Haley Barbour and the overgrown presidency
I found Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s announcement yesterday that he’s not running for president surprising but not earth-shattering; I previously explained that I didn’t think Barbour could win the presidency anyway, and nothing in the interim had changed my mind.
That said, I agree with what the Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon wrote about the reason Barbour gave for staying out:
Gov. Barbour’s explanation for why he will not seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination — because a candidate today “is embracing a ten-year commitment to an all-consuming effort, to the virtual exclusion of all else,” and he cannot make such a commitment — is not only refreshingly candid but points to a much deeper problem.
We are moving inexorably not simply to news but to politics 24/7/365. And what better example than our current part-time president who, with no primary challenger in sight, is already on the campaign trail (did he ever leave it?), when the election is 19 months away. Some of us are old enough to remember when elected officials served — and ran for office or re-election only around election time.
Part of the reason for the change is the need today for vast amounts of campaign cash. But the deeper reason, I submit, is because politics has taken over so much of life. When government was more limited, and we didn’t look to it to provide our every need and want, those who “governed” didn’t feel such a need to cater to us — and we had better things to do anyway than obsess over politics. Calvin Coolidge took naps in the White House — in his pajamas! Imagine that today.
(h/t: Instapundit)
It’s not just the media scrutiny of candidates’ personal lives, although that probably still dissuade some potential candidates who may have an embarrassing episode in their or their family members’ past, even if the embarrassment isn’t relevant to how they’d perform in office. The presidency is too-large-for-life because the president is the head of a government that is simply too large. (The too-large-for-life factor also reportedly is why Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who I’d place well above Barbour on my list, has been on the fence about running.)
Not to excuse bad decisions by any president, but I have to wonder who, exactly, could perform the job as it stands today, evolved and mutated in so many ways. And let’s not overlook that President Obama and his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, didn’t help matters with their efforts to expand the federal government and the president’s role in it.
In fact, I think the too-large-for-life presidency also reinforces the polarization of politics — which in turn further explains the “all-consuming effort,” in Barbour’s words, it takes to become and serve as president. A president invariably will disappoint or even anger his base with some of his actions. But, because he is responsible for so much, his supporters are often hesitant to object too strenuously, lest it weaken his ability to act on other policies on which he and they agree.
So, we got less self-policing of Bush by Republicans on the growth of government and spending — at least until the very end of his presidency, when the magnitude of the problem made it impossible to ignore any longer. And now we get crickets from the mostly left-wing anti-war movement when Obama extends the war in Afghanistan and launches a new one in Libya.
If we want a better president and government, we need to ask them to do less.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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85 comments Add your comment
Bart Abel
April 26th, 2011
4:34 pm
“A president invariably will disappoint or even anger his base with some of his actions. But, because he is responsible for so much, his supporters are often hesitant to object too strenuously, lest it weaken his ability to act on other policies on which he and they agree…”
I follow this stuff pretty closely, and with the exception of immigration reform, I saw little evidence that Bush disappointed or angered his base while he was still in office. For years, the Republican media outlets, Fox News and talk-radio, behaved as though Bush and the Republican congress could do no wrong. It was Bush’s base that held up his 30-something approval ratings.
Bush advertised himself as small government conservative, but he engaged in nation-building, increased farm and other business subsidies, spied on Americans without warrants, issued record numbers of signing statements denying that he was subject to or had to enforce laws that he signed, created a new department and cabinet post, signed appropriations bills with quadrupled earmarks from the Republican congress, created a new entitlement, bailed out the banks, turned surpluses into deficits, forced Congress to have to raise debt ceiling multiple times, and more than doubled the national debt. Through all of this, his base enthusiastically re-elected him and cheered him on throughout his second term. As far as I can tell, they still think of him fondly. Even now, they blame Obama for Bush’s deficits, blame Democrats for Bush’s TARP, and blame Barney Frank for Bush’s recession. If only Barney Frank hadn’t magically stopped the Republican congress from reforming Freddie and Fannie.
