In response to Senator Ray Haynes’ post below, I recieved this response from Mike Genest, the Director of Finance for Governor Schwarzeneger, who is mentioned in Haynes’ post…
Ronald Reagan’s famed "11th Commandment" was to never speak ill of another Republican. However, my friend Ray Haynes has posted that my opinion piece in today’s Modesto Bee, which responded to some of the criticisms that Senator Jeff Denham made of the budget now before the Senate, was intended as an ad hominem attack.
As a confirmed Republican, I would never do such a thing.
It’s been my pleasure to work with Senator Denham, both as the fiscal
director for the Senate Republican Caucus and as the Director of Finance. I continue have great respect for him. But as the governor’s fiscal advisor, I believe his statements warranted a matter-of-fact response. As I wrote, this budget is balanced, holds spending growth to less than one percent, and with the Governor’s assured vetoes, will bring the reserve to a record $4 billion.
We can disagree without being disagreeable, and that was the spirit of my response to his comments. But the continuing budget impasse is bringing about serious consequences – as seen in today’s reports that two Central Valley health clinics have been forced to close as a result of this
stalemate. That’s why we continue to believe, as I wrote, that this budget should be passed – sooner rather than later.
[Publisher’s Note — I love it when people cite Reagan’s "11th Commandment" — which was ingenious of Reagan. He loved to invoke it when others spoke ill of him, but it didn’t really keep Reagan himself from publically criticizing a fellow GOPer when he felt he it was appropriate… LOL — Flash]
August 10th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Mike, I am sorry, but if the Governor were really invested in seeing a workable budget passed, he would not be throwing grenades at Senate Republicans. He would be lighting their cigars. Get my drift?
August 10th, 2007 at 12:00 am
A couple of points for historic accuracy. As some people know, although I am a Democrat I was acquainted with Governor Reagan as a youngster through friends and we had a few conversations about politics.
The 11th commandment was promulgated by Gaylord Parkinson the State Chair of the Republican Party before the 1966 primary season. His words were that “no candidate should speak ill of a fellow Republican”. This was a reaction to the Goldwater/Rockefeller bloodbath of two years before. At that time, Reagan was considered the heavy underdog to George Christopher, the former Mayor of San Francisco and some people thought the commandment was a way of weakening his campaign. But to some people’s surprise, Reagan publicly supported the concept and so far as I know never criticized Christopher in that campaign. He moved way ahead and when Christopher started to make a move up was helped because the Pat Brown campaign which was more worried about Christopher proceeded to launch a smear through the newspapers which wrecked Christopher’s chances, but united Republicans behind Reagan.
As for his campaign against Ford, I know Reagan felt he was hit unfairly on some occasions (I thought by modern standards everything was light in that race) but I can’t recall him ever criticizing or questioning Ford’s ethics and can remember him hurting himself to a certain extent by praising his hardworking character and saying that he had no doubt Jerry Ford was honest and a political conservative. Instead he focused on their differences on issues and what he saw as the potential consequences to the country of those stands and nearly did the unheard of and beat an incumbent President.
When he held office both as Governor and President, several of his most important aides were members of the other party who happened to share his feelings about specific issues.
To give an example, Max Kampelman was a longtime Democratic fundraiser who was very close to Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, but who was a hawk on Arms control issues. Kampelman advised Reagan throughout his time as President and was a Presidential envoy at an Arms Control conferences, yet he always opposed him at election time and raised money for his opponents campaigns. That didn’t matter to Reagan or if it did, he didn’t mention it. He simply thought people like that sometimes were the best people to move forward his agenda and used them accordingly.
The reason I bring that up is of course Reagan had what would have to be considered a very partisan agenda, but still realized that he was stronger by trying to bring people together rather than dividing them and too few politicians on both sides think that way today.
I also know that he believed that the current trend of scorched earth attack ads were not only bad for Democracy, but bad political practice. His basic view was that members of other political persuasions were still neighbors and friends of voters and if you didn’t treat them with the same respect would a neighbor or a friend, you would drive voters away. He never hesitated to discuss differences on issues, but even in his most hard hitting attacks (Carter campaign) he generally stayed away from questioning ethics. When John wrote what he did, he may be aware of some things I am either forgetting or not aware of where President Reagan got down into the muck, but I know that if he did, it was not only unintentional, but also not smart politics from his perspective and in the current environment where too many people think they are just doing “what it takes to win” when they want to justify sleazy tactics, I think it’s important to remember that the most successful politician electorally of our generation practiced something different.
August 11th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Let’s put this damn 11th Commandment crap to rest already. Stupid is stupid no matter who it is, and they ought to get called on it.