Will Sen. George Allen bring a "libertarian sense" to the White House?
BY FRED BARNES
Saturday, April 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON--It's High Noon at the Monocle, a famous Capitol Hill restaurant. George F. Allen is staring at me. The normally loquacious Virginia senator is not saying anything and neither am I. Silence hangs in the air for a few seconds.
The impasse, like so many other things in American politics, was owing to Roe v. Wade. Mr. Allen's position is carefully demarcated: He would like to see the decision "reinterpreted" to allow states to decide the legal status of abortion. Does that mean he would like to see it overturned? He won't say. So I suggest that Mr. Allen's "reinterpretation" would produce precisely the same result as overturning the ruling: States would decide the fate of abortion. I pause for a response. Nothing. I get more direct. "Why won't you say you want Roe reversed?"
Again, Mr. Allen is mum, and eventually I give up.
Mr. Allen is an increasingly prominent figure in the Republican Party. He is running this year for re-election to the Senate, with a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 still a matter for future consideration. His silence on abortion might make for some awkward moments with journalists, but it also makes political sense. He's figured out a safe, even popular, way to deal with a polarizing issue. Polls show a solid majority of Americans opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. They presumably think the result would ban abortion. But when the issue is put a different way--letting states decide--their view becomes more favorable. Clever, isn't it?
As we talked for nearly two hours over lunch, Mr. Allen was relentlessly cheerful, someone who smiles constantly and laughs easily. He's got a self-deprecating sense of humor, especially about his football career as a mediocre quarterback at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s. He was named to the all-academic team for the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1973. "Much less competition" for that award, Mr. Allen says, a slight--and possibly sheepish--grin crossing his face. "You had to be on the honor roll to qualify, so that probably sifted out much better quarterbacks."
Yet there's a rich seam of serious thought running underneath the good cheer. Mr. Allen has more thoroughly (and productively) contemplated an array of issues--education, immigration, judicial philosophy, Iraq, Iran, even abortion--than one first supposes. You're fooled by the way he talks, never rushing his words, and by his inelegant presence (he's the only Virginian I know who wears cowboy boots). It's a kind of George W. Bush effect, style overpowering substance. Soon enough, though, substance steps forward.
On immigration, Mr. Allen, whose mother emigrated from France, is clear. His take is more like that of a House Republican than a senator. "I don't want to argue anybody's particular bill," he says. "First thing we need to do, and should have done, is [secure] our borders. We needed fences, whether virtual or physical, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned ground sensors, detention centers. . . . If that's all that can be done, do that now. Don't allow a lack of a consensus [on guest workers or other immigration issues] to prevent what needs to be done."
Mr. Allen is not sympathetic to allowing illegal immigrants living in the U.S. to "earn" citizenship without returning to their home country. If they want to work legally, "I think they have to go back . . . and apply to come in here as a temporary worker. If they want to become a citizen, go through the process of becoming a citizen." Anything short of that, he says, "rewards illegal behavior."
His immigration position puts Mr. Allen athwart President Bush, a fact he doesn't mention. But then he also disagrees with Mr. Bush on the scope of the federal government. The president accepts its size as a given and advocates using it for conservative ends. Mr. Allen says he has "a libertarian sense." He describes himself as more in sync with Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan than with George Bush. "I'm one who dislikes limits. I don't like restrictions. I like freedom. I like liberty. Unless you're harming someone else, you leave people free."
Even on Iraq, Mr. Allen says the key to success comes from Reagan. "The lesson I think President Bush, I think all of us, need to learn from Reagan was perseverance and resolve in winning the Cold War," he says. "You have to stay the course." Defeating the "vile terrorists" in Iraq is "going to take perseverance and resolve. It's also going to take respectful alliances with other countries as well. . . . Look at how important the Europeans are on Iran."
Mr. Allen further disagrees with the president on education reform. He prefers his own "Standards of Learning," put in place when he was Virginia governor from 1994 to 1998, to Mr. Bush's "No Child Left Behind." The Bush policy is "the same thing we did," he says, "same purpose, not as comprehensive because it doesn't include science or writing or economics or history or technology but it's partially the same point of view. Unfortunately in the way this has actually been managed and implemented, it is harmful and counterproductive for us in Virginia."
Under NCLB, Mr. Allen complains, schools fail to meet standards when a small minority of students who don't speak English test poorly. Instead, he says, schools should be given a grace period of three years to teach English to those without proficiency in the language. "If a kid comes in in the fifth grade, make him take the test in eighth grade."
Mr. Allen speaks with intensity about education and says "it's a shame" that reform programs have "caused such controversy. I do think that these high academic standards and measurement are probably one of the best things we did while I was governor. Also, welfare reform that we passed two years before the federal government."
"Being governor is better than being in the Senate," Mr. Allen continues. "As governor, you set the agenda and get things done. . . . The Senate is the difference between being the CEO versus board of directors. The Senate is the best board of directors in the world. It's the most collegial group I've ever been in. . . . But they just take forever and ever to ever come to a decision. As governor, I would tell my folks, 'I care about the merits of an idea, but don't get bogged down in personalities and process.' In the Senate, the first thing they care about is process. They worship process."
Without prompting, Mr. Allen ticks off a list of what he considers the achievements of his single term as governor. (Virginia is the only state with a one-term limit.) "Abolition of parole, truth in sentencing, juvenile justice reform . . ." The list goes on. "Not a single one of those things were changed by any [subsequent] Republican or Democratic administration," he adds proudly.
Mr. Allen's greatest thrill in the Senate seems to have been his stint as head of the Republican campaign to elect senators in 2004. His record was the best in a decade, a net gain of four seats. Appearing with candidates, he often deployed what's become a distinctive feature of his campaign style--football analogies. Fondly and in detail, for instance, Mr. Allen recalls his appearance at a rally on the University of North Carolina campus for Richard Burr, a former football safety at Wake Forest, who was running against Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff. "Whether you are a Tar Heel or a Wolfpacker or a Demon Deacon or a Mountaineer, you're going to want a strong safety as your senator rather than President Clinton's waterboy," Mr. Allen says he told the crowd. "And they all cheered and I threw the mike to Richard, who of course caught it." (Mr. Burr defeated Mr. Bowles.)
George Allen's football experience has more than rhetorical utility. His father, George H. Allen, was head coach of the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins--and a pal of Ronald Reagan. Mr. Allen notes it was Reagan who attracted him to politics in the first place. Mr. Allen got to know him, he says, when the then-governor would drop by the football practices of the L.A. Rams in the late '60s.
His link to Reagan helps explain the grounds for the Allen presidential boomlet, which he rather unconvincingly says he's "still surprised by." Add to that the fact that he's a likeable conservative, elected governor and then senator, with a well-known family name. That pretty much explains it.
Early this summer, Mr. Allen will cut short his speeches at Republican gatherings around the country this year to focus on his re-election campaign. He was raised, he says, to "pay attention to the task at hand. Don't worry about playoff games. You got to play this game. When you're hammering nails, pay attention to the nail you're hammering."
Once re-elected, Mr. Allen says he'll deal with 2008. "You look at the options, and discuss things with my wife . . . and we'll see where things go from there." But, already, he has an idea of the mission of an Allen presidency. It's "securing our freedom, making sure this is a land of opportunity for all people, and making sure that we preserve our foundational values." That's not as clever as Mr. Allen's twist on how to talk about Roe v. Wade. But it's probably a lot more durable.
Mr. Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, is author of "Rebel in Chief" (Crown Forum, 2006).
opinionjournal.com |
