Raymond J. Saulnier, RIP

Read the obituary of Raymond Saulnier, in today's NYT--less than a week after Jack Kemp's--and you get a sense how radical the new "conservatism" is compared to the, well, conservative canons of the old.

Saulnier was Ike's inside money man. He played an important role in professionalizing and systematizing the flow of economic/financial information to the Oval Office. But he was as policy man as well, and in this role, he didn't seem to mind being thought something of a sorehead --one suspects he rather reveled in it: if so many people disliked him, he must be doing something right.

We can associate him with two Grand Old (and long since abandoned) Republican first principles: one, balanced budgets. And two, people--especially Republicans--should pay their bills. Which meant taxes, even (perhaps especially) if they hurt. For if they didn't hurt, we probably weren't paying what what we should. Anyway (one couldn't help but suspect) he thought that a little hurt was good for the moral fiber.

Saulnier, who remained intellectually involved until the end of his life, lamented loose financing policies that led us into the current mess. He also said he wished he had spoken out more sharply against loosening financial regulation, years ago when his voice might have helped.

I've always thought that the balanced-budget mantra can get pretty simplistic, not least in the hands of some of its more excitable defenders--don't they understand the concept of asset-for-asset accounting? But I think it's fair to say that Saulnier was always a good deal more sophisticated in his advocacy than some of the lesser lights. On taxes--it would be fun to know whether Saulnier and Kemp ever met, and if so, what they said to each other.

Jack Kemp RIP

Someone once said that the only two American (white) politicians comfortable among blacks were Bill Bradley and Jack Kemp. The common thread is obvious enough: both were former pro athletes. But it's more than that. Bradley, after all, could seem reserved and off-putting among whites. With Kemp, it was a reminder that here was a generally open guy, optimistic, positive, so comfortable in his own skin that he didn't have to care about its color.

These are refreshing qualities in any politician, perhaps most remarkably so in a party with a hallowed tradition of not overvaluing the human product. I've always thought that Jack Kemp's signature issue of "supply side economics" was megabollocks, but I never doubted that he believed it, and believed it for the best possible of reasons: he wanted a world in which everybody had a chance to flourish free of artificial restraint. It's a quality forgivable at worst, admirable at best, and it left you with the sense of Kemp as one of those rare politicians who might actually be likable outside the arena--whether athletic or political. We could use a few more like that; it's a shame to lose even one.

Afterthought: That quip about Kemp and Bradley I suppose predates the advent of the nation's first black president, Bill Clinton. An exercise left for the reader is how it applies to the incumbent who (though I like him) strikes me as one of the most emotionally remote occupants of high office in living memory.

Ed Glaeser Does the Best He Can To Say Something Nice About John McCain

There’s one of the oddest presidential endorsements you can imagine over at the New York Sun, in a grumpy editorial by Harvard Economics Professor Edward Glaeser (link--HT Mankiw). Glaeser comes out for McCain—or I guess he does--under the headline “The Case for McCain,” which might just as well might be matched by others called “The Case for McKinley,” or “The Case for McDuck.” So far as I can tell, the only good things he can figure out to say about McCain are (a) the polls say he can beat Hillary; and (b) Tom Delay doesn’t like him.

True as far as it goes, I guess, but he also says:

The most important tasks of the next president lie in foreign affairs. Since that is not my area of expertise, I don't know whether Mr. McCain or Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney would be the best president.

Whoa, Sasquatch, don’t go overboard now, big guy. This is an endorsement, remember, (or maybe it isn’t). In fairness, Glaeser the economist does weigh in on his own special subject:

The [Republican] party must once again make the case that its economic policies offer the brightest future for middle income Americans.

Which is a lot more than just true enough. But it doesn’t inspire confidence that McCain himself says that economics is not his strong suit, and drives the port home by showcasing the support he gets from Mr. Supply-Side, Jack Kemp. I don’t know about Glaeser himself, but I know that the number of mainstream economists who regard supply side as anything other than dope-smoking is small enough to fit into the downstairs broom closet, with space left over for the editorial board of the National Review.

Glaeser also makes space for—indeed he opens with—a swipe at Democrats:

The party of Jimmy Carter will nominate a candidate for the world's most important executive position without significant executive experience.

He actually has a point about Clinton and Obama—a point which might gain more force if he didn’t throw in a snide remark about one president who actually did have significant executive experience and proved, if nothing else, that executive experience is hardly the defining factor.

Anyway, having swiped at the Democrats for not having executive experience, Glaeser moves on to endorse the one GOP candidate who has substantially none. But hold the message here: when you want change, you pick the oldest guy in the room, the one with longest service in politics, and the one with closest ties to Washington. And don’t worry about that foreign policy thing.