You don’t see the same from the left. Liberal politicians and pundits, Alan Grayson, Anthony Wiener, Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Harry Reid, Elliot Spitzer, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz, The Nation magazine, Howard Dean, and others are the first to criticize Obama when they’re dissatisfied. Read the liberal sites and comments when Obama expressed his willingness to throw-out the public options, after the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, the deal to cuts spending when millions are out of work, and so on. Read the House progressive caucus’ budget that seeks to help balance the budget by immediately ending the war in Afghanistan. Even though the mainstream media isn’t covering that budget, it’s support among the left is huge compared with tepid support for Obama’s budget.
A lot of factors played into the last election, but part of it was the fact that Obama’s base was demoralized by a stimulus that most of his base believed was too small, a health reform law that didn’t include a public option, increased troops in Afghanistan, and Obama’s continued support for clean coal, whatever that is, drilling, and nuclear energy.
Maybe reliably Democratic voters should be more like Republican voters and support their guy no-matter-what, but I don’t see that happening.
JimWoodburn
April 26th, 2011
4:45 pm
I remember the same mantra about the presidency being “too big” for any one person near the end of Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency. I didn’t hear the mantra being repeated during the Reagan administration — amazing the difference a strong, conservative leader can make. I really hope that the fact that this mantra is being restated today is a sign that we will end up with a truly Reaganesque president — only this time with a Congress that will be serious about bringing spending under control.
bryan
April 26th, 2011
4:47 pm
This article’s premise is ridiculous. The president hasn’t become a larger than life figure because government has become too big. Its a simple, inevitable reality created by the rise of mass media and America’s position at the top of world affairs. Calvin Coolidge could take naps during the day because he didn’t have to worry about CNN’s nonstop coverage of some random comment he made at the end of a press conference, or what Al Qaeda was planning somewhere in Yemen or Somalia. Please don’t use our media culture as an excuse to push tired Reagan-era talking points.
bill
April 26th, 2011
4:49 pm
Why was the fact that Obama is black even in this conversation? Mitzymy? He is apparently the best salesman in the world or the electorate is the dumbest…..your call…
Bart Abel
April 26th, 2011
4:53 pm
Speaking of an overgrown presidency, below is an excerpt from a 2006 news report about findings from the Congressional Research Service. Honestly, the people who are complaining about an overgrown presidency when a Democrat is in the White House seemed thrilled to see the Unitary Executive Theory applied when a Republican was in the White House ——-
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/09/bush_uses_signing_statements_t.html
The Bush Administration’s use of Presidential signing statements to assert objections to enacted legislation reflects an attempt to expand and consolidate Presidential authority at the expense of Congress, according to a new analysis (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.
The Bush signing statements appear to be part of a larger campaign to seize increased Presidential authority, the CRS said.
“The broad and persistent nature of the claims of executive authority forwarded by President Bush appear designed to inure [i.e., to accustom] Congress, as well as others, to the belief that the President in fact possesses expansive and exclusive powers upon which the other branches may not intrude,” the CRS report stated.
It follows that “the appropriate focus of congressional concern should center not on the issuance of signing statements themselves, but on the broad assertions of presidential authority forwarded by Presidents and the substantive actions taken to establish that authority.”
MarkV
April 26th, 2011
4:54 pm
Bart Abel @ 4:34 pm: I think the dissatisfaction of the base with Obama is a good thing, even if it may have had the unfortunate effect on mid-term. It keeps on the pressure and prevents too much compromise. The liberal base ignores the fact that politics is indeed “the art of the possible.”
Linda
April 26th, 2011
4:57 pm
bill@4:49, …the electorate WAS the dumbest…
That was the “change” that actually transpired.
Linda
April 26th, 2011
5:37 pm
What I want to know is why anyone would get married at 5 o’clock in the morning, unless you’re in Vegas & have no idea what you are doing?
