William Greider | The Nation

What most people never grasped about George McGovern’s run for president forty years ago is that it was the last genuinely open and honest presidential campaign. His landslide defeat in 1972 taught a generation of aspiring young Democrats not to try that again—and they didn’t. McGovern’s quality of earnest candor was deeper than style or politics. This is who he was as a person, not a saint or righteous innocent but constitutionally inclined to say what he thought, believing most people would listen with an open mind or at least they would learn from a truthful discussion of the nation’s condition.

Of course, he was mistaken. Yet I saw him up close when again and again he spoke freely about his views in ways that injured him, set him up for ridicule or contempt. Even the reporters covering his doomed campaign would roll their eyes in disbelief. Me too. Reporters were the cynics and Senator McGovern was the starry-eyed idealist. That was more or less the way we told the story. Looking back after all these years, I feel we missed the essence of George McGovern’s goodness. He was not naïve or ignorant of the hostile context. Given the desperate state of the union, putting hard truths on the table was perhaps the only strategy that might prevail. Anyway, it would be good for the country.

I experienced this as a young reporter for The Washington Post covering the McGovern campaign non-stop. The editors knew I was something of a bleeding heart. But they figured McGovern was a sure loser (they were right) and so it would do no harm if I wrote a lot of sensitive mush (they were right about that too). So I spent the campaign season as one of the “boys on the bus”—two weeks on the road with the candidate, then one week or so back home in DC. We had a lot of fun. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was the tour director.

Hearts and minds leapt upward on Wall Street when the Federal Reserve announced its new effort to revive the sodden economy. Print more money, buy more financial assets—billions and billions of mortgage-backed securities or Treasury bonds. The Dow jumped 206 points on the news. Major media described the event as bold and significant. Maybe, maybe not.

A sweet day for the financial traders does not necessarily translate into good news for Joe Sixpack. Indeed, the story of this troubled era is that what wins for the suits may very well produce opposite result for ordinary folks. What the news stories generally overlooked is that the central bank has already tried this remedy a couple of times and it failed to jump-start action in the real economy, where most Americans toil.

The Fed’s “new” commitment is to buy another $40 billlion in financial assets every month until the economy really does look reinvigorated. In two previous efforts, the central bank tripled the size of its own holdings and accumulated as much as $2.7 trillion in similar buying sprees. The stock market perked up, but not the national economy. In fact, the economic engine has slowed to a crawl during the last year despite the Fed’s earnest efforts.

The Romney-Ryan ticket puts a weird twist on Republican politics, because they are essentially repudiating Ronald Reagan’s historic legacy and the fiscal alchemy with which he taught conservatives how to win presidential elections. Before the Gipper came along and erased the GOP’s sour expression, it was known as the party of pinch-penny scolds, always complaining about Democratic excesses, automatically skeptical of anything government might attempt to do for people. In traditional circles, this was called the “old-time religion.” Among younger conservative reformers, the doctrine was denounced as “root canal economics.” Since voters do not usually reward politicians for inflicting more pain on them, the GOP endured as a grumpy minority.

Ronald Reagan’s political genius was finding away around the trap. Put on a happy face and stop punishing voters for ambitious desires. Democrats won elections by making big promises and even keeping them. But why should liberals have all the fun? The Gipper did not entirely abandon the old sermons on debt and deficit spending, but in practice declined to take the red ink seriously (it could always be blamed on liberal big spenders, though the actual history shows Democrats have a consistently better record for fiscal prudence). The Gipper’s sunny optimism was bolstered by the wacky theory called “supply-side economics” that claimed big federal tax cuts would be fully replenished by rising tax revenue flowing from economic growth. The wishful theory has never been confirmed in fact. That hasn’t stopped pious Republicans from asserting its truth.

The Gipper’s presidency in fact unhinged fiscal order. Though he promised balanced budgets, Reagan governed aggressively in the opposite direction. His presidency (1980–88) launched the era of permanently swelling federal debt. The debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time during the Gripper’s first term. It surpassed $9 trillion twenty-eight years later when George W. Bush’s term expired. Obama’s first term added trillions more, mainly driven by collapsing incomes and revenue in the depressed economy. Obama was in fact too timid in his pump-priming, though the Republicans accuse him of the opposite.

Let’s straighten out what actually happened at the Supreme Court. By refusing to reject President Obama’s healthcare reforms, the Supremes opened a clear pathway that leads in time to what right-wingers like to call “socialized medicine.” This is not what Chief Justice John Roberts had in mind. Nor what the president himself had proposed. But that is the true subtext for what the court decided, the real reason why right-wing frothers threw everything in their fevered imaginations at the liberal object for their scorn.

A line was crossed in the artful reasoning concocted by the Chief Justice. Or rather the door was opened for continuing invention and evolution toward what eventually will be recognized as nationalized healthcare, American style. Like it or not, Roberts explained, Obama’s scheme is not unconstitutional and the Court has no right to stand in the way.

The Chief Justice’s logic effectively confirms the open-ended process of discovery Obama has launched. The president’s strategy disappointed those of us who had wanted a more aggressive and coherent solution. His cautious approach means many more years of pushing and pulling between private interests and public needs. But the private sector—from doctors to drug companies and hospitals—is already trying to adjust, anxious to shape big changes in store for them.