Republicans seeking their party’s presidential nomination will get writer’s cramp if they sign every pledge an angry partisan shoves into their hands and demands their John Henry.
They are being told they must solemnly promise in writing to oppose abortion rights, pornography, gay marriage, higher taxes, fewer loopholes, sharia law, women in combat — and, in between times, work for a balanced budget amendment to the constitution.
In every case, the pledges are posed in absolutist terms. No way around them. Even if a balanced budget coupled with a no-tax increase promise would mean an end to Medicare and Social Security, balance it anyway. Even if a balanced budget and a tax freeze would mean we couldn’t fight a war if attacked, balance it anyway.
None of the pledges being pressed on candidates recognize that change is constant and that changing circumstances require new and different responses.
Absolutists are almost always wrong.
When asked to sign one of the more egregious pledges, Jon Huntsman of Utah had a blunt answer: “I don’t sign pledges. The only pledges I make are the pledge of allegiance and the pledge to my wife.”
Huntsman’s stance is the only rational and self-respecting one for a candidate to take who can’t predict the future with confidence.
THE ONLY PLEDGE a candidate should be willing to give, or a voter should expect, is that he or she will do their best to carry out their campaign promises, with the good of the nation as a touchstone.
Our representative system of government is based on this principle, after all. The framers understood that the challenges of governing could best be met through the considered action of a number of men (and women, later) empowered to act on the basis of their collective best judgment. Delegating the power of the people to the members of Congress and the president and his cabinet gave the government the flexibility to act, day by day, month by month, as changing circumstances required.
It is a system of governing which has worked better than any other devised by man. Let’s don’t mess with it.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
