Reagan’s eleventh commandment
Remember Reagan’s eleventh commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican?”
This year the interminable debate format and the large size of the field has made it almost inevitable that just about everybody’s been violating it, and it will end up hurting whomever is the eventual nominee (there will be a nominee eventually, won’t here? Won’t there?)
About the commandment:
In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan attributed the rule to Parkinson, explained its origin, and claimed to have followed it.:
“The personal attacks against me during the primary finally became so heavy that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It’s a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since.”
The goal was to prevent a repeat of the liberal Republican assault on Barry Goldwater, attacks which contributed to Goldwater’s defeat in the 1964 presidential election. East Coast Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller labeled Goldwater an “extremist” for his conservative positions and declared him unfit to hold office. Fellow Republican candidate for Governor George Christopher and California’s liberal Republicans were leveling similar attacks on Reagan. Hoping to prevent a split in the Republican Party, Parkinson used the phrase as common ground. Party liberals eventually followed Parkinson’s advice.
The rule’s a problematic one, though. After all, it’s not as though the candidates are above criticism. The public has to figure out a way to tell them apart, judge them, and then vote in the primaries; and the MSM, the Democrats, and Republican pundits have been ever-so-helpful in assisting us—as have been (in the case of Herman Cain) a number of women we’ll never, never ever (mark my words) hear from or about again.
Sometimes the Republican candidates have joined in. But the net effect has been to do at least some of the Democrats’ dirty work for them. And it makes for all those great sound bites to be used by Obama in his campaign. But the debate format practically requires it.
As for Reagan—recently I was thinking that Reagan was governor of a somewhat liberal state (like Romney), although it’s nowhere near as liberal as Massachusetts. Could he be elected today?
I’m certainly not the only one who ever wondered that:
As governor, Reagan was the biggest California spender of the last half century. Under him, state spending leaped 177%…His first year as governor, Reagan raised taxes equal to 30% of the state general fund, still a modern record…As governor, Reagan protected the spectacular John Muir Trail in the Sierra from highway builders and Central Valley business interests. He blocked dam building on the Eel and Feather rivers. He and Republican Gov. Paul Laxalt of Nevada set aside their aversion to centralized, intrusive government and created a bi-state agency to control growth at Lake Tahoe. Reagan signed legislation creating the California Air Resources Board, leading to the nation’s first tailpipe emissions standards.
…As governor, Reagan signed the nation’s then most liberal abortion rights bill. (He later called it a mistake.) He opposed a ballot initiative that would have permitted the firing of teachers for being gay.
President Reagan signed a bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants.
I happen to think, however, that Reagan actually would be likely to be nominated again, even in today’s more doctrinally rigid climate. Why? Reagan was inspiring both rhetorically and personally—in other words, charismatic—to a degree that today’s candidates not only are not, but don’t even begin to approach.
Why do I keep harping on personal intangible characteristics, as I did in my recent piece in which I found Newt particularly lacking in that arena (although Romney’s not great either)? Because that’s what I see as political reality. It’s not the only thing, of course; candidates are indeed evaluated on their policy statements and their records of accomplishment. But not nearly as much as one might think, or wish. We are continually reacting on a nonverbal gut level to candidates, as we do to all the people in our lives. We may not always be able to explain what draws us to some people and repels us from others, but it’s powerful, and it matters in politics too. Usually, a lot.
[NOTE: It’s interesting, though, that Gingrich—one of the least personally pleasant candidates on that gut level of which I speak—is the candidate most explicitly intent on not violating Reagan’s eleventh commandment.]
I agree that Reagan, today, would be electable. Charisma. The Great Communicator. Willing to express principle and to stand on principle.
Also, something which is often forgotten about Reagan: he was a fighter. He fought very, very, very hard. He was willing to blast his opponents. Re Eleventh Commandment: I was too young to be aware of whether or not Reagan fought in a way which was consistent with his principles/Eleventh Commandment. I do, however, distinctly remember that Reagan was willing and able to blast his opponents. I remember that he did so with gusto. Possibly and partly b/c of this: I remember that Reagan was labeled an extremist – both in personality and in policy – who would bring woe to the world and to the USA.
Reagan, in a modern race, would get his message across; would effectively communicate his history of governing.
Reagan was certainly a spendthrift who expanded government, I never understood why some folks think of him as a fiscal conservative small government man. I was disappointed when Stockman was “taken to the woodshed” and I was a Democrat at the time.
California in 1966 was not the lefty monstrosity we see today. It was a prosperous place of abundant resources and thriving industry. Wealth was being produced, not just transferred.
The first steps of liberalism are the easiest, and provide the greatest return. It is the pattern and habit of liberalism which corrupts.
I suspect the internets have made Reagan’s commandment moot. Information and misinformation want to be free. And everything we do is being recorded and saved for future exploitation.
This blogpost, about intangible personality characteristics, brings to mind the candidate standard which usually does decide Presidential races: “Which candidate would you rather drink a beer with?”
I say we need a poll:
Which candidate would you rather drink a beer with?
Gingrich
Romney
Paul
Perry
Bachmann
Santorum
Huntsman
Obama
Hillary
I suspect the poll result will be more accurate … than all the reasoning which we commenters have, to this point, proffered in this comment section.
In studying the poll, I surprise myself by choosing Bachmann. These would all be insufferable: Gingrich, Romney, Paul, Hunstman, Obama, Hillary. I feel as though I know everything about Perry and Santorum: they would offer little amusement. Bachmann would be an amusing and lively companion. I never expected to choose her, yet she is my pick.
gcotharn: I’d choose Perry, actually. I think he’d be most fun.
California in 1966 was not the lefty monstrosity we see today. It was a prosperous place of abundant resources and thriving industry.
