Romney and Pawlenty on Ethanol Politics

After Tim Pawlenty made waves with his presidential candidacy announcement in Iowa by suggesting that we must reduce ethanol subsidies, Mitt Romney took the opposite approach. Romney, who has serious problems with conservatives these days, contrasted his position with Pawlenty’s, saying that he supports ethanol subsidies:

“I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” Iowa leads the nation in the production of corn, a main source of  ethanol.

Is there an explanation for Romney’s stated position other than that he is a RINO, as many conservatives believe? How about an election strategy instead. Regardless of how Romney feels about ethanol subsidies, he probably wouldn’t make such a declaration of support for them unless he thought it was smart politics. And it just might be.

If Romney believes that he won’t win Iowa, but has a great chance to win New Hampshire, then he may be making a play to hurt Pawlenty in Iowa. It’s no secret that with Mitt’s status in New Hampshire, Pawlenty will probably need to start strong in Iowa, as a poor showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire could put Pawlenty at a significant disadvantage against Romney. Therefore, with Pawlenty taking a big risk on opposing ethanol subsidies, Romney has probably calculated he can hurt Pawlenty’s Iowa numbers by supporting ethanol, and that doing so won’t cost Mitt much with conservatives who are already skeptical of him.

So we have a nice early contrast between Pawlenty and Romney. The former is taking bold stances that should please conservatives, and is admitting he was wrong on past positions that conservatives would oppose. The latter is not completely distancing himself from his more progressive state healthcare plan and is taking a less conservative position on ethanol. Pawlenty should generate some conservative buzz while Romney may upset some conservatives, but both contenders know where they stand and what they must do to win.

Speaking of generating conservative buzz, watch Pawlenty on This Week. He appears relaxed and likable, and conservatives should be interested in his suggestions for Medicare reform and the debt ceiling:

 

Can Conservatives Count on Pawlenty?

Tim Pawlenty announced his official entrance into the 2012 horse race today, with the message of telling the truth about the challenges we face as a country and what it will take to solve them. He gave a fairly bold speech, proposing to an Iowa crowd the cutting of ethanol subsidies. According to Pawlenty, “The hard truth is that there are no longer any sacred programs.” He is right, and with Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, and (likely) Chris Christie not in the race as viable candidates, and with Romneycare causing concerns for conservatives, should conservatives turn to Pawlenty?

His name recognition is growing, but Pawlenty’s record might not be as well-known as the other front-runner, Romney. This might be to Pawlenty’s advantage, as he may have the opportunity to frame his career more effectively than Romney and some others can frame theirs. Pawlenty summarized his achievements today as the former governor of a blue state:

In Minnesota, I cut taxes, cut spending, instituted health care choice and performance pay for teachers, reformed our union benefits, and appointed constitutional conservatives to the Supreme Court.  That is how you lead a liberal state in a conservative direction.

Pawlenty has also announced that he will propose a budget with bold entitlement reforms, has hit the right notes on national security, and has a background that social conservatives might connect with. In other words, T-Paw might be able to connect with all three legs of the conservative stool. Perhaps it’s time for conservatives to give Tim Pawlenty a look. I don’t think many conservatives will find much not to like about his record.

ObamaCare Waivers in Nevada and San Francisco

The Senate and House majority leaders at the time of ObamaCare’s passage were from Nevada and San Francisco, respectively. They were two of the most involved legislators in passing the law, despite public outcry and warnings from those of us who read the bill and said that some of the requirements of it would not fly. Now the news is that the state of Nevada has secured a waiver for the MLR requirements:

Nevada’s Insurance Division had appealed to the feds to reduce the federal requirement that health plans serving people who buy insurance on their own must spend at least 80 percent of the money they collect on medical expenses. Under the national rule, companies that don’t spend that percentage of revenue on medical costs have to cut policyholders rebate checks starting this year.

Nevada asked that requirement be reduced to 72 percent for one year, arguing that top insurance providers would be so strapped to make the payments that they’d exit the state market.

Health and Human Services didn’t fully buy that argument, but did agree to reduce the requirement to 75 percent for a year, expressing concern about what might happen to people with policies from insurers Golden Rule and Aetna if they didn’t.

In addition, more than three dozen organizations in Nancy Pelosi’s district of San Francisco have been granted waivers:

The waivers in Pelosi’s district pertained to a different requirement in the health care law dealing with annual benefit limits. The latest set brings the total number of such exemptions since the law’s implementation to 1,372 nationwide. More than 3 million people are enrolled in plans affected by these waivers.