I also want to know what you guys are sending this couple for wedding gifts. I’ve been married 35 years & I’ve given my favorite wedding gift to dozens of couples. Forget place settings! China, crystal & silver were appreciated, as were all the linens, but there was one item my husband & I both really enjoyed the most. We worked long hours & could only find time to use it late at night after supper about once every 2 weeks or so. We would set it in the kitchen sink, plug it in & marvel at its’ complex technology & skills that brought us into a new age. We would wake up at 2 o’clock in the morning & enjoy our treat while flipping on a scarry movie to enhance our chill bumps. What time we saved & how much joy it brought into our lives!
I hope this prince & his new princess equally enjoy the electric ice cream freezer I sent them & the recipe for Georgia peach ice cream I included.
Bob
April 26th, 2011
6:03 pm
I have always known that the racist repubs hate blacks more than they love America. The fact of the matter is that the South(red states)and northern confederate sympathyzers did not voluntarily rejoin the union.They were forced to rejoin.They did not want to give up the racist cause They hated America then and their children and grandchildren hate America now.They just cover their racism with the phony word ‘conservative’ Republicans.
Linda
April 26th, 2011
6:32 pm
Bob@6:03, Since you are revisiting history, may I remind you that Lincoln was a Republican? Without the white vote, O would have never been elected. The only people who hate America today seem to be the progressives who are trying to & have almost suceeded in bankrupting the country. The only racists left are a few whites & the black leadership & their followers.
Michael H. Smith
April 26th, 2011
6:40 pm
Why has the federal government become too big and how did it get this way and why this happen, Kyle?
A professor during a recent interview (on fox business news) said something that caught my attention, perhaps it will interest you as well: There is a direct correlation between the increase in taxes and growth in the size of government. To the point: The more money (the federal) government takes in, the more (the federal) government grows, invariably. I think I’m becoming more of a Conserv-atarian with each passing day.
Something else here below to pass along.
Randall G. Holcombe -
Federal Government Growth Before the New Deal
Lincoln and Wilson Set Precedents for Government Spending
The New Deal is often seen as the pivotal event in the growth of America’s twentieth- century Leviathan. But the federal government has grown since its inception. The most important event in the history of federal government growth was undoubtedly the Civil War. Then, supported by the popular demand for more government involvement in the economy, the ideological foundation of the massive growth in federal spending was laid during the Progressive Era at the beginning of the twentieth century. The federal income tax made that growth in spending possible.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/federal-government-growth-before-the-new-deal/
Rockerbabe
April 26th, 2011
7:05 pm
It doesn’t matter what President Obama does or doesn’t do. He will never win over the GOP or the tea partiers because those folks are infected with rabes. The foam at the mouth with every word or deed he does. He’s always here, when he’s not and they complain about that too. I sticks his nose into legislative matters where it doesn’t belong and when he takes a lower profile and lets Congress “do its things”, they complain about that too.
He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. NONE of the GOP lap dogs is a worthy adversary for President Obama. They are all to self-involved, except when they are executing their war on women and their rights.
I’m not all that happy with Obama, but face it, he actually looks like the mature adult in a room full of bratty, spoiled frat boys bent on mischief.
Linda
April 26th, 2011
8:27 pm
Rockerbabe@7:05, What are rabes?
A woman’s right is whether to have sex or not. If she chooses to have sex & becomes pregnant, does she have the right to abort her baby? Does she have the right to abort it at 3 months, 6 months or the day before 9 months? When does life begin? Democrats have not agreed on this question.
What separates womens’ rights & unborn children’s rights?
anna nomous
April 26th, 2011
8:38 pm
you know, nuclear power is not the problem, it is the solution…
Linda
April 26th, 2011
8:41 pm
One of the reasons I am against abortion is because a close relative had one, a married woman, one of the most prominent women in the state of GA., who deemed it okay at the time. As she aged, she regretted what she did. She was in her 50’s when she committed suicide, leaving a Golden son & the best husband one could muster.
