6.27.00
“Ownership Is Freedom”

6.23.00
Gore the Rich-Basher

6.16.00
Co-Opt City

6.12.00
Reform, Part II

6.09.00
Bipartisan with a Vengeance

6.08.00
What’s Wrong with the Gore Ads?

6.01.00
The Unbearable Lightness of Being W.

5.30.00
Cold Beer, (Not) Here!

think ownership is freedom.” Oh, how I long for politicians to say these words! And how little did I expect ever to hear them from George W. Bush.

But there he was, at a dinner for the Congress of Racial Equality last night in New York City, giving one of the best stump performances I've seen from him, trotting out an entirely new (and really quite profound) campaign theme: ownership.

I don't know whether it will become part of the permanent Bush arsenal, but it sounded good last night. Bush seemed particularly charged up to be speaking to a black audience, and rather than garbling his applause lines he leaned into them just right, catching the waves of applause and riding them to crescendos of minor passion. Afterwards, a slightly incredulous colleague asked: "Was that his usual stump speech?"

Well, it was — just delivered effectively, which makes all the difference in the world. In the current Broadway play, The Real Thing, a writer compares his craft to a cricket bat, composed of multiple pieces of wood. If one of them is just slightly off, a ball will feel like a rock, dead off the bat. But if all of them are perfect, a ball will sail off the bat miraculously, into the distance. The little things make a huge difference.

So it is with public speaking, and last night Bush got them righter than usual (earlier in Washington, D.C., he apparently delivered a more typical performance). Bush hit education, then tax cuts, then, in a rare departure, Section 8 housing law — a special concern of this urban black audience. It was this that provided the springboard for his talk of ownership. “Section 8 should be changed to promote ownership rather than renting,” Bush said. Then he declared that Republicans believe that it “doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, we want people to own something.”

He then segued into Social Security — which he talked about in exactly the right terms. A notable trend during the primaries was how W. honed his rap on tax cuts until it became both philosophically correct and rhetorically effective. He may be on the same road with Social Security. He said the problem with the current system is that it takes people's money in the form of payroll taxes, then manages it to get only a 2 % rate of return. Talking about the scandalously low rate of return of the Social Security — a root problem with the current system that can be easily explained — is much more effective than talking about the impending "bankruptcy" of the system, since it's so far off and no one really believes it's going to happen anyway.

Bush then pointed out that his reform proposal would allow people to "own an asset base," which brought him back to ownership — and his wondrous phrase: "I think ownership is freedom." This is one of the most under-appreciated connections in politics, and is an insight that should be at the root of conservatism. Ownership also could unite several Bush policy initiatives, from housing, to Social Security, to, of course, taxes. (It's the people's money, Bush repeats again and again, all but saying, It's their property.)

Now, it's unlikely that Bush understands the full implications of his "ownership is freedom" line. It's doubtful that he has, say, recently read Richard Pipes's powerful book-length explication of the connection between Property and Freedom (for a sample of Pipes, click here). But it's enough that Bush would say it — because politicians tend, inevitably, to begin to believe what they say. “Assume a virtue, if you have it not,” Hamlet tells his mother. “For use can almost change the stamp of nature.” Let's hope this is a theme Bush uses often.

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