Opportunity Knocks in New York

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

The entry of David Malpass into the lists for the Republican nomination for United States Senator from New York is one of those opportunities for which the state has been have been waiting. A former official in the Reagan administration, he is a successful businessman and public intellectual who is short on gimmickry and long on substance. He has thrown his hat into the ring in hopes of gaining the nomination to challenge the Democratic incumbent, Senator Gillibrand. It’s too soon for an endorsement, since the field is not yet complete and the primary is not until September. But it’s not too soon to say that on the substance — a commitment to limited government and individual freedom, an understanding of pro-growth, job-creating economic policies, a fidelity to sound fiscal and monetary principles, a commitment to the constitution and a passion for a pro-democracy foreign policy — it will be hard for the Republican Party to find a candidate with a more admirable record than Mr. Malpass.

It happens that we’ve known Mr. Malpass for years, as one of his great contributions to the public life of our city, state, and country has been to be an active contributor our best publications. He is a life-long advocate of restraints on the federal government’s power, particularly in respect of spending and taxing. He thinks constitutionally, a phrase we’ve taken to using to describe those figures in public life who actually reason out their positions against America’s bedrock law. This has glimmered throughout his writings for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among other publications. It is a skill that would serve him in the senate and mark him as a leader there from the moment he acceded.

Mr. Malpass came by this the hard way, working his way up not only in business, where he was chief economist of Bear Stearns, but also in government. He served on the staff of the Senate Budget Committee. During President Reagan’s years in Washington, Mr. Malpass was brought in, at the Treasury Department, to deal with the debt crises of that era, which has given him an understanding of both the fiscal and monetary side of things and helped make him, today, a man of the hour. When he served in the in the State Department, he travelled to Latin America, where he pressed for free trade, jobs-producing policies, and constitutionalism. Importantly, he has emerged as a man who will take no nonsense from the supra-governmental institutions, like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United Nations.

It is tempting to suggest that Mr. Malpass could be the Scott Brown of New York, but, without meaning to slight Mr. Brown, that understates the situation. Malpass has more time in grade on the national scene than did Mr. Brown and also in the debate on matters affecting facing our state and city. New York is ground zero not only in the war that came to our shores on September 11, 2001, but also in the economic crisis, threatens the financial sector that makes its capital here in the city. David Malpass can be counted on to stand firm in the fight for policies that would restore the power, integrity and competitiveness of New York as the global capital of finance, one of the points that are well marked in his interview with Ira Stoll at Future of Capitalism.

* * *

The most exciting thing about Mr. Malpass’s candidacy, however, is that it is, within the New York State Republican Party, a sign of the kind of life we have been hoping for. New Yorkers are witnessing almost daily the degradation to which the Democratic regime in Albany has reduced public life in the state. The answer, these columns have been saying since they were revived in 2002, is for the GOP in New York to turn to a campaign of ideas and principles and to come together with the Conservative Party, a task for which Mr. Malpass is ideal. Whether he will prosper within the Republican party in the state, and translate all of this into votes, well, it speaks well of him that he has not hesitated to enter the fray. Few have given longer service to advancing the principles our state and country need now than Mr. Malpass. So it’s a moment for the Republican Party to seize.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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