With 2015 upon us, presidential candidates will begin the quadrennial ritual of crisscrossing the early primary states to make their electoral cases to voters. We aren’t going to pick favorites this early, before we even know who might enter the race, but it’s a good moment to adumbrate principles that will guide us as we evaluate contenders.
First and foremost, we will look for a candidate with a demonstrated commitment to protecting and expanding freedom by limiting and reducing the burdens that Washington places on the ability of individuals to live their lives as they choose.
We hope the successful candidate will have a record of fighting to reduce the size and scope of government when it comes to taxes, spending, and regulation. He or she should support returning many decisions to state and local governments, which are more directly accountable to citizens.
Republicans often say they support such goals but don’t show it once they’ve won office. For a good part of the George W. Bush presidency, Republicans controlled Congress as well as the White House. Yet, between 2001 and 2008, annual spending soared from $1.9 trillion to $3 trillion. After starting out with the idea of reforming America’s broken education system, Republicans augmented federal power with the ham-handed No Child Left Behind law.
Instead of reforming unsustainable programs, they added to our fiscal jeopardy by passing the largest expansion of entitlements since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society with the Medicare prescription drug law. This is why we say attractive Republican candidates will have demonstrated their commitment to trimming government rather than just talking about it.
One of the defining failures of the Obama presidency has been an unwillingness to stand up for American values abroad. To his liberal admirers, Obama is a thoughtful leader who recognizes nuances in matters of state and can see things from multiple perspectives. In April 2009, a few months after taking office, he famously declared in Strasbourg, France, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”
Obama presumably thought this a clever formulation. But if everyone is special, no one is really. And the president’s dismal implication was that he didn’t think there was anything objectively special about America. We hope the next president approaches global affairs with a better understanding of the nation’s unique and beneficial role on the world stage, not with the distant cool of a relativist who treats all perspectives as equally valid.
The president should be an advocate for American interests and the principles on which it was founded. All candidates vying to succeed Obama should recognize this crucial role of the presidency. He or she will not weakly apologize for America but will project strength and repeatedly make the case for our rock solid ideals. Any worthy presidential candidate will also go beyond the ideals and beyond their opposition to Obama. They will offer voters a serious agenda.
Let us see policy prescriptions — and let the campaigning begin.