It appears that George W. Bush isn’t the only one being vindicated these days.

Paul Ryan: ‘Shared Scarcity’ or ‘Renewed Prosperity’

Congressman Paul Ryan spoke today at the Economic Club of Chicago, and just reading the transcript of his speech made me want to stand up and applaud. Consider the choice that Congressman Ryan presents:

If we succumb to this view that our problems are bigger than we are – if we surrender more control over our economy to the governing class – then we are choosing shared scarcity over renewed prosperity, and managed decline over economic growth.

That’s the real class warfare that threatens us – a class of governing elites picking winners and losers, and determining our destinies for us.

We face a choice between two futures. We can continue to go down the path toward shared scarcity, or we can choose the path of renewed prosperity.

Those words reminded me of some famous ones from a few decades ago:

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: [up] man’s old — old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

Those words, of course, were spoken by Ronald Reagan in his speech that is referred to as “A Time for Choosing.” Congressman Ryan spoke today of that same choice, between our ability to self-govern and take on the tough challenges of our time, and the option of granting more authority to the government to make the tough choices for us. Congressman Ryan cites a current example of what allowing the government to make the difficult decisions for us looks like, calling out ObamaCare’s plan to have a small advisory board ration healthcare.

The other option, which Congressman Ryan calls the path to “renewed prosperity,” would look remarkably different. Of course, Ryan was promoting his proposal, which is by far the most comprehensive plan out there for long-term economic sustainability. Even if one disagrees with his plan, however, it’s hard to disagree with his philosophy.

Congressman Ryan’s speech seems unusual for someone in his position to make. Perhaps he is interested in the Wisconsin Senate seat that will open when Senator Kohl retires, but I’d say that his speech today was rather presidential. If his words mirror those of The Gipper, he’s in good company.

Romney’s Healthcare Proposals on the Right Track

Mitt Romney recently wrote a book called No Apology, in which he contrasted his views of America’s greatness with those of President Obama and proposed a comprehensive list of reforms for the country. Romney still isn’t apologizing for his views, as we saw Thursday when he declined the opportunity to distance himself from his Massachusetts healthcare plan because doing so “wouldn’t be honest.” Thus, Romney still wears his healthcare law among conservatives like an albatross.

To separate himself from the ObamaCare similarities, the former governor has been making a federalist distinction. Romney explains that the law he signed in Massachusetts was not imposed on the state by the federal government the way that ObamaCare imposes its system nationally. This is a perfectly legitimate distinction, but voters still want to know why Romney would support such a plan at any level, and if he would do so at the national level. The answer to the latter question seems more certain than the answer to the former, as Romney is telling us what he wants to do now.

Mitt presented his healthcare plan in a series of slides you can see here. His plan is on the right track, although there are many specific questions to be asked about it, including what he would propose for Medicare and how the tax benefit proposal would work without replacing the employee benefit. But his federalist and pro-market plan is generally the direction we should move.

Yet, no matter what Romney proposes for the future, many conservatives want him to admit a mistake with Massachusetts care. Romney didn’t, and I believe that was the right decision, as I’m not convinced that many people who wanted him to admit the mistake were going to trust him even if he met their wishes. What Romney could have done (and should have, in my opinion), however, is to admit the state’s plan has significant problems even if he doesn’t regret signing it into law.

As for whether Romney can be trusted on healthcare, considering his record, it’s going to be difficult to convince some conservatives. As someone who has always considered the Massachusetts healthcare law a significant downside about Romney, I don’t see any reason to believe that he’d actually support such a plan from the national level. He has been as strong a spokesman for conservative policies and philosophy in the past four years as anyone, and what he is proposing now is a conservative plan that is nothing like Obamacare or the plan he signed in his own state.

The bottom line for Romney on healthcare should not be whether it makes sense to oppose the president’s plan when it is similar to one he implemented at the state level, but rather what we think he will do about healthcare in the future. If his slides and words are any indication, his plan would move us away from Obamacare and toward a system that allows states more flexibility while also opening the insurance market. That proposal is something conservatives can and should get behind.

The Strongest Horse

If it wasn’t already clear that the United States is a strong horse, it should be now. President Reagan said, “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.” President George W. Bush said, “Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.” And after Osama bin Laden was announced dead, President Obama said, “We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are.” They are all correct.