Gnirol
April 26th, 2011
8:51 pm
I hope Mr. Wingfield will remember his comments when the election campaign rolls around and conservatives are railing against Mr. Obama for not reducing unemployment or lowering the price of gas. According to this writer, that, of all things, is not the president’s job. Certainly not mentioned in the Constitution. It is not even the president’s job to ensure a good economy that encourages private business to hire more workers. Please remember what you wrote today, Mr. Wingfield, and castigate the GOP candidate, whoever that might be, for attacking the president on these points, as he or she surely will. I agree that too many Americans, egged on by the media, expect their president to work miracles and that is a ridiculous attitude to take.
Rockerbabe
April 26th, 2011
11:51 pm
Linda:
Roe vs Wade indicated that viability was the determinating factor; but in the end, the woman’s life and well-being takes priority over the fetus. Afterall, it is her life, her body intergrity and her already established rights that have the final say. Women have the right of survival, just at all other already born individuals. Very few abortions occur in the second or third trimesters; they are way too risky and way too expensive to afford. And finding a competent MD to do the procedure is also another matter.
The vast majority of abortion in this country occurs before 10 weeks of pregnancy; almost 85-90%! And
60% of women having an abortion already have one living child; so no one can really say the woman doesn’t know what she is doing. Just because a woman MAY have regrets later is no reason to deny a legal and safe abortion to a woman wanting the procedure. Lord knows, many women regret having kids, getting married, not finishing school, etc. Regret is a fact of life no matter what one does. And, regret is a very personal matter. Women DO NOT need to be protected from themselves; just busy-bodies with nothing else better to do!
Michael H. Smith
April 27th, 2011
12:43 am
Gnirol @ 8:51
A great deal of what Presidents do today is not mentioned in the Constitution, because Presidents over time have stolen more and more powers from a too lazy or derelict Congress: Like lil barry’s military move on Libya. Only two or three members of Congress publically challenged lil barry on this; and one Congressman justified the Congressional inaction and that of his own simply on the bases of, “they like him”. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give a President, a Commander in Chief the authority of Monarchy nor does the Constitution give Congress the authority to make him one because, “they like him”.
Where is the media egging this on?
Where are the socialist liberal war protesters in the streets raising $400 worth of hell, as they normally do?
Personally, this writer, doesn’ want to see one more word written by liberals decrying the Bush wars or any wars, after the free-pass they have given this current President on Libya.
A great deal of what the federal government now does is not mentioned in the Constitution, as the powers and rights of the States have been stolen and stripped away by those in the federal government over time. It is not the job of the federal government to regulate any or everything when it only has authority to regulate but a very, very, very, few things that are specifically listed in the Constitution. Again, socialist liberals/Progressives pick and choose, cherry picking constitutional issues when it conveniently fits their cause and simply pass a law or make up something they want to be in the Constitution, when it is not, take action to establish a precedent for it and then claim it as an unwritten defacto amendment to the Constitution.
When the Progressive left and this current President stops doing things and “promising to do miraculous things” that they have no Constitutional authority to do, then perhaps what you have written this day won’t be remembered as the pure inflammatory pious hypocrisy of political sour grapes.
Doug S.
April 27th, 2011
12:52 am
When the health insurance industry is broken and “free market” is a concept that exist only in men’s minds, humanity calls for government to step in. The reality is Georgia has done little to nothing over the last couple of decades to help its residents when it comes to private insurance carriers locking out the approaching elderly.
Michael H. Smith
April 27th, 2011
1:48 am
The reality is in Republican forms of government we all live under the law. The Supreme Law of the land is the Constitution. The Constitution tells government when and where it can or cannot step in. If the “calls of humanity” ever become the Supreme Law of the land the least of elderly concerns will be healthcare, as humanity has often called for the euthanasia of the elderly.
