Now Obama must build the case for government - FT.

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September 3, 2012 7:08 pm

Now Obama must build the case for government

By Gideon Rachman

Ingram Pinn

Presidential elections can turn on trivia. So the fact that Paul Ryan, the Republicans vice-presidential candidate, has lied about having run a marathon in under three hours, could be bizarrely important. At last weeks GOP convention, Mr Ryan was introduced as a fearless truthteller. The Democrats argued that, in fact, his speech contained lies about everything from Medicare to the closure of a car plant.

But Medicare reform is hard to grasp. By contrast, lopping a full hour off your marathon time is readily understandable. It makes Mr Ryan look both ridiculous and dishonest. The Democrats will have a field day with the marathon man at their own convention this week. The gaffe is all the more irritating for the Republicans because they have just had a very successful convention. In Tampa last week, the GOP locked its mad uncles in the attic with the exception of Clint Eastwood, who was allowed a brief appearance. There was very little talk about religion, abortion, immigration, Barack Obamas birth certificate or the threat of sharia law being imposed on Michigan. Instead the Republicans hammered away at a single theme. They are the party that embodies the optimism and rugged individualism of the American dream. By contrast, Mr Obama was portrayed as a nice man who doesnt get it: as somebody who thinks all good things come from government, and denigrates individual effort. If Mr Obama is to win re-election, he will have to repel this assault by making the case for government. He will have to defend his economic stimulus. He will have to stand up for ObamaCare. Above all, the president will have to reclaim the most powerful and seductive idea in US politics the American dream. This is a very delicate task. The potential for mishap is underlined by an ad-libbed speech the president made a couple of months ago in which he seemed to mock the efforts of small-business owners. The fatal phrase Mr Obama used you didnt build that was repeated endlessly at the Republican convention. A succession of small-business owners was brought to the podium to assert, in indignant terms, that they had indeed built it. The Democrats defence is that the president was merely talking about the need for government to

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Now Obama must build the case for government - FT.com

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provide vital services, such as infrastructure. They insist his remarks were ripped out of context. But, in truth, they dont sound too great in context, either. Mr Obama sneered at successful people, who think well it must just be because I was so smart. A political gaffe is most dangerous when it seems to confirm what voters already suspect. And the president was already vulnerable to the idea that he has scant sympathy with the strivings of the little guy. But some of the ammunition Mr Obama will need to fire back at his opponents and to make the case for government could be found at the Republican convention itself. The first night was staged against the backdrop of a huge portrait of Neil Armstrong, who had died on the eve of the meeting. But Armstrong made it to the moon not because he followed his dream and founded a small business but because the federal government put him there. What is the difference between Nasa, the revered space agency, and the dreaded central planners derided by Mr Ryan? The would-be vice-president argued that Mr Obama had embraced alien European ideas that individuals are limited by their social circumstances. I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life, he boasted. But then both Mr Ryan and (even more so) Mr Romney were born into comfortable circumstances although both men did their best to emphasise anything resembling a struggle in their lives. By contrast Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, who was born a black girl in segregated Alabama, made much less fuss of her much more remarkable story. Perhaps because she really has made it from the toughest of backgrounds, Ms Rice was prepared to accept an idea that Mr Ryan derided that social circumstances make a difference. Now a professor at Stanford University, she asked: When I can look at your zip code and tell whether you are going to get a good education, can I really say it doesnt matter where you come from? Correcting this inequality of opportunity, said Ms Rice, was the civil rights issue of our time. It is hard to see how it can be done without some form of government intervention or reform. Press a little harder and further inconsistencies are revealed in the Republican position. The partys vocal defence of government-funded healthcare for the elderly (Medicare) is inconsistent with the notion of an America where governments main role is simply to get out of the way. Mr Obama can, and will, make these points. But even as he stomps on his opponents arguments, he will have to be careful not to tread on the American dream. The idea of the land of opportunity, where an individual is free to make his own way, remains inspiring far more inspiring to most Americans than the notion of a social safety net. The case he must make is that government is the friend of the American dream, not its enemy. It would be nice to believe that the US election will ultimately turn on this profound debate about the role of government. But it is just as likely to turn into a battle of the gaffes: Obamas you didnt build that against Ryans three-hour marathon. gideon.rachman@ft.com

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Now Obama must build the case for government - FT.com

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9a169500-f5b8-11e1-a6bb-00144feabdc0...

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