Beyond the ‘Girlie-Man’ Jibe
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.
When Governor Schwarzenegger unleashed his “economic girlie men” line at the Republican National Convention, he elicited a throaty roar of approving laughter from the faithful – and some intense squawking from liberals, feminists, and those who thought Senator Kerry’s purple hearts would make him the more virile of the two major candidates for president.
But behind Mr. Schwarzenegger’s barbed humor was a serious point: At their best, Republicans stand for opportunity, risk-taking and growth, rather than the nanny state. And despite the fantastic growth record of the 1990s under President Clinton, Democrats continue to play to the public’s economic fears rather than their economic hopes. The result is an emphasis in campaign rhetoric on redistribution and social welfare rather than growth and individual striving.
Thus, even if the Kerry campaign successfully pivots from foreign policy to domestic policy in the coming weeks, as Mr. Clinton himself is said to have urged, it may be difficult to strike a resonant chord with voters. Weak job numbers in such battleground states as Michigan and Ohio can’t be blinked away. But there is little sense of crisis: as a Detroit News report last week pointed out, “Michigan’s go-go economy may be long gone, but that hasn’t stopped residents from spending like the good times never ended.”
Perhaps this just reflects an irrational unwillingness to face reality, but more likely it reflects the fact that economic indicators are looking up – and were never that bad to begin with. Mr. Kerry’s efforts to liken the Bush economic record to that of Herbert Hoover has had only limited success. Indeed, because it is so obviously absurd – unemployment under Hoover reached 22%, while under Mr. Bush it is now actually lower than when President Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 – it may be damaging to the Democrat’s credibility.
The difficulties faced by Democrats were underscored last weekend by continued low turnout for Labor Day festivities. If economic conditions were truly Hooverish, one might expect a surge in union organizing. Instead, unions continue to lose ground. Nor is there much punch left to the old battle cry of Big Labor that higher wages for the aristocracy of labor will benefit the country as a whole.
On the other hand, the Reagan vision of an entrepreneurial America still packs plenty of political punch. As Mr. Schwarzenegger pithily defined it: “Now there’s another way you can tell you’re a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people, and faith in the U.S. economy. And to those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don’t be economic girlie men.”
Only on the humorless left would this be seen as an insult to women. Mr. Schwarzenegger’s point was that only entrepreneurial risk-taking, not government, can create meaningful, lasting economic progress. And Mr. Schwarzenegger could point to his own immigrant experience to prove the point – even as he was conveying the thought that the daddy approach to economic policy offers an inclusive message: “[O]ne thing I learned about America is that if you work hard and if you play be the rules, this country is truly open to you.”
In fairness, Mr. Bush has been a bit of a girlie man when it comes to the budget. He hasn’t vetoed a single spending bill; he has hugely expanded federal education spending, and his prescription drug benefit for seniors is a massive addition to entitlements, which already soak up about a third of the entire budget. Mr. Bush is trying to tamp down conservative anger over this record with talk of an “ownership society” in which Social Security would be reformed to give individuals more control over their retirement funds, but it remains to be seen how seriously he will push this agenda.
But Democrats are poorly positioned to exploit this obvious opening. Mr. Kerry has proposed a huge new dollop of spending himself, and his most recent criticism of the Iraq war is that it diverted spending from domestic to foreign policy purposes. In other words, he would arrive at the same deficit for which he criticizes Mr. Bush by different means.
The ironic bottom line: the Vietnam war hero may be stuck with the economic girlie man label.