Roosevelt Wilson will join us; we see Haley as Romney’s running mate

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February 05, 2012

Roosevelt Wilson, whose distinguished commentary brought him a top prize as publisher and columnist withThe Capital Outlook, will be writing columns every so often for various media, and he’s agreed to let us run them.

I’m proud to say he is a former colleague of mine at Florida A&M University and always has something interesting to say about what’s going on in politics, race relations, and so many other areas, including sports. He’s always got a viewpoint, agree or disagree with him in the marketplace of ideas.

Roosevelt was the athletic director at Florida A&M University and is knowledgeable in that area too. So be on the lookout for his columns.

And so, the Republicans

We were right on the button with predictions that Mitt Romney would take the Florida primary. He’s the least acerbic of all of the Republican candidates that seem to be left in the fold, and probably the one with the best chance of giving President Obama a fight in the big election. A lot may ride on who he chooses for vice-president.

Our guess here is that he could go for a little-known prospect, similar to what Nixon did when he sought out Spiro Agnew. Sometimes these minor politicians have less baggage and people always are interested in a new face in politics. Romney will find that he’s not going to attract the majority of the vote from blacks or women, and so it seems to make sense from this corner that a minority woman might make it to his ticket. We understand the governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley fits this bill.

Remember, you read it first in The Tallahassee News.

Along those lines are Mr. Romney’s recent remark “I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it,” Romney said.

He and other Republicans, including whatever think tank they are using, often refer to the economist Frederick Hayek as a source of economic defense for their concept of “liberty.” Hayek was an opponent of John Maynard Keynes, a proponent of much of the social engineering that has occurred in our economy since the 1930s.

Hayek, in contrast to Romney, was, indeed, concerned about the very poor. In “The Road to Serfdom” Hayek still maintained some conscience about those who could not make it in society.

Although it might be inimical to his concept of liberty, he says, ” . . . there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody,” he wrote.

Further, he seems to think in the direction of unemployment insurance and other steps to shelter people from “the vicissitudes of the market.”

Hayek argues that socialism (he puts a lot of emphasis on Nazi Germany) is likely to lead to a fascist state. We would take exception in that a lot of what is proposed by the Republican candidates seems to us to impinge on free speech and the right to a fair trial, guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

Is it really socialistic to believe that the guarantees by the founding fathers ought to be honored in this day and age?