The flavor of Lugar’s campaign comes from No. 45 of the Federalist Papers. The passage pertinent to Lugar is: ““The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce . . .’’ To the extent that Lugar’s candidacy makes the case for a minimalist presidency, one focused ““principally on external objects,’’ his candidacy is harmonious with the current conservative rethinking of the course of governance since the spring of 1933.
Lugar, 62, has an unreasonably unlined face between his sparkling Chiclets teeth and his thick shock of silvery hair. However, he is not a political naif. He knows people are most concerned about ““their job security and their physical security’’ – crime. Furthermore, he has governed at ground level. He became mayor of Indianapolis three months before Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, when governing a city could be rather too exciting.
He is chairman of the Agriculture Committee and the only member thereof who farms, which gives him credibility when, like Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door, he poses 53 questions to catalyze a reformation of agriculture policy. Why have programs to reduce price volatility for farmers but not for, say, machine-shop operators? Would ending of commodity programs really jeopardize America’s abundant food supplies? Why restrict domestic sugar production and sugar imports? Peanut butter is an inexpensive source of protein for low-income Americans, so why have a peanut program that raises the price?
Lugar could make agriculture the one area in which the Senate is bolder than the House. But he has painful memories of the unintended consequences of reforms. And he knows that gargantuan government can cause a lot of wreckage even by turning too abruptly in the right direction. Remembering that the 1986 tax reform helped trigger a real estate bust, Lugar warns that the assumption that agriculture subsidies will go on forever is incorporated into land values on which banks base loans to farmers, who are in a capital-intensive business. So, says Lugar, ““We want to bring them off subsidies at a rate that won’t give anyone the bends.’’ That is a recurring riddle just now – how to break addiction to government without breaking the addicted.
As a former mayor who knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of Washington’s nannyness, he is all for rethinking the allocation of responsibilities under federalism. But this is his third time around the track. Nixon’s revenue sharing was supposed to reverse the flow of responsibilities to Washington, but it did not. Reagan’s ““new federalism’’ was supposed to do it, but governors were unenthusiastic. However, Lugar believes the third try may succeed, for two reasons. The nation is wiser about Washington’s capacities, and 30 of the governors are Republicans, and hence disposed to skepticism about Washington. Michael Barone notes that only four of them ever served in the House of Representatives, and the only one who served in the Senate, Pete Wilson, leapt at the chance to leave there for Sacramento. These governors do not think Washington is the center of the universe.
Like the president he wants to replace, Lugar was a Rhodes scholar. Unlike Bill Clinton, Lugar did the work at Oxford and got a degree. Clinton would rather think about anything other than foreign policy. Lugar, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, believes that the world is still a dangerous place and that the principal presidential function is to apprise the American people of that fact and take appropriate precautions. Look, he says, the people who tried to blow up the World Trade Center used the wrong stuff, but four times recently in Germany people have been arrested trying to sell the right stuff – nuclear materials. Before long – 15 years at the most – at least six more nations are apt to have biological, chemical or nuclear capacities for mass destruction and a few missiles (not to mention a few terrorists with large suitcases) capable of delivering them.
Talk about such things may be grating to Americans who are happy, after the rigors of wars hot and cold, to turn inward and argue about block grants, school lunches and other minutiae of domestic policy. Lugar, more than any other candidate just now, has taken on the task of stressing the subject of ““external objects.’’ That may be impolitic, but it is presidential.
Two Hoosiers have been elected president – the two Harrisons, William Henry in 1840 and Benjamin in 1888. William Henry was elected because he won the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 and because his opponent in 1840, Martin Van Buren, was suspected of the sin of drinking wine from ““coolers of silver’’ rather than hard cider from a jug. A month after his Inauguration he became the first president to die in office. Benjamin beat President Cleveland (in the electoral vote; he seems to have lost the popular vote), then lost to him. So it may be faint praise to say that Lugar is Indiana’s best presidential offering yet. However, his blend of conspicuous normality and undeniable gravitas certainly improves the Republican field and may cause him to wear surprisingly well with the Republican nominating electorate while some other, more high-stepping candidates are wearing out their welcomes.
