, socio-economic mobility and widespread prosperity.

Alas, the elites seldom ever make such changes on behalf of the people. If we want to be free, regular people must start behaving like Type A citizens.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

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