America Needs a Leader with Vision

Earlier this month former Florida Governor Jeb Bush made waves in the Republican Party by saying that Ronald Reagan probably couldn’t be nominated today by the GOP because he wouldn’t pass all the conservative tests of loyalty, measured by being unwilling to compromise on almost any bill or idea placed in the national hopper, imposed on all Republicans at the national level (I’m sure the tests exist at local levels, but that is another issue).
“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time — they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support,” Bush added. Reagan today “would be criticized for doing the things that he did.”
The Washington Post took this statement to mean that the Republican Party has become so “intransigent” that even Ronald Reagan would be booted out.
Of course, we know about the Norquist “no new taxes” test. And we know about the social conservatives’ demand for purity in matters of abortion and gay rights.
We also saw US Senator Richard Lugar lose his primary in Indiana this spring, explained by many as being the result of his willingness to compromise. Here, I take umbrage. Dick Lugar has served his country long and well. He has been a major force for balance and reason in Washington. But, at 80, it was time for him to pass the torch. Nobody is immortal - with the possible exception of Strom Thurmond. Lugar lost to the younger blood in the GOP, and rightly so. He should have had the good sense to retire.
But, Jeb Bush is another matter. His comments are serious and ought to be considered long and hard.
I have said before that politics is not religion. It is not ethics. It is not the guardian of morality except in a broad sense. It is the art of governing, and from the Athens of Pericles to today, that art has included compromise.
So, to be elected only to stonewall in the hope of lasting longer than the opposition without blinking is rather like playing poker, or being on the front line in a war. These are the places for bluff and patience.
Gandhi did not try to get his people elected to the Raj parliament in India. He put them on the streets as passive resisters who would not leave until they had taken back their own country from the British -- because his goal was not, at the bottom, political. He was in a war with the British who controlled his country. There, compromise had no place. We could say the same of the Egyptian rebellion of 2011.
But, in the America of 2012, there is no occupier. There is no need to take to the streets. There is no outside enemy thwarting an American wish for self-government. America, with all its other faults, is still the best example of self-government ever conceived.
But, Americans are in great danger of losing their government and their country to those who would make it a theocracy of sorts, or a dictatorship dedicated to a particular brand of morals.
And, I do not accuse the GOP alone. Have you heard a Democrat say lately that any topic was one for compromise? And, have you heard that there are 100 bills passed by the GOP House of Representatives which are collecting dust on Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid’s desk because he has labeled them DOA. Dead on arrival because of what??? Their sin is that they are the work of the GOP. That, dear readers, is not the spirit of compromise.
While America needs to get its economic and fiscal house in order as soon as possible, and while the November election is all about whether Obama or Romney can do this better, there is a larger, even more important role for the next President of the United States.
It is called Leadership.
America desperately needs a leader who can mend fences, bring opposing views to a middle ground, find common cause in major issues so that something can get done.
America needs VISION. That is what President Reagan had. He could put into simple words the spirit that made America great. And then he took those words and that vision and worked them through Congress to make his vision reality.
Of course, we will never have another Reagan. Perhaps we don’t even need one -- he did his job in his time.
But, America needs a leader. The clock is ticking on her capacity to survive in the viciously polarized political environment she finds herself in.