Let's Focus

Well, it’s not yet April 15th and the ballot for November is fairly close to being set. (It’s probably worth a comment that just a few weeks ago there was quite a collection of folks in the media running around in high dudgeon disclaiming that the Republican selection process was doomed. Never mind that in 2008 the Democrats didn’t finalize the selection of their candidate until June. So much for ‘experts.’) The question we now ask – or should ask – is this: what should the candidates debate as they try to lead us all to the ballot box?

It is always tempting for candidates, particularly presidential candidates, to try and have an answer about everything, for everyone. Some candidates have become quite famous for trying to be all things to all people and the list of ‘too glib by half’ candidates who always have a smooth and polished – and inevitably pointless – answer for any and every question is too long to contemplate. I would like to suggest for Governor Romney that he take a different tack on things.

The nation is now faced with a situation that arguably it has never faced. We as a nation have faced existential threats several times. Obviously we faced such a threat during the Revolution – but as there was no President, so also there was no national election that might debate that threat. During the War of 1812, which began 200 years ago this June 18th, the young United States found itself at war with England again, and woefully unprepared. At several points in the struggle we could have lost and lost catastrophically. During the Civil War we again faced the potential of the literal catastrophic failure of the nation. Twice Lincoln led the nation through a debate that touched on our very existence. Twice Lincoln focused that debate on the central issue of the war: the survival of the Union and the right of the federal government to limit (1860) or eliminate (1864) slavery. Other issues, while important, really had no bearing on the political debate.

We again faced an existential threat in 1940 and 1944 (and FDR managed a remarkable political juggling act in 1940 in both beginning the large-scale rearmament and the re-supply of England while ostensibly maintaining neutrality.) Throughout the Cold War we again faced a literal threat to our existence. One Presidential candidate after another focused on how best to preserve the nation: and while some candidates (and Presidents) were not quite as committed to facing the risk from the Soviet Union as we others, every candidate recognized that there was a hierarchy of issues and that some trumped others. In all of these elections the candidates focused on the key issues, they did not let the themes fall out of the limelight, nor did they let other issues mask the real decision-point.

But, since the collapse of the Soviet Union we have had a more difficult time, not simply in focusing on the central issues, but in identifying them. Even in 2004, just 3 years after the attacks of September 11th, there was already a crowding of issues, and the apparent existential threat that we all felt immediately after those attacks had faded. Terrorism represented a threat, but not one that might literally destroy the nation. Arguably, terrorism never posed a threat on the scale of those faced during the Cold War. Certainly terrorist attacks were (and are) more immediate and have a higher likelihood of occurring, but the effects were (and are) clearly more limited. And so, other issues have risen to be debated by our candidates. In fact, by 2008 it seemed that there were no concrete issues, rather the central debate devolved into ‘let’s do something different.’

All that has changed. Problems that were first identified years ago have festered and grown so severe that they truly do represent a long-term threat to our very national existence. Our level of debt threatens a general economic collapse that could destroy the nation as a political and economic entity. Our entitlement programs and the growing span of government involvement and overreach into day-to-day economic and individual activities threaten to change the very nature of our national culture. And the flow of power from town to state, and state to federal government, and the growing alienation of our politicians from our citizens threaten to undermine our concept of a government of, by and for the people.

Yet the incremental nature of this threat, the fact that collapse is ‘far off,’ means it can be ignored by some, and provided lip service by many others. We have candidates who seek to debate every single possible issue, and a President who seems to want to turn every high-profile incident across this nation into an opportunity to score points in the mainstream media, blame an administration that has been out of office for 39 months, while unwilling to address controlling the growth of government or the proliferation of regulations or to stem the tide of the unfettered spending of government agencies.

Governor Romney’s challenge, and his opportunity, is to tell the nation the nature of the risk it faces, to focus the nation’s attention, and to begin to address these dangers. The challenge of course is exacerbated by the simple fact that the collapse is going to be slow and drawn out over decades. But it is no less real for all that. He must focus the nation on no more than three issues: we must limit the size of government and balance the budget; we must focus the federal government on those few essential tasks that it alone can address and keep it otherwise uninvolved; we must provide for the defense of the nation. When asked about any other subject Romney must respond to the effect: that it an important issue, but it is not as important as our survival, and therefore it must be pushed aside for now.

President Reagan once remarked (I’m paraphrasing): “Show me someone who has 10 or 12 goals and I’ll show you someone with no goals.” No organization, particularly one as big as the federal government, can be managed when it is trying to do 10 things at once. Our nation can only survive if it focuses; I submit that the American people understand that; Governor Romney can now provide that focus.