Here is a story about Ronald Reagan and Tip O\u2019Neill.\u00a0 It applies to the upcoming contest for the Republican presidential nomination.\u00a0 I heard it at a dinner party around the new year.<\/p>\n
A few other guests and I were gathered in a side room.\u00a0 A former senior U.S. national security official was telling Cold War tales.\u00a0 He was a veteran of the intelligence community and the top policy-levels of the national security world, so his stories were good ones.\u00a0 He turned to the nation\u2019s various Afghan adventures and misadventures of the past few decades, in particular against the Soviets.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharlie Wilson\u2019s War<\/em> was accurate up to a point,\u201d he began.\u00a0 You may remember that Charlie Wilson\u2019s War<\/em> was a 2003 best seller by veteran reporter George Crille and the basis for a 2007 movie starring Tom Hanks.\u00a0 Charlie Wilson of the title was a real-life Texas congressman, a Democrat.\u00a0 During the late 1980s, he proved instrumental in developing congressional support for CIA efforts to bolster the anti-Soviet Afghan insurgency.\u00a0 Both book and movie portrayed the womanizing, hard-partying Wilson as allying with the CIA in part by chance, in part through his own initiative.\u00a0 But as told at that early January dinner, that part of the Wilson saga was simply wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlie was not acting on his own,\u201d the former official said.\u00a0 President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O\u2019Neill usually met on Friday afternoons at the White House.\u00a0 They\u2019d share whiskeys, swap stories, and cut deals.\u00a0 But after Iran-Contra broke a few weeks following the 1986 elections, it became clear that legislative deals were out of the question for much of the year ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cThey decided,\u201d the one-time spook continued, \u201dthat one area where they could make progress was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.\u201d\u00a0 So Reagan tasked the CIA to work with a House Democratic caucus member of O\u2019Neill\u2019s designation.\u00a0 O\u2019Neill picked Charlie Wilson.<\/p>\n The group listening to this story included political and national security veterans.\u00a0 As the former official concluded, one said, \u201cThat\u2019s what big time politicians do.\u00a0 Even in the middle of a political hurricane like Iran-Contra, they look for areas where they can agree and find ways to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n Here is why I am telling this story now.\u00a0 The process for picking a GOP nominee for the 2012 election is just getting underway.\u00a0 Recalling that winter\u2019s tale, it strikes me that, in addition to looking at legislative records and issue stances, we should be asking ourselves, who are the big time politicians in this field?\u00a0 That is, which candidates have shown a capacity, directly or indirectly, to put legislative agreements together, even when political conditions have been tough.<\/p>\n We talk now about repealing Obamacare once we take the White House.\u00a0 I believe repeal must be a high priority for the next president.\u00a0 But that president will need at least some Senate Democrats to go along, if repeal is to overcome the inevitable filibuster of the non-financial parts of the legislation, the massive mandates and regulations.\u00a0 Chances are that repeal of the act\u2019s taxes and spending can be handled through the reconciliation process, where only a majority vote is required.\u00a0 If Republicans score the kinds of pick ups in the 2012 Senate races that look likely at the moment, the Senate class of 2014 includes enough Democrats from bright red states to put a cloture vote over the top.\u00a0 But traveling the last mile will require a president of high ability.\u00a0 Which candidates have displayed that kind of skill?<\/p>\n The question occurred to me while watching a recent edition of the Hoover Institutions on-line television program, Uncommon Knowledge.<\/em> To be upfront, the firm I manage works with Hoover on the show.\u00a0 The host is Hoover fellow Peter Robinson, a Reagan White House colleague and a founding director of the firm.<\/p>\n Robinson recently interviewed Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a presumed presidential candidate.\u00a0 For a variety of reasons, I have been lukewarm about Daniel\u2019s candidacy.\u00a0 But as Robinson questioned him, what Daniels is trying to do became clear.\u00a0 By \u201ctime outs\u201d and talking almost exclusively about one set of issues \u2013 cutting the budget \u2013 Daniels would turn the 2012 campaign into a referendum on spending and the scope of government.\u00a0 He would box conservative Democrats out of all excuses for not going along with him, were he in charge.\u00a0 Whatever else one thinks of the governor, this is the strategy of a big-time politician.<\/p>\n I am not promoting Daniels here.\u00a0 It may be that all the candidates will display comparable insight and strength.\u00a0 But as we look for candidates who know what to do, we should also ask, who knows how to do it?\u00a0 That is the lesson of Charlie Wilson\u2019s War and the president who made it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is a story about Ronald Reagan and Tip O\u2019Neill.\u00a0 It applies to the upcoming contest for the Republican presidential nomination.\u00a0 I heard it at a dinner party around the new year. 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