Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Dr. Hunter Baker is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Union University and author of The End of Secularism. On the Matt Friedeman Show he talked about - among other things - Obama's recent press conference, the GOP presidential field, and same-sex marriage in New York.

It seems like Obama really knows how to say one thing, and reality is the other direction.

One thing that's kind of strange about him, really, was that he was elected to the presidency as a transformational leader.

This debt crisis is his opportunity to transform American. This is not the opportunity he wanted.

And that's why he's frustrated at this press conference?

That's exactly right.

These are not the times he wanted.

Tell me about the state of the Republican presidential field.

Well, I've been looking over it, and it's not terribly encouraging.

Unless Rick Perry gets in, it seems like Romney will win by following the normal Republican pattern.

Romney might actually be the best chance to beat Obama.

The only way we're going to win is to bring over independents, as happened in the last election.

I think that Romney might be the kind of guy who will appeal to independents.

I think a lot of people would say that Republicans do better when they are conservative.

I think that logic applies when you have the right candidate.

No matter how the left tried to paint him as a scary man...it just didn't take.

He was obviously very gifted in terms of being on TV, in terms of speaking.

A candidate like Reagan through sheer force of personality and in terms of gifts was able to move the bell curve over to the right.

Obama did the same thing to the left in 2008.

So you think it's more personality than positions?

I think so.

The tendency is to elect the politician who is most well liked.

It's happy for us when the best person is also the person most well liked.

Romney is all over the map on positions. I think a lot of conservatives would say, "I don't think so."

I'm very concerned about that myself.

At this point, I'm not sure Romney is who I'd vote for in the primary, but I'd go that direction in a hurry if my only other choice was the form of statism that we have right now.

Does Romney have a stable, steady sort of Reaganite record? No.

Basically a person displaying an unalloyed Reaganism would never get elected in Massachusetts.

Does that make him opportunistic? Yes.

Can congress meet the moral imperative of this debt problem?

There is a moral hazard inherent in holding public office.

That moral hazard is the incentive to just do enough to get by.

Unfortunately we have had that sort of logic in work in Congress, and really in the presidency for  a long time now.

The problem has grown to epic proportions.

And now we have come to the unthinkable which is running trillion dollar deficits...and still nothing has been done.

You see what happens when politicians do try to solve the problem.

We need statesmen who need to solve the problems.

What the significance of same-sex marriage being legalized in New York?

I'll give you the silver living, at least it happened by democratic means instead of by judicial fiat.

If the courts do not take this in their own hands.

You might remember that Roe. V. Wade happened in the wake of New York legalizing abortion.

If this does happen, it needs to be through democratic means. We do not need to have the court imposing this.

Is it likely to spread, especially in the northeast? I would say that's very likely.

Do people have a problem with conservative women?

Absolutely.

Democrats rely on women to vote for them.

If someone like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann was viewed favorably by women en masse, it would cause trouble for Democrats.