Exactly. California 40 years ago was not nearly as liberal-infested as it is today. The Bay Area was only a small primary tumor that had yet to metastasize. (Pardon the slightly mixed metaphors.) Of course, back then, SF was a blue-collar union-type Democrat city, not the degenerate Disneyland dystopia it is today.
As a Texan and former Air Force pilot, Perry would be the most entertaining.
Hmmm…Huntsman and Romney could only watch *me* drink a beer. I agree that Perry would be the most entertaining companion. And who would pass up sharing a line of blow with Obama?
I have read that monotonous robotic Al Gore is actually a fun fellow to have a beer with. It’s another frustration that our opinion of these intangibles is based on the tiny slivers of personality that reach a wide audience.
We vote for shadows.
Ability to inspire depends on what qualities are now, in public view, in short supply. Now the most deficient quality, it seems to me, is chutzpah. Gindrich has trackloads of it, that is the secret of his surge in the polls.
foxmarks,
It’s not just California that was different; the whole country was. And things that seemed to be opening opportunities for more people have been turned by a professional class of activists and advocates into these worst sort of categorization.
I’m not sure who I’d want to have a beer with, but I would love to see Romney at a cookout with his grandkids. I would like to know if he can loosen up enough to be silly with them. I like people who can occasionally let their inner kid out. Of that candidate group, I would say that Paul and Obama probably don’t have an inner kid.
“We are continually reacting on a nonverbal gut level to candidates, as we do to all the people in our lives.”
Its in our DNA. We make judgments based upon body language, physical features, tone & timbre of voice, scent, etc. I can’t stand watching or listening to Romney. He may well be a nice person in private life, but I find his public persona to be creepy and remote. I feel the very same way about BHO. To me he’s always been a cold fish stuffed with a barely suppressed disdain for the ‘lesser people’.
From gcotharn’s list I too would choose Perry. I have a feeling he would be an amusing and charming fellow in a private, personal setting.
foxmarks: I think LBJ was the quintessential example of the gap between public and private persona. When he was president, I thought of him as stuffy and lumbering and very very dull. What a surprise it was to learn years later that he’d been one of the quirkiest, funniest, raunchiest, and most ribald presidents we’d had.
What a surprise it was to learn years later that he’d been one of the quirkiest, funniest, raunchiest, and most ribald presidents we’d had.
You left out “boorish.”
Occam’s Beard: well, I don’t think that “boorish” was at odds with his public persona. But the others were.
On LBJ, Neo was probably too young then. LBJ picked his WH beagle up by its ears, showed off his cholecystectomy incision-just pulled his shirt up, and during cabinet meetings left the bathroom door open while he took a dump lest he miss anything. He was boorish indeed. He was also corrupt as hell.
Humphrey was funny: while touring the Johnson ranch with LBJ as Veep nominee, along with a cloud of reporters, HHH stepped into a fresh cowpile, held up his crap-dripping foot, and said, Look, Mr. President, I’ve just stepped on the Republican platform.
I would definitely choose Perry on the beer question. He’s the only one I’d feel like I could be myself around.
Don Carlos: but that was my point in my comment at 7:39. Most of the time LBJ in public was dull, and every now and then he did seem cloddish and boorish (the beagle and the scar), but he never seemed funny or raunchy or crudely witty in a verbal way, which he definitely was in private.
And the part about his taking dumps while talking to underlings—which I read about years later—my impression was that he used that tactic to humiliate people. He’d be talking to them and insist on their continuing to listen while he went to the bathroom and did his business. It was a way to exert power.
HHH stepped into a fresh cowpile
How did Humphrey’s aides know when to stop scraping?
Bottom line: Oswald shot the wrong one. We’d have been better off if he’d shot Johnson and left Kennedy alone, even though (God knows) Kennedy was a lousy President.
HHH once said:
“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”
HHH, Scoop Jackson, and Pat Moynihan were true believers in the the solid core of what makes America America. We no longer have democrats like these 3.
I’d feel right at home having a beer with Perry. He’s a regular guy or projects that image.
Having a beer with Gingrich could be a learning experience if I didn’t drink and kept my wits about me. However, I doubt he’d want to have a beer with someone who wasn’t either influential or well connected. He’s 68, running out of time and doesn’t have time for such things.
I wouldn’t mind having a chat over a coke with either Huntsman or Romney. It would not be an easy-going gab fest, but quite proper. Their LDS missions and life as Mormons makes them a tad different than we non-Mormons. I lived in Salt lake city for a time and found the Mormons very nice, very hard working, very serious, but hard to get close to in a casual way. That may be why Romney and Huntsman seem remote or off putting.
Michelle Bachmann seems too hard edged, too pushy, too ambitious. She will fight but doesn’t know how to do it in such a way that it sounds like she is in command. More like a housewife nagging her husband. Sorry, I know that will raise some hackles but it is my impression of her and one reason I rate her just ahead of Santorum (basically the one issue candidate) and Paul (the pacifistic foreign policy candidate).
That presidents are not easily approachable doesn’t bother me as long as they have first-class minds and life experience that prepares them to be leaders. Obama, IMO, has neither.
After watching the debate in Iowa the other night I was struck by how hard Bachmann–who, reading the polls, doesn’t have a realistic chance to become the nominee–was trying to destroy the chances of Newt, who does.
I’m old enough to remember Reagan and all his debates. He was so far above the other Reps., then competing, that he could largely ignore them. (For the old-timers, remember Bush I with his “voodoo economics”?)
In an IDEAL democratic process any candidate can attack any other candidate on substance and issues.
In the IDEAL system, the MSM (fourth estate) is supposed to correct any overages.
We have lost the IDEAL system.
Get out the ammo.