Mitt Romney, a safe choice for risky times (the reassuring center)

Washington Post ^ | September 19, 2011 | Michael Gerson

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Many Americans are still picking through the wreckage of overturned mortgages and lost jobs, trying to rescue old pictures of their middle-class aspirations. But another economic tropical storm is now being tracked.

[snip]

Few believe that President Obama would be able to rally the world during a euro zone crisis, especially since he is increasingly irrelevant to the politics of his own country. His American Jobs Act — combining minimal ambition and minimal creativity — was greeted with bipartisan skepticism. Obama has repeatedly demanded that Congress “act now.” In response, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has effectively told the president to get in line for the Senate’s “next work period” in October.

In this atmosphere of mounting challenge and diminished leadership, economists have lowered their predictions of future economic growth and now see a 1-in-3 chance that America will slip back into recession during the next 12 months.

With the arrival of a second economic crisis, America would enter a new phase. Our politics would pass beyond Tea Party anger toward a more generalized economic fear — the fear of durable stagnation and national decline. And this raises a large political question: Would an economic crisis favor a revolutionary candidate or a reassuring candidate?

In Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, we have undiluted representatives of each type. Perry is purposely provocative in style and content. He questions the legitimacy of 70 years of federal entitlement commitments. He proposes a fundamental reordering of the relationship between the federal government and the states. He is highly critical of the Federal Reserve and its chairman. Perry’s specific economic policies remain defiantly unspecific, but his rhetoric and intentions are ideologically ambitious.

[Hugin]

Would an economic crisis favor a revolutionary candidate or a reassuring candidate?

Let me rephrase the question: do you want a leader or an empty suit?

[bbernard]

Excellent toon. A laugh is always a good way to start the day. Tx