Romney's Optimism Will Win
By Larry Kudlow
TownHall.com
Putting aside all the voter models, there’s one
overlooked point worth making with Election Day at
hand. Most times in American politics, optimists
win, and pessimists lose. I know that’s not
always the case. And sometimes it’s hard to
distinguish between the two. But in this election, I
believe Mitt Romney is the optimist, and Barack
Obama is the pessimist. It’s Romney’s election to
win.
Parenthetically, in my lifetime, it was Dwight
Eisenhower the optimist, Stevenson the pessimist;
Kennedy the optimist (“Get America moving again”),
Nixon the pessimist; Reagan the quintessential
optimist, Carter the pessimist; and going further
back in history, FDR the optimist, Hoover and the
rest of them the pessimists.
And of course, four years ago, it was Obama the
optimist. He was the candidate of hope and change.
But he has run such a negative campaign in 2012,
right up to the end, that I believe his negativism
is translating into pessimism. And that’s not what
the beleaguered American people want.
“Voting is the best revenge,” Obama infamously said
this past weekend. What did he mean by that? F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s line was, “Living well is the
best revenge.” But with President Obama, what
exactly is this revenge? Revenge against
whom? Against what?
Mitt Romney quickly countered that one should vote
for the love of country, not revenge. But I wonder,
regarding President Obama, is his revenge against
the rich? Is it revenge because his class-warfare
argument isn’t working? Is it revenge because his
policies have not spread the wealth and
redistributed income as much as he wants?
Is it revenge against his failure to grow the
government even larger? Is it revenge because he
wants more than 50 percent of American households to
be government dependent? Is it revenge because his
big-spending fiscal policies haven’t worked?
The Joint Economic Committee reports that both
economic growth and job creation are the worst in
modern times, dating back to 1947. So is it revenge
for Mr. Obama because he hasn’t had the chance to
create even higher spending, taxes, and
regulation?
In his closing argument in the Wall Street
Journal this weekend, Obama went on several
times about raising taxes on individuals and
businesses. This is pessimism. You know why?
Because optimists believe in the ingenuity,
entrepreneurship, and spirit of gifted individuals
who are free to use their God-given talents to make
our economy and society the best it can be. Not
government. That’s the pessimistic view. But
individual initiative -- the optimistic view.
Mitt Romney takes this individual view. God granted
natural rights to individuals, and it is they who
truly run the government and the country. That’s the
Romney view. It’s the free-enterprise view. The
market view. The human-action view. To my way of
thinking, that makes Romney the model optimist.
Look at Romney’s general plan. He sets optimistic
goals of 4 percent growth and 12 million new jobs.
He will reduce and reform the tax system in ways
that will reward, not punish, the success of
individuals and companies. He would encourage
business, not insult it. He believes free-market
capitalism and choice, not the heavy hand of
government, are the best solutions to poverty.
When Romney talks about increasing take-home pay,
he’s creating a dividing line between a larger
private sector and a more restrained government
sector. This goes hand in hand with his goal to
contain government at 20 percent of GDP. This, too,
is optimism.
Even more, when Romney offers to reach across the
aisle to find common ground on major issues -- like
spending, deficits, debt, tax reform, and
entitlement reform -- he is in effect showing an
inherent optimism that well-meaning men and women
can get things done in order to make the country
better.
In effect, just as Reagan did in the crisis of 1980,
Romney is saying: We can fix this and solve this
with people of good will and strong principles
coming together for the first time in many years.
I am not blaming Barack Obama for all the country’s
ills. He was dealt a very bad hand. But he chose the
wrong course. He relies too much on big government
and too little on the enterprise of ordinary people.
He is operating a historically discredited model.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is working to
restore the freedom model created by our Founders.
This model has served the country well for
250-some-odd years. It is fundamentally a belief in
people and good common sense. It is profoundly
optimistic.
Perhaps I’ll be wrong. But I think optimism wins
this election.
-- Larry Kudlow, NRO’s economics editor,
is host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report and
author of the daily web log, Kudlow’s Money
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