Let's put aside the irony of a man speaking wistfully of a lost career which would not have ended until he was age 83, and consider the predicate upon which his remarks are based. The senator might well be spinning hyperbolically when he says that he would recast the same votes knowing that it would cost him his career, but maybe not. But, self-serving exaggeration or not, he is essentially saying, "the democratic will of my constituents be damned, I know better."
What is the duty of a representative, to vote the will of his constituents or to vote his own will when the differences are irreconcilable? Let us explore the implications of both options.
If an elected representative votes against his conscience and his better judgment to comply with the general will of his constituents as defined by polls, should he be reelected? Is he morally deficient? Does it matter if the representative made or did not make an explicit promise on the issue? If the matter assumes the dimension of conscience it seems to me that the elected official has the duty to refrain from seeking office on that promise. If the matter is one that came up in the election campaign and the candidate made an explicit promise it seems to me he is bound. As a general rule, however, matters which cause trouble are those which are unanticipated. A good example of this is the vote on TARP which could not have been anticipated by Bennett or any other representative.
I am not willing to judge Bennett harshly for his support of TARP. Let us consider the circumstances: the President of the United States is confronted by his Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Fed and told that the world was coming to an end unless they act. Leading members of the House and the Senate are told the same. I do not know whether they were right or wrong even to this day. I do not know if anyone on earth does know. I am loath to judge either Bush or Bennett for choosing an option which they are told will save the country. Here is what I posted at the time:
I have not yet posted on the wisdom of the bail out because, frankly, I do not know what to say. I do not know what to say because of the things I do not know. First, I do not know if the bailout plan will work. Second, I do not know if the entire world system will crash without such a plan. Third, I do not know what the odds are of either a successful bailout or a world crash so I cannot weigh the severity of potential harm against the likelihood of the harm occurring.
I know what my ideology is, I am opposed to government meddling in the economy on the way up and on the way down either by picking winners or by rescuing losers. On the other hand, I recognize the extreme danger to the very survival of my ideology should the country descend into a depression. I am well read enough to know about the Great Depression and what it did to other democracies around the world and how close our own American democracy came to descending into communism. So, I do not know in which direction lurks a greater danger to the ideal of conservatism.
I do know that the Constitution as written prohibits virtually every facet of the proposed bailout plan. I know that no federal court that I can think of will conceivably declare any part of the plan to be repugnant to the constitution. Therefore, I know I cannot rely on the courts to protect the Constitution. However, I also know that the political will will triumph regardless of the Constitution and it is bootless to fall on one's ideological sword to no purpose.
I do not know what it is like to live through a depression although my father has described what it was like in the rural South when people literally had no money and had to contrive a barter economy. On the other hand, I do not know what it is like to live through a raging inflation such as was sustained here in Germany during the Weimar and even today in Zimbabwe. I do not know if doing nothing will generate a depression. I do not know if these bailouts will generate hyperinflation.
I do know that if abandoning my ideology long enough to countenance the bailout would save the country from a depression, I would do it in a heartbeat.
I am not sure that those people on these threads who on claim to know the answers to all these questions really know what they're talking about. I do not know if they are so sure about their facts only knew because they are so certain in their ideology. I do not know if those people who are so certain in their opposition to the bailout bailout are so certain only because otherwise their ox gets gored. So I do not know how to come down on one side or the other based on the motives of the partisans on either side of the bailout question. I simply do not know what their motives really are.
I do know that economics is called the dismal science and now I know why.
Given the state of my ignorance, I am going to embark on a new course, I am going to practice humility.
So I do not fault Bennett for his vote on TARP. But that is a vote which must be seen in the context of his late career. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, he stood at the barricades on behalf of conservatives and he failed to fight the fight. He became an accommodationist when we was from a safe state and need not have accommodated the left to protect his back. This was a great betrayal.
Let us consider the other alternative, a politician who votes his own will when he knows it runs contrary to the will of his constituents or, even more particularly, when it runs contrary to the will of the people who voted for him. Can such a Senator say, "I represent the whole state and not just the people who voted for me?" What if he ran on an explicit promise? What if we are talking about a policy issue about which there was no explicit or specific promise but which is one which was reasonably to be anticipated? Senator Bennett's votes on the appropriations committee passing on earmarks and Bush's spending clearly fall into this category.
Bennett is unrepentant, he says he would so vote again. How can there be any appeal to the moral conscience of his constituents to reelect him under these circumstances? Utah is a conservative state, indeed, it vies with South Carolina for the honor of being the most conservative state in the Republic. Why is it inappropriate in the eyes of the New York Times for conservatives to send to Washington, or decline to send to Washington, representatives whom they trust or do not trust to keep the faith? Unspoken but simply presumed by the New York Times, is the notion that conservatives do not own the same moral right as leftists to have their will felt.
Goodbye Senator Bennett, you belong to an undistinguished age that must give way to new men, younger men, more fit for this struggle which will determine the survival of the United States of America. You did not distinguish yourself in office, you've been a placeholder. The times have changed and America is running out of time. We are about to engage in a struggle for the moral conscience as well as for the purse of America. We must fight for survival.
The country is staring into the abyss. There are existential issues to be decided for our children and our grandchildren. Conservatives have a right to have their will felt. We have a right to send into the arena the Paladins of our choice, men who will represent us and not compromise us away. We need gladiators, men endued with the warrior ethic, men who know what the stakes are. We need Davids to go up against the Obama Goliath. We do not need trimmers, compromisers, or accommodationists we need conservative warriors.
Yes Senator you might have voted your conscience but now the people of Utah are voting theirs in their turn. Just as the United States as it entered World War II got rid of the dead wood which occupied the high officer corps of the United States Army to make way for younger warriors, so must the Republican Party and the conservative movement, hopefully aided by Tea Party Patriots, make way for a new generation of fighting politicians who at least know that we are at war for survival.
