Presidential scouting reports: a libertarian fan's guide to the World Series of politics

Reason, June, 2007 by David Weigel, Jesse Walker, Nick Gillespie

Pros: Though he tempered it as he prepared for his 2008 run, McCain has shown a fiscally conservative streak. He is widely credited with elevating federal pork to a national issue. After the Jack Abramoff scandals broke, McCain used his power in the Senate to expose corruption in his own party.

Cons: When McCain replaced Goldwater in the Senate, he promised voters that they "wouldn't be able to tell the difference." They can. A "national greatness" conservative with an itch to regulate, McCain was the brains behind one of most anti-First Amendment laws in decades: the campaign finance reform law of 2002, which restricts what individuals and groups can say during the campaign season. He was a neocon before neoconservatism was cool, arguing early on for war in Iraq and calling way back in 2004 for a troop surge to dig us out of the muck. Even his hatred of pork isn't really about cutting government; it's about making a big, aggressive government more effective.

Bottom Line: Like Giuliani, McCain comes to public policy from an authoritarian perspective, not an individualist one. He's good on some issues, but his bias is for the executive to take the reins to ram through change and vanquish his foes. That might not be the ideal philosophy to follow eight years of George Bush.

Mitt Romney

Vitals: The son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, young Mitt rose through Harvard's law and business schools before landing at Bain & Company, the Boston turnaround firm. He is credited with rescuing the imploding 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City before getting elected governor of Massachusetts a few months later. In 2006 he passed on a second term to run for president.

Pros: Romney's Type A business personality butted up against the Democratic legislature to produce some salutary results: He junked useless state jobs and balanced the budget with few tax and fee increases. In a backhanded slap at President Bush, Romney likes to say, "I know how to use the veto. I like vetoes."

Cons: Business is one thing. In politics, Romney has a knack for leaving projects half-finished and changing his mind. He took control of Boston's failing "Big Dig," but nothing came of his appearances at troubled sites wearing a construction helmet. He signed a mandatory health insurance law, then left his liberal Democratic successor to work out the details. He campaigned as a supporter of abortion rights and gay rights in 1994 and 2002, then morphed into a pro-lifer and the nation's most vocal nemesis of gay marriage. Allies say his changes are sincere, but they seem to fit a pattern of politically-advantageous maneuvers--like calling himself a "lifelong hunter" before admitting that he'd only been hunting twice.

Bottom Line: Romney has the most impressive management experience of anyone in the race. Unfortunately, the impressive parts came before he entered politics.

Sam Brownback

Vitals: Brownback, the former president of the Kansas branch of Future Farmers of America, was a lawyer and radio host before becoming Kansas' secretary of agriculture in 1986. He won a U.S. House seat in the 1994 Republican Revolution, and when Bob Dole quit the Senate to run for president, Brownback took his job. He converted from Methodism to Catholicism in 2002, solidifying an already pretty solid reputation as one of the Senate's most pious members.