The United States is still standing strong, almost ten years after 9/11, but the threat remains. The killing of bin Laden has some wondering if the long war is coming to an end, but it is important that we remain vigilant against a determined enemy. There are already reports that al Qaeda’s #2, Aymam al-Zawahiri, may have set up bin Laden in order to gain control of the organization for himself.  One strong horse may be down, but there are still others to be concerned about.

As we continue to defend our nation, we must also understand the policies that have given us the best chance for success. Victor Davis Hanson and our friend Guy Benson have both pointed out that finding Osama bin Laden would likely not have been possible without some of the Bush policies that President Obama has decried. From Guy’s column:

As long as some liberals remain intent on keeping political score, it must be pointed out that all three sources of these indispensible data points were direct or indirect results of Bush policies – EITs, Gitmo, and the Iraq war – that much of the American Left, including Barack Obama, fought tooth and nail.

We now know the critical key to unlocking the frustrating secret of bin Laden’s whereabouts was identifying and tracking one of his must trusted couriers and confidants. US intelligence and military officials learned of his existence and pseudonym in the years after 9/11 from a terrorist detained at Guantanamo Bay, Muhammad Mani al-Qahtani. Equipped with this information, interrogators were able to wring supplemental information from two high-value prisoners being held at the time in black site CIA prisons: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the mastermind of the 9/11 plot, and his radical colleague, Abu Faraj al-Libi. This single piece of information, after years of scrutiny and investigation, would be bin Laden’s undoing.

President Obama has not credited the Bush administration for the policies that helped provide the intelligence that led to bin Laden. That the administration has struggled to handle obvious questions about what happened in the raid and about what role enhanced interrogation techniques had in finding bin Laden is a concern, as the explanations should be a winning case for any administration. Despite the incompetence of this administration to handle the PR of this situation, however, we need to continue the conversation about what happened so that we know what policies will work best in the future.

Here is some other commentary to consider:

• Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, on al Qaeda after bin Laden.
• Christopher Hitches on Osama bin Laden’s legacy and President Obama’s role in it.
• Paul Berman on the symbolism of bin Laden’s death.

GOP 2012 Debate Begins

The first GOP debate was tonight in South Carolina, and while some potential candidates did not participate, those who did had a chance to make a good impression. There weren’t any fireworks, but there were some good points that were made.

The presentation of the debate was strong, with the absence of lefty MSM hosts probably the reason for no birther questions. The Fox hosts did their homework, with Santorum being quoted on feminism from a book he wrote, and with an ad that showed Pawlenty having supported cap and trade. Both candidates handled the challenges confidently, with Pawlenty admitting that he was wrong about cap and trade and emphasizing that he has said so for a while.

This really was a two-man show with Pawlenty and Santorum, but Cain drew a positive response in Frank Luntz’ post-debate focus group on Fox. Santorum was articulate on challenging issues, but could probably loosen up a bit to help his delivery. Pawlenty looked a bit more polished in contrast.

The opening debate probably won’t generate huge news, but it was a decent start to the long campaign that is ahead for 2012.

More on “Leading from Behind”

Charles Krauthammer’s column on the president’s “leading from behind” style takes on the two premises upon which the style is based:

But underlying that style, assures this Obama adviser, there really are ideas. Indeed, “two unspoken beliefs,” explains Lizza. “That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world.”

Krauthammer’s rebuttal of the second idea is important to read:

Proposition two: We must lead from behind because we are reviled. Pray tell, when were we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Eisenhower? When his vice president was sent on a goodwill trip to Latin America, he was spat upon and so threatened by the crowds that he had to cut short his trip. Or maybe later, under the blessed Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by vast demonstrations in the capitals of our closest allies denouncing America as a warmongering menace taking the world into nuclear winter.

That the president and his administration are reluctant to visibly promote America’s interests because of fear that some people may not like us does not suggest strong leadership. As Krauthammer concludes, the administration’s apparent style is “abdicating.” It has also led to confusion and incoherence.

As Hugh Hewitt discusses with Ryan Lizza, the administration badly handled the Green Revolution in Iran, and even the Secretary of State signaled to Lizza that the administration still does not have a clear standard for its foreign policy. It has also been reported that the administration miscalculated the situation in Syria by assuming that Assad would easily suppress any opposition movement. Poor assumptions and a lack of clear principles have led to failed and inconsistent policies.