This is the Part III of my interview with San Diego’s Roger Hedgecock, nationally syndicated talk show host. He is heard locally on KOGO 600 AM. You can read Part I of my interview with Hedgecock here. You can read Part II here.
I asked Hedgecock his take on national political figures worth following, in particular ones that are suitable for President.
Leaving out the Presidential thing, which I think we haven’t really seen the full range of people yet, and I think it is better that we
don’t. I think we need to wait a while. I think that governors, as a whole, are the place where Republicans ought to go back to find again somebody who’s had some experience in actually running a big government institution… with all the problems and pressures and interest groups that are involved. I don’t think you can pluck somebody out of the Senate or the House, particularly a first or second termer, and expect them to be able to handle an executive position. There’s an entirely different psychology. There’s an entirely different set of needs there. I just don’t think Senators make good Presidents. I don’t. They are not decision makers. They bloviate. They straddle the fence on everything– other than a few that I love, like Jim DeMint and Rand Paul (pictured above right). That mentality in the Senate is a mentality of obfuscation, ambiguity, an attempt to find some kind of common ground to get something done. You are herding cats, 100 cats.
President is a whole different psychology. You’re it. Whether the President likes it or not, and this President apparently doesn’t, the
buck does stop at your desk. You do have to make decisions and you are accountable for them. Governors understand that. They don’t need a couple years in office to get used to it. They are used to it right now. There are a ton of Republican governors that are great who have faced these issues: budgets, deficits spending and all that. Mitch Daniels is clearly the guy who’s done probably the best at that. You’ve got a whole range of them in that same group really: Chris Christie and the newer ones— of course Scott Walker (pictured above right)–who apparently has a spine of steel, unlike the relatively spineless people in the Congress. These are the kind of people I am looking to for leadership. There are actually on the front lines. They are actually doing something. They are actually accomplishing something. They are actually standing up for free market principles and a return to Constitutional values. I think that there’s nobody in Congress who holds a candle to them, other than Allan West, whose brochure I still have sitting in my office here.
I asked Hedgecock about his extensive use of social media and his purpose in doing so.
It conveys the same message I am giving over the air to a new generation of people who find this a quicker and easier way to get information and share it. It simply another way, another platform if you will, another mechanism to get the same message out. We are not going to be a prosperous nation until we are again are a free nation. Until we again re-dedicate ourselves to the Constitution and restore it. Until we again re-dedicate ourselves to a free market and a cultural climate of individual responsibility. Until we do those things, we will not recover our standard of living. It will inevitably collapse under us. So that’s the message. I say it on the air. I say it in my columns. We say it on the website. Some people go to facebook. Some people go to twitter. Some go to my chat room. If I can expand out to all the different ways that people communicate and share, I am going to try to do that same message over all of that because somehow, somewhere , we are going to coalesce enough people to restore America.
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Part IV of my interview with Roger Hedgecock will focus on the micro-regulation of anything and everything, de Tocqueville and the charities with which he works.