Steve
April 27th, 2011
5:55 am
I said it in 2008 and I say it again: anyone who wants to be president of the United States during these times has got to have one immense ego and be willing to practically sell his (or her) soul to the devil in order to get anything done. It is not a job for those afraid of ridicule or those who feel a need to defend their every thought/action. Everyone seems to think their idea about what the president should do is the right one without having all the facts or understanding beyond a limited scope supplied by a media that is manipulative and divisive.
Rightwing Troll
April 27th, 2011
7:17 am
So… now it’s those evil Libs fault that politics are so acrimonious and that the world lives in a continual 24/hr news cycle?
ND
April 27th, 2011
8:14 am
“even if the embarrassment isn’t relevant to how they’d perform in office”
Can’t think of anything less relevant to a person’s performance in any capacity than their location of birth. Just sayin’…
The Snark
April 27th, 2011
8:35 am
Perhaps the reason President Obama is already running for re-election is that his political opponents have been openly vowing to make him a “one term President” since the day he took the oath.
Neo
April 27th, 2011
8:40 am
Pres**ent Obama must be shaking in his boots over the anger of his base.
Yeah, I’m sure he thinks about them every time he goes out to golf.
Buzz G
April 27th, 2011
9:01 am
Who wants to be President when the dollar collapses and we will be fighting 90% inflation and a 92% tax rate? One thing, national bankruptcy will force us to balance our budget because no one will lend us any money.
CDog
April 27th, 2011
9:16 am
As a social conservative, the only potential candidates I trust are Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. I feel Romney, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Daniels, Trump, and Bachman would sell us out if the going got tough.
LogicalUS
April 27th, 2011
9:38 am
Shorter AJC……Another disaster of a Leftist fails miserably so it has to be that the job is just tooooo hard.
Not that our most gullible and moronic citizens elected a dolt from Chicago who had failed at every job he had ever tried in his life. Left’s face reality, Obama is doing what he has ALWAYS done, failing. It takes a new level of stupid to turn an Ivy League diploma into conducting ACORN seminars in the backwoods of Chicago and being a toady of the Chicago machine.
Yet a short two years ago, you fools were fainting at his speeches and raving about his being the messiah sent to correct our heinous past. Now you are “surprised” that this career freakup is failing yet again.
How about next time stop listening to fabricated campaign slop and elected a man qualified to handle the position, you fools.
Kyle Wingfield
April 27th, 2011
9:57 am
LogicalUS: How do you interpret an argument for smaller government as some kind of defense for Obama?
Paul A'Barge
April 27th, 2011
10:42 am
I knew there was a reason the founding fathers created states with state governments and state responsibilities.
Instapundit » Blog Archive » HAS THE PRESIDENCY gotten too big? Or is this just another manifestation of the ungovernable Americ…
April 27th, 2011
10:50 am
[...] THE PRESIDENCY gotten too big? Or is this just another manifestation of the ungovernable America [...]
Bird Dog
April 27th, 2011
11:16 am
I remember people saying the same thing 20 years about NYC, that the place was too big and populous to be governable. Then Giuliani stepped in, and those comments ended in short order.
Here’s a more plausible explanation, Kyle. The American people elected a person with no executive experience on his resume and only two solid years as a U.S. Senator, yet somehow you were expecting…what? A consummate executive with stellar PR and political skills? Get serious.
Bird Dog
April 27th, 2011
11:50 am
One other thing. POTUS is a big job, and it takes a big commitment. No one doubt Barbour’s belly. As to whether there was enough fire in it, you got your answer.
Walter Sobchak
April 27th, 2011
12:29 pm
The job isn’t too big. The incumbent is just to small.
Quasimodo
April 27th, 2011
1:48 pm
The problem is that they try to govern EVERYTHING. The bureaucracy to govern it all is too big to manage let alone pay for. Adults resent being told that they have to buy a specific kind of light bulb or what lunch they can send their kids to school with. If we are ungovernable, the Federal government has a huge hand in making it so.