Barnes Gushes Over Mitt--And Why He Is Wrong

Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard has written a Love Letter for Mitt and propping up his candidacy. Now I usually like Barnes, but sometimes he is too "inside the beltway" for me, and this election has proved to be one of those times.

Barnes starts with Mitt's education background (Harvard--and apparently he 'got it' better than Bush) and then his very successful business career.

His presidential style, as a result, would be far different from President Bush's--or any other president's. Romney would be coolly analytical and less political.

This is bunk. I do not know of any CEO who does not have to deal with the political aspect of problems. Any time you compromise, it is a matter of dealing with the political aspect of the problem rather than the analytical part of the problem. So what will this "analytical" approach look like?

Unlike everyone else running for president, though, Romney has a new method for solving problems and taking on difficult issues.
...
While Romney is conservative, his approach to governing is not ideological. "He's super-pragmatic," says an adviser. "He's an eclectic conservative." And this has alarmed several conservatives who have met with Romney. "He kept saying he's a problem solver," says an economic adviser who believes this would put Romney at a disadvantage in Washington. "He may not be ideological, but Nancy Pelosi certainly will be."

The Romney way is very simple. It consists of attacking a problem or considering an issue or policy through vigorous debate, with dissenting opinions encouraged and outside advice eagerly sought, and relying on as much hard data as possible. At the end of the process, the leader makes a decision that may or may not coincide with the "vision" or "concept" or "framework"--Romney's words--that initiated the discussion in the first place.

Here's how Romney describes the process:

You diagnose the problem. You put the right team together to solve the problem. You listen to alternative viewpoints. You insist on gathering data before you make decisions and analyze the data looking for trends. The result of this process is, you hope, that you make better decisions. You typically also have processes in place to see if it's working or not working, and you make adjustments from time to time.

So the "new" approach is to get the different sides together as well as experts; you diagnose the problem; you build a team to solve the problem; look at the alternatives; decide on the solution.

This is new because???? Isn't this the original Star Trek methodology?

I'm not saying it is not good, but it is certainly not innovative. It is also what all kinds of governmental groups have done for years and years. It is essentially the same approach as the dozens of "blue ribbon panels". The only difference between Mitt and SOME others (not sure which) is that he likes to hear the debate rather than just 'yes' men. This is good, but I don't think it is unusual or distinctive.

The part of this quote from Barnes that disturbs me greatly is the part where he talks about Mitt not being ideological, but rather "super-pragmatic". While some declare Reagan to be pragmatic, he was really primarily an ideological President who then governed pragmatically. Bush I and II as well as Clinton were all "pragmatic" Presidents.

Ideology determines the priorities of what is important. Pragmatism is how ideas are put into practice. A pragmatist chooses to deal with squeaky wheels or well-known problems. An ideologue chooses to address problems central to his ideology.

As a pragmatist, Romney choose to address health care with a government-heavy solution. Why? Because it was determined to be a problem and then he engaged his process and came up with this solution. A conservative ideologue says: let the market fix this problem or let's make the environment easier for the market to fix the problem, but ultimately keep the government out of the solution. A true conservative would not create a government mandated health care solution.

An ideological Congress will determine what problems Romney would address.

Would that be Social Security? Probably not. Would it be reducing the size of government? No way. Would it be strengthening the military? Absolutely not.

What we need to see is pragmatism driven by ideology. Fred is the only candidate that is running on an ideology.