Policy Incompetency is Generally Bad Politics

I understand the Bush years as a failure of competence. The executive himself was a fairly incompetent individual, which seemed to have a spillover effect onto the executive branch, and government regime, as a whole. Warning signs of the 9/11 attacks were missed, major pieces of spending legislation were push though without fiscally necessary pay-fors, the housing market bubble was allowed inflate unabated and the market was left to "solve" over-the-counter derivatives without oversight. In the last approval rating poll Gallup conducted, 34% of respondents approved of former Pres. Bush's job performance. The biggest drivers of our projected federal budget deficits continues to be Bush era policies and crises.

Today, Daniel Larison probes Mitt Romney's potential attack lines against now-surging Rick Santourm:

On role of government and fiscal issues, Romney could criticize Santorum for his votes for NCLB and Medicare Part D. Santorum is in many respects the embodiment of so-called big-government and “compassionate” conservatism, and this was especially true during his second term in the Senate. In other words, he represented everything that conservatives now think went wrong during the Bush years. Hammering Santorum on Bush-era fiscal irresponsibility hits Santorum where he is weakest with conservative Republicans, and it does so without forcing Romney to risk the backlash of any party faction.(emphasis mine - JMG)

Now, we can certainly sit around and debate how "conservative" or "unconservative" the George W. Bush presidency really was. Partisans on both sides do not need much time to find ways in which policy failures are not the "true" interpretation of their party's governing philosophy. But that's not the real issue here. As I see it, Pres. Bush's policy solutions failed to adequately address the problems they were approaching, or left budgetary time-bombs for later administrations to solve. Rick Santroum, who faithfully carried the administration's agenda while a Senator, could now pay the price for the general failure of the administration's policies.

This is why competency is so important when you're an elected leader, and especially the President. The specifics of No Child Left Behind or Medicare Part D are not as important as the perception of them, and more specifically the association they have with the (now politically toxic) Bush Presidency.

Quote of the Day

From Larison:

"Remember that Palin’s popularity with conservatives was the function of identity politics [...]"

"A time-travelling Marco Rubio"

Daniel Larison has some good fun at Bill Kristol's expense:

I’m not sure why Kristol keeps making these bizarre pronouncements about the 2012 field. Is he trying to pioneer new ways to be spectacularly wrong about things?

I have to admit, Mr. Kristol has been an innovator in the field.

How (Not) To Sell Your Candidacy

Ezra Klein critiques Tim Pawlenty for being uncompelling with the rationale for his presidential candidacy.

On one hand, I do see Klein's point. Candidates need to be salesmen, and that means they need to effectively market themselves to voters. Answers like:

"You know, I turned 50 last year, and I’m realizing I’m — if I’m not in the fourth quarter, I’m in the third quarter of the chronological clock."

are not particularly energizing, and Klein makes the appropriate point that Pawlenty is going to have to do better than “because I’m getting older” and “I didn’t want to start taking it easy yet.”

On the other hand! Over at The Atlantic, I'm throughly sympathetic to Conor Friedersdorf's point that Pawlenty's answer is refreshingly normal. Politicians are people too, and sometimes they don't have the best answer for everything.

In the same way that romantic comedies shape our expectations about relationships in unrealistic ways -- "I knew from the first time I saw him that we'd spend our lives together" -- the conventions of presidential elections cause us to imagine that there should be some compelling narrative version of what brought someone into the race.

I'd like to place the correct answer somewhere in between the two. Candidates should be honest about the intentions and motivations of their candidacy, but that the same time need to offer voters a vision or platform to get behind.

The best answer Pawlenty (or any candidate) could have given, would have been something along the lines of "I can't give you the exact moment I decided that I wanted to run for the presidency, but I can tell you that my decision was ultimately cemented by the vision and leadership I can offer the American people."

Good salesmanship doesn't always equal dishonesty, but bad salesmanship does make your honesty harder to swallow.

UPDATE: I think Daniel Larison gets to the underlying point of Klein's Pawlenty critique:

Pawlenty’s candidacy doesn’t have any obvious rationale. In fact, the former Minnesota governor has trouble coming up with a reason why he is running at all. He doesn’t unnerve any major constituency in the party in the way that Huntsman does and Daniels did, but he isn’t that closely identified with any of them. He inspires neither intense loyalty nor especially strong dislike. (Bold mine - JG)

It's not so much that Pawlenty's answer to Michael Crowley wasn't that compelling, but rather the rationale for Pawlenty's campaign as a whole is underwhelming. Klein's critique of Pawlenty's answer isn't valid on the answer itself, as it is on the overall motivations of his candidacy.