(2 of 2)
I'd guess that Gingrich just sounds crazy to most Americans, maybe even to most Republicans. But he and his fellow candidates, and his party's congressional leadership, have made a disastrous commitment to hyperbole. Our relatively modest and extremely popular entitlement programs certainly need reform, but the prevailing GOP dogma that they represent a dangerous drift toward socialism will probably prove suicidal in the general election. In a recent poll, 66% of Americans believed that Mitt Romney hadn't paid his fair share of taxes. Apparently, they agree that Obama's attempt to return taxes on the wealthy to Clintonian levels is a matter of simple justice rather than "class warfare." Most Americans don't see the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the President's tough policy toward Iran, as "appeasement." And, of course, the auto bailout is extremely popular in crucial states like Ohio, where thousands of jobs have been added and Obama enjoys a handy lead over Romney in a recent poll.
It is Romney who has suffered most from his party's silliness. He has tortured himself trying to stuff his moderation into a tiny ideological straitjacket. He has taken no fewer than three positions on the auto bailout, including a disastrous one--that Detroit should be allowed to fail. He repeats the Republican mantra that "government doesn't create jobs," but of course it does: look at the defense industry. At one moment, he says the President doesn't know how a free-market economy works; at the next, he acknowledges in a debate that Obama had to close factories and fire workers, just as Romney did at Bain Capital, in order to make the restructuring of the auto industry succeed. Indeed, if Romney weren't so boggled, he might have pointed out that the auto bailout, run by financier Steven Rattner, was turnaround capitalism at its very best.
Romney has a rationale for opposing Obama. The federal government is inefficient--the messy multitude of job-training programs is one example--and foolishly intrusive at times. Obama didn't focus sufficiently on the economy; his stimulus package was porky. He didn't adopt the Simpson-Bowles long-term deficit plan. There are real, responsible arguments to be made along those lines. But not in this Republican Party and not, it seems, this year.