The Republicans

My previous posts were attempts to objectively analyze the record on poverty of each presidential candidate (and don't worry, I will get around to Richardson at some point). Now I want to tell you how I really feel about these people. This can function as the crib notes for readers who don't favor 3,000 word blog entries.

When I started profiling politicians, I was open to many of the potential nominees. As an independent who disagrees with both parties, I had also seen things to like about candidates on both the right and the left. In fact, I had considered voting for five of the six current frontrunners at some point in the last two years.

Detailing their positions on the poor drastically changed my opinions of several of the candidates. I found that there is a difference between the public perception that develops around a candidate and the actual record they have behind them. The one I thought was the worst moved up into the middle, and the one I thought was the best moved backwards. I found that media rhetoric, both that of supporters and detractors, often failed to reflect a candidate's history.

So how do I feel that each candidate's record stacks up? And what do I think we need to be pressing each candidate to do to make poverty a front-and-center issue in this campaign?

Let's start with the Republicans:

Mitt Romney
I was fond of Romney coming into this analysis - with his experience as a conservative, religious governor in a liberal state (and his role in instituting universal health care), I thought that he might be the compassionate conservative that some hoped Bush to be in 2000.

Initially, Romney's record encouraged me further. His press releases while governor showed compassion towards the homeless and acknowledgement of the need for affordable housing. He also had a healthy concern for others in his private life. But detractors showed that much work for the poor during his tenure came over his veto, not because of his support. And I was most worried about his drop-off in vocal support for the poor during the last two years. Recently, I have heard that he is distancing himself from the universal health care bill he signed as well.

It is apparent to me that Mitt Romney views the Republican base as not caring about poverty issues, and does not believe he should focus on them to win the nomination. (He also strikes me as someone who bends everything he says around what he thinks he needs to say to win the nomination.) That's a sad situation, and something that voters need to do something about. Those of us who participate in political discussion need to make poverty an issue in the Republican primaries. Do Republicans care about the poor? Do religious conservatives believe there is a mandate to help the most vulnerable in our society? Or will ignoring poverty, homelessness, low-income housing, health care, disaster relief, and foreign aid be the best way to pick up the Republican nomination this year? This is a conversation we need to drive. Otherwise, candidates like Romney will continue to mold their message away from the issues that matter to the poor.


John McCain
McCain's record had a surprise for me. Despite his position in national politics for several decades, I had no idea that he cared so much about the state of American Indians (a map of reservations in the US helped me to see how this might matter to an Arizonian). McCain has chosen time and time again to sponsor bills and push legislation that assisted those living in reservations, especially the most vulnerable of them. He also showed a positive record in terms of foreign aid to populations hurt by oppressive regimes. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a consistent pattern of concern for the poor outside of these two groups, and McCain was the candidate for whom I had the hardest time digging up quotes relating to the state of the poor.

Can McCain's concern for American Indians and the foreign oppressed carry over to the rest of America's poor? Is he willing to put forth the initial political and financial capital necessary to make real change, or would something like universal health care be too great a financial investment to garner his support? Most of all, can we drive the public discourse so that he's forced to talk about these issues in his campaign? I really want to know what McCain thinks about poverty and what he's willing to do to fight it. I don't want the primaries to come and go without the public getting an upfront answer about it.


Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani was the one candidate whose presidential aspirations I had never remotely considered supporting. The spin I had heard from the media was that he didn't care about the poor, hated the homeless, and oppressed minorities in order to reduce crime. But time spent with his record showed a more nuanced picture. Yes, he cut welfare rolls by more than half - but part of his strategy was to increase accessibility to work, even using government money to directly fund jobs. Yes, he instituted a crackdown on the homeless - but he often did it by getting people into shelters, rehab programs, and job training that would help them to turn their lives around. Yes, he was aggressive in his fight against crime - but doesn't a dramatic reduction in crime have the potential to help the poor more than any other group?

The hardest thing to judge about Giuliani's record is his true motivation in all of this. Does he really care about the poor like he claims to in his public statements, or does he consider them a nuisance that needs to be swept away? Are his policies meant to help those on welfare, in the streets, and in high-crime neighborhoods, or is he just trying to contain the problem so we won't have to spend money or worry about them affecting the quality of middle-class life? Giuliani's detractors and supporters have very different views of his true aims in these issues. His private history doesn't seem to reflect a strong response in his heart to the cry of the poor. And I feel that understanding where his heart lies will go a long ways to figuring out whether his policies will address the problems or just make them a little less visible. Giuliani needs to be forced to directly answer these questions: Does he care about the end state of the homeless? Does it matter to him what happens to families after they leave welfare? And can he show a concern about these results in his policies?




While I started this blog really liking Romney and considering both Romney and McCain among my favorite choices for the presidency, my analysis of their records and current statements discouraged me. I don't have a favorite among the three Republicans anymore. My biggest question between now and the primaries is going to be this...Who is going to make poverty a real issue in the presidential race? Which one of these three is going to start addressing it in their campaign? Who is going to put forth policies that will legitimately help the poor?

And will we be able to raise our voices high enough to make them do it?