Jim DeMint at CPAC
By Erick Posted in CPAC | Special Events — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Senator Jim DeMint spoke this morning to the Blogger Panel. He said he thinks the Democrats are starting to recognize that the "slow bleed" policy put forward by John Murtha is starting to hurt them. He does not expect the Senate to continue pursuing the policy unless they have to because of the House.
He also said he does not expect the President to have to veto the card-check legislation because he intends to make sure it dies in the Senate.
As for 2008, Sen. DeMint is a Romney guy. He thinks Mitt Romney has the capabilities and experience to be a great President and was willing, despite a majority Democrat legislature, to take bold steps in Massachusetts. He repeatedly said we needed a "CEO."
On immigration, Sen. DeMint thinks we need a systematic approach of closing the border, enforcing the laws, and not giving amnesty. "I think people like Johnny Isakson are getting more traction with their common sense approach of securing the border first and then deal with worker issues." He does not favor an immediate path to citizenship.
I might perhaps surprise you with this, if you've gotten the (correct) impression that I'm a cold-blooded capitalist with the heart of a reptile and the finely-tuned contingent moral sense of a Machiavelli.
But I don't think being a CEO is necessarily a good qualification for President. I know a lot of CEOs (and have hired and fired my share of them). The successful ones tend to be very fine, talented capable people, and are often first-rate leaders.
But I have big problems with the idea that government should be run like a business. It's not a business, it's a cost center. But even more fundamentally, government (especially the unaccountable bureaucratic kind we have) is designed primarily to preserve access to power. And it does so by giving the illusion that problems are being solved, rather than actually solving them.
With the key exception of foreign policy, the "best" President is a guy who doesn't get things done rather than one who does. Someone who is used to signing up for a plan and executing it is not going to be happy or successful running the executive branch.