Statesmanship vs Leading from the Polls

Something is radically wrong with the 2012 presidential season.

We have in President Obama a man elevated to an office for which he was ill-prepared by experience and motivation. His effort to radically change the basic social compact that binds Americans to their government and political leadership, and to one another, was not conceived to comfort or improve the status of average Americans but to wrench them toward a compact they had neither asked for nor sufficiently thought about nor expected from the rhetoric that Mr. Obama used as a candidate for the office to which he was elected. The lack of morality in his election tactics has deposited a stain on all that has followed.

Against this background, we have had three years of what can only be described as social warfare, fought out in the chambers of Congress, in the media and in the profoundly felt anxiety of American citizens.

We now see the results of the wrenching and anxiety as Republicans push to halt the drive toward the left that they believe Americans neither agreed to nor wanted.

The President’s attempts to “tax the rich” and make everyone pay their “fair share,” his unbending goal to establish a health care system that a majority of Americans do not want, his use of “divide and conquer” techniques that pit Americans who are unemployed against a financial system that was broken primarily by prior governments’ efforts to make American workers equal to wealthier Americans - these tactics are beneath the dignity of his office. They render Mr. Obama a divisive and dangerous power in an America that can ill-afford either division or danger as it struggles to overcome the malaise that grips it.

We would have hoped that the Republicans who believe they can do better in the White House would take the higher ground to prove that it is not America that is broken but only its misguided leader. And indeed the GOP have done this on several fronts, including leading from the confines of the social compact that has always bound Americans together, and in reaching out to the world not from raw self-interest but in an attempt to find common ground that will advance the aspirations of mankind.

But, we do not see the statesmen and stateswomen who ought to leading the national debate. Instead, we see a parade of flat characters who are positioning themselves by following polls and the loudest voices to gain votes in primaries that will lead to the selection of the GOP presidential nominee.

What is a statesman?

Winston Churchill said of leadership, “A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.” He followed his own advice during World War II. But, Churchill also said that “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

And, it is not that we are without potential statesmen and women on both sides of the American political aisle. But, somehow, their voices are not being heard. They have, perhaps, forgotten that their responsibility as elected officials is to stand up. Stand up and tell America the truth. Stand up and tell Americans that some things can be cured quickly and easily, but that others will take time and effort and sacrifice. Then they need to sit down and listen - to their peers in Congress and to the American voters who sent them to Washington.

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey summed it up in language that fits these economically and socially bad times in America.

“Today is the day for complaining to end and for statesmanship to begin. Today I am taking action to cut state spending and balance the budget this year.”

The result? Christie and his constituency have made real progress in balancing New Jersey’s budget and cutting spending. He has not flinched from asking business and wealthy residents and organized public and private workers to participate in the effort. They have debated the issues as adults, not by following the latest polls, and they are showing the rest of America that honest debate and compromise work.

Now, how do we sell this truth to the rest of the American political landscape?