We should be so lucky…from Charles C. Johnson at City Journal:
[Mitt Romney] would do well to remember the words of Calvin Coolidge, the last Republican governor of Massachusetts to be so honored. He might find a sympathetic soul, with much to teach him.
[…]
[President Calvin] Coolidge also emphasized the ideal of the common good. “A true citizen of a real Republic can not exist as a segregated, unattached fragment of selfishness,” he told the delegates, “but must live as a constituent part of the whole of society in which he can secure his own welfare only as he secures the welfare of his fellow men.” […] Coolidge announced his own first principles:
I believe in the American Constitution. I favor the American system of individual enterprise, and I am opposed to any general extension of Government ownership and control. I believe not only in advocating economy in public expenditure, but in its practical application and actual accomplishment.
[…]
Romney should follow Coolidge’s lead when it comes to corruption and cronyism as well: “no individual . . . may expect any governmental favors for party assistance. Whatever anyone gives must be given for the common good, or not at all.” In other words, no more Solyndras or bailouts.
Most of all, Coolidge had a sharp sense of the limits of what government could achieve. “We harbor no delusions about securing perfection. We know that mankind is finite,” he warned his fellow Republicans.
