"There are men, in all ages, who mean to exercise power usefully; but who mean to exercise it. They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters." Daniel Webster

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Mark Sanford: The Next Ron Paul?

From an article on the latest issue of The American Conservative on the South Carolina governor:



Sanford’s conservative credentials compare favorably to anyone else mentioned as a 2012 presidential contender. He calls the public-education system “a Soviet-style monopoly.” He promoted school choice through tax rebates to avoid the appearance of government control. He passed a “Castle doctrine” bill that was supported by the NRA. He favors a law-and-order approach to immigration, but opposed REAL ID on civil liberties grounds. Though he avoids showy displays of piety, he is reliably pro-life.

But the governor edges closer to pure libertarianism at times. He rolls his eyes at the Columbia sheriff’s department’s zeal in investigating Michael Phelps’s recreational pot use. And he criticizes Alan Greenspan’s management of the “opaque” Federal Reserve. “If you take human nature out of a Fed, it might work,” he explains. “But you can’t. You can have these wise men. But who wants to turn off the spigot at a party that’s rolling?“

He also deviates from the Republican line on foreign policy. In Congress, he opposed Clinton’s intervention in Kosovo. And he was one of only two Republicans to vote against the 1998 resolution to make regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States. He says that it was a “protest vote” in which he tried to reassert the legislature’s war-declaring powers. When asked about the invasion of Iraq, he extends his critique beyond the constitutional niceties. “I don’t believe in preemptive war,” he says flatly. “For us to hold the moral high ground in the world, our default position must be defensive.”



Reihan Salam wonders if Sanford's noninterventionist foreign policy ideas would prove a problem in a Republican primary, but he writes:


In a sense, a Sanford campaign would represent a bet that the Ron Paul movement is a real and enduring phenomenon, one that will have lasting consequences in Republican primary politics. As a governor and former congressman with a long track record of pressing for limited government, Sanford is a far more conventional choice. At the same time, Sanford seems to share many of Paul's radical instincts. Many of Paul's fans saw him as a Goldwater figure, a candidate who would lose but who would go on to revitalize a distinctive Old Right tradition that has mostly faded in American politics. Sanford could thus be the heir who broadens the appeal of that message, not unlike Ronald Reagan. Right now, this seems rather unlikely. But a lot can change over the next few years.

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