Posted on 06/17/2007 2:11:51 PM PDT by Lorianne
SOCIALIST CANDIDIATE Segolene Royale should have won the French presidential election and become the first woman president of France. She did not. There may be hope for Republicans and a warning for Democrats in this outcome.
The center-right had held the French presidency for 12 years. The incumbent president was tired and unpopular. In a normal year the outcome would have been obvious.
The opposition left should have won. Two things stopped the left: an idea and the man who believed in it.
The idea was that France needed profound, fundamental change and that the left was actually the party of reactionary defense of a failing old order.
The man was Nicolas Sarkozy, who describes his own background thus: "My father came from Hungary after the tragedy of Yalta, and my mother's father was a Jew from Salonika . . . we loved France. We didn't take it for granted."
Sarkozy's "Testimony: France in the Twenty-First Century" is the best guidebook that has been written about America's challenges. Every presidential candidate in both parties should read it.
The scale of the French challenge is stated bluntly by the then candidate and now president of France. "I am convinced that the French now want their leaders quickly to undertake reforms that will make it possible to encourage work, improve education, make government more effective, better integrate minorities and restore France's full global role."
He went on to assert "France is going through a fundamental crisis of confidence. The main characteristic of our society is the absence of hope." Imagine that in an America in which over 70 percent believe we are on the wrong track.
His key economic chapter is "Rewarding merit and work: the best social model: one that gives everyone a job."
It is hard for an American to appreciate how fundamental a shift this represents in French thinking.
Just a few years ago the French were proud that they had adopted a 35-hour work week. The French left was preparing for an even bigger welfare state. The French unions were proud of their ability to defeat any reform by taking to the streets and stopping the entire country in defense of their own special privileges.
To counter, Sarkozy developed a brilliant strategy to take on the moral authority, the economic policy and the interest group militancy of the left. He captured it in a simple slogan: "Work more to earn more."
Imagine an American President campaigning on the theme that "Americans will have to work harder" and then realize that in France that this message was at the heart of Sarkozy's campaign.
Sarkozy had lived through one great experience of profound positive change in French history. It was a change I had personally lived through as a 15-year-old living in France in 1958 and seeing the death of the French Fourth Republic and the return of De Gaulle and his historic effort to reach beyond politics and create the Fifth Republic, which stands to this day and has lasted longer than any French institution since the monarchy.
Sarkozy remembers "Gaullism overcame all political and social divisions and brought millions of French people of different backgrounds and social classes together behind a 'certain idea of France' and a desire to modernize and transform France. I was fascinated by this ability to break habits and traditions in leading an entire country to excellence."
Sarkozy used a Web-based campaign to reach around and through the French media and he hammered away for three years on the need for change. He distinguished himself from President Chirac and in the end it was Sarkozy who stood for a new future and the socialist who was defending the reactionary past.
Ironically, Sarkozy has more faith in American reform and renewal than do American politicians and commentators. He asserts: "Beyond all these characteristics of American society, what I admire most is its capacity to recognize its own weakness and to start correcting them right away. America's strength is that it was able, in each case, to identify its own weaknesses, and decide together as a society to remedy them, and then to take action without useless nostalgia about the past."
Every presidential candidate should read "Testimony" to have a better understanding of the scale of leadership that is possible.
Every American citizen should read "Testimony" to have an understanding of what they should demand from the presidential candidates in 2008 and expect from one of them in 2009.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Just say NO to Illegal Alien Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
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I watched Fox News Sunday. Even Brit Hume is clueless.
Charles Krauthammer railed against amnesty, and was ignored by the rest.
If this amnesty scam is stopped it will be the last gasp of the open borders crowd and they know it. That’s why they’re so desperate to get it through now and all the more reason we have to fight harder than ever.
“Sounds like a job for FDT.”
It sure does.
Interesting article, but what’s it got to do with Fred Thompson?
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