Mitt, Newt, and Barack: When Does Baggage Become Freight?

During the campaign for the presidency in 2008, there was much criticism of Barack Obama for the people with whom he had chosen to associate over the years. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were among those mentioned frequently. They were active in the Weather Underground, a communist revolutionary group co-founded by Ayers in 1969. Of course Obama was a child in 1969, so his connection with an organization that bombed public buildings to protest the Viet Nam war has some degrees of separation. But his judgment was questioned.

Then there was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor at Obama's church. Critics questioned how Obama could have sat and listened - for years - to sermons given by someone whose rantings included that made most famous by the 2008 spotlight, "God damn America!"

So what do we think of guilt by association? It seems we think far too much of it. Many were more than willing to condemn Obama for these associations, because they believed they reflected his own philosophical leanings.

The ravings of Jeremiah Wright and the violence of the Weather Underground never caused me to worry that Barack Obama was secretly an America hater and a racist. I did, however, wonder, in reading about the associations that affected his intellectual development from adolescence through his adult life, whether he was much more socialistic in his thinking than he was willing to admit in public utterances as a candidate - with the notable exception of the "spread the wealth" remark to Joe the plumber.

There are always things about a candidate's past that may bother some voters. This year we have been treated to quite a series of them. As the Republican field has been winnowed, the focus on such things grows ever more intense. Mitt Romney's record as a venture capitalist and his work in the corporate world (labeled with the remarkable term "creative destruction") are as sure to engender outrage from the left as Obama's socialist proclivities have from the right. And now his tax returns show that his income is derived primarily from investments, with the consequence that he pays federal income tax at a rate far lower than those of us in the middle class who go to work five days a week.

And then there is Newt. First stop: three marriages, with transitions marked by infidelity as wife #1 was traded in for #2, and then #2 for #3. Then ethics charges during his term as Speaker of the House in connection with an investigation of possible tax evasion. The IRS concluded there was no violation, but Gingrich was thought to have interfered with the House ethics investigation, and he was reprimanded and fined by his colleagues for that. Most recently, he has worked as consultant (not a registered lobbyist) for organizations seeking to work more effectively with Congress in pursuing their interests. That a former congressman would do that is hardly surprising, but many Americans don't like what they call a "revolving door" that engenders cozy relationships between government and areas of the private economy that government is supposed to oversee and regulate.

Mitt Romney has called it "influence peddling," a wonderful choice of a pejorative term. Anyone who has spent even a few hours strolling the halls of the House and Senate office buildings on Capitol Hill will tell you there is an awful lot of influence being peddled.

[I am an influence peddler myself. I go to Capitol Hill to talk to my elected representatives about issues of importance to emergency physicians and our patients. Part of the reason I get in to see them, and they take some time to listen to me, is that doctors in my specialty have a political action committee that gives politicians money for their re-election campaigns. That's the way the system works. Many of us really don't like that fact, but we are stuck with it.]

Newt Gingrich's background has enough targets for snipers to keep them busy from now through the end of the primary season - or the general election, if he should happen to become the Republican nominee. Mitt Romney's record might not be quite as target-rich. We shall see.

One wag (I love that phrase, because it's so useful when you cannot recall to whom you should attribute a clever remark) said of Gingrich, "He doesn't have baggage. He has freight."

Sometimes I wonder whether these politicians go through their lives applying a test to every contemplated course of action: how will this look in X years if I some day run for president? Something tells me the answer is no.

The incumbent president is running on a record in office and a renewed vision for four more years. That is the stuff that will be the focus of my attention this year. And Mitt and Newt have their own records, in the office of governor of Massachusetts and that of congressman from Georgia and Speaker of the House, and their own vision of the future. This is not to say I don't care what else they've done in their lives. It's just not front and center. In my view of presidential politics, that just isn't where it belongs.