Remember Admiral Stockdale? In 1992 he was Ross Perot’s running mate. A decorated career military man he was famously and disarmingly out of his element during the 1992 vice presidential debates. At one point during the debate he said, “What am I doing here?” At the time all of the smart people thought it was cute, a bit sad and some how it perfectly summarized Perot’s presidential bid. A few years later, Dennis Miller remarked on Stockdale’s performance, “Could Stockdale have been our vice president? You bet he could! Do you think Al Gore is some kind of visionary leader? His favorite movie is Tron for God’s sake!”
While looking at a recent Gallup poll I couldn’t help but think of this minor episode in presidential campaign history. The study surveyed Americans opinions concerning the role of government and the Obama administrations new policies aimed at expanding that role due to the economic crisis.
The findings showed that 45% of Americans are in favor of temporarily expanding the role of government until the current economic crisis is over. Only 13% of Americans support the expansion of government and making these new policies permanent.
Those in the 45% universe are surely being good pragmatists and likely make the assumption these new policies are by law temporary, like the Bush tax cuts, or are easily retracted. Those who believe this fail to realize government doesn’t work that way and once it expands its power it is difficult, next to impossible to make it retract.
I think Stockdale and Al “Tron” Gore serve as a good analogy for where our country is today. Like Stockdale we’ve had a notable career, a nice run but things are different now and we have a group of ”visionary leaders” who want to take us down a road we’re unsure of but we don’t know how we got here.
How Did We Get Here?
Posted by WPA Research on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 5:00 AM
Remember Admiral Stockdale? In 1992 he was Ross Perot’s running mate. A decorated career military man he was famously and disarmingly out of his element during the 1992 vice presidential debates. At one point during the debate he said, “What am I doing here?” At the time all of the smart people thought it was cute, a bit sad and some how it perfectly summarized Perot’s presidential bid. A few years later, Dennis Miller remarked on Stockdale’s performance, “Could Stockdale have been our vice president? You bet he could! Do you think Al Gore is some kind of visionary leader? His favorite movie is Tron for God’s sake!”
While looking at a recent Gallup poll I couldn’t help but think of this minor episode in presidential campaign history. The study surveyed Americans opinions concerning the role of government and the Obama administrations new policies aimed at expanding that role due to the economic crisis.
The findings showed that 45% of Americans are in favor of temporarily expanding the role of government until the current economic crisis is over. Only 13% of Americans support the expansion of government and making these new policies permanent.
Those in the 45% universe are surely being good pragmatists and likely make the assumption these new policies are by law temporary, like the Bush tax cuts, or are easily retracted. Those who believe this fail to realize government doesn’t work that way and once it expands its power it is difficult, next to impossible to make it retract.
I think Stockdale and Al “Tron” Gore serve as a good analogy for where our country is today. Like Stockdale we’ve had a notable career, a nice run but things are different now and we have a group of ”visionary leaders” who want to take us down a road we’re unsure of but we don’t know how we got here.