Note to Republican Presidential primary voters: please nominate Newt Gingrich

This post is addressed to Republicans who are voting for their party's Presidential candidate:  please nominate Newt Gingrich.

This is NOT an endorsement of any Republican candidate--not that such an occurrence would matter to anybody--instead, this is an appeal in my own self-interest.

Mr. Gingrich will be more fun to write about than any of the other Republican candidates.

If Mr. G. is the GOP's nominee, I can say things like "the pen is mightier than Newt's tongue!"  Or maybe "Barack's flack refutes Newt's flukes!"

Fun stuff.

Mr. G. is a man of many defining characteristics.  As mentioned in a prior post, his writing career has shown him to be an advocate of history and of fiction; sometimes he mixes them up.  In campaign appearances he exhibits so many expressions that one might think he is channeling Dr. Lao.   If he ever comes out to the Left Coast and manages to cross the deserts of the Southwest he would be like a dust devil -- a chaotic little whirlwind that flits from here to there and stirs things up.

Social Security

A friend and reader saw my post last week on good governance and then sent me this question:  "Which social experiment failed:  unfettered, deregulated capitalism or Social Security and Medicare?"

In answer to the question:  Social Security and Medicare have been unmitigated successes, and deregulated capitalism has failed whenever it has been tried.

But a simple answer doesn't do justice to a concept as complex as capitalism, nor to governmental programs as huge and significant as Social Security and Medicare.

Looking first at the two government programs:  both have worked well, and will continue to work well as long as they get some tweaks and adjustments.  Social Security has taken in more than it pays out, allowing it to accumulate reserve funding that will be used to maintain full payments to recipients even as the program's income becomes insufficient to cover the committed payments.

Good governance the way it used to be done

Why be a Democrat?

Or, why be a Republican?  Or a Green, or a Libertarian, or a member of any of the other forty or so recognized political parties currently active in the United States?  Or, why be "decline to state?"

Delve into a Democrat and the response will be deeply demonstrative.  Regard a Republican with the same question and be regaled with resonate replies.  Inquire of an "independent" and incite that individual's inspirations on the inadequacies of the others.

A recent survey conducted and published by The Economist and YouGov provides some substance behind one of my reasons for choice of party affiliation, and perhaps does the same for others, too.

Commas in the Constitution

The reader known as Confused in the Great Midwest wrote a comment to my prior post on "Cronies."  You can read the comment by going to the highlighted area at the end of that post.  In the comment are two things:  a question about the meaning of a comma--presence of one, or the lack of one--in the section of the Constitution that was being discussed; and, a reference to a very interesting article in Vanity Fair on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

With regard to the question asked about the comma, my answer is:  I have no idea if there are any "rules of grammar" that might confer meaning on the presence or absence of a comma, but my personal opinion in this case is that it makes no difference.

Cronies here, cronies there, cronies everywhere

The "silly season" of politics begins with silliness, courtesy of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  Mr. Romney was head-spinningly silly last week when he called President Obama a "crony capitalist."  He made a silly statement within an interesting political context that is not well-described by daily news sound-bites.  Which makes it worthwhile for discussion here.

If memory serves, for the last three years or more the prejudicial label applied to the President by the anti-Obama crowd has been "socialist."  Now, it seems that the leading candidate from the other side is blaming Mr. Obama for being a capitalist.

Both labels cannot be accurate; it's either one or the other, or neither.

What is a "crony capitalist" anyway?  Sitting next to me is a ponderous book called Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary.  It contains no entry for "crony capitalist," but it does define the word "crony" in this way:  "a close friend or companion; chum.  --Syn. pal, buddy."  The same source defines the word "capitalist" with three meanings in this manner:  "1. a person who has capital, esp. extensive capital, invested in business enterprises.  2. an advocate of capitalism.  3. a very wealthy person."

A crony capitalist, then, is a capitalist who invests with, or does business with, friends, pals, buddies and chums.

I have friends, pals and buddies, so apparently I have cronies.  And I call myself a capitalist, although am not able to aspire to Webster's definition #3 of that term.

Mr. Romney is a very wealthy person, and he probably considers himself a capitalist.  He certainly fits the definitions.  Years ago he founded the firm Bain Capital with a friend, or maybe it was with a pal or a buddy.  In any case, it sounds like Mr. Romney is a "crony capitalist."