Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal Thinks Immoderation is the Key to Turning Around the Economy

She May Be Right But . . .

The favorite Wall Street Journal opinion writer for The Dismal Political Economist, as  regular readers here know, is Peggy Noonan.  Ms. Noonan writes with a clarity few others (including The Dismal Political Economist) can achieve and often although not entirely she is constructive and witty in her criticism, not mean and ugly as, well, as the rest of the group over there.

This weekend Ms. Noonan surveys the current economic and political environment and finds it wanting, as well she should.  She has a terrific opening, which she graciously credits to someone else (not sure The Dismal Political Economist would have)

"Ten years ago, Steve Jobs was alive, Bob Hope was alive, Johnny Cash was alive. Now we're outta jobs, outta hope and outta cash." I heard that from a TSA agent in New York the other day

And after the obligatory observation on the latest fad,Occupy Wall Street, she goes on to comment on the President’s jobs plan

President Obama's jobs bill failed in the Senate this week, and the headline is not that it lost, it's that it lost and nobody noticed. Polls actually showed support for various parts of it. You know why it failed? Because he was for it. Because he said, "Pass this bill." So weak is public faith in his economic leadership that people figure if he's behind it, it must be a bad idea.

which pretty much sums things up although the President probably deserves more credit than she is willing to give him (This is the WSJ op/ed pages  you know).  On the Republican side she says this about Herman Cain, which is as good an explanation as any about his rise in popularity.

Do you know who looks most surprised by the rise of Herman Cain? Herman Cain. He thought he was on a book tour. Mr. Cain's strength is not his charm. It's not that he means it or that he's a businessman. It's that he's the only one who'd throw out the entire U.S. tax code. He'd level it and start anew. He'd do something fundamental.

and this about Jon Huntsman, for whom the word “enigma” was created

Jon Huntsman continues as an undervalued stock. He's finally emphasizing that he was a successful, conservative two-term governor of Utah. He's not actually a blue-blood, patrician Rockefeller Republican, he just plays one on TV.

And this about Rick Perry, which in a few sentences says what most reporters cannot say in a few paragraphs. 

Rick Perry looks like someone who's trying to find a graceful way out of this thing. It's not going to work, and he must know it. He's not playing to his strengths—he's local, not national.

In Ms. Noonan we have a person whose observations are definitely worth considering, even if one does not agree with her.   As for Mr. Romney, its seems she is right on with this

Mitt Romney is the front-runner, whatever the polls say, and Chris Christie's endorsement is a huge boon. People say Mr. Romney hasn't budged from roughly 25% support. But through every rise of every challenger, he hasn't lost a thing. He holds his position, and he can grow.

But her thesis is that things are so bad, that we have lost Jobs and Cash and Hope, and now we need something big.  Mr. Romney is just not there in her opinion,

At one point Mr. Romney spoke approvingly of "a tax break for middle-income Americans." It sounded like the authentic sound of last year's tax debate, not next year's.

but then neither is anybody else, including the President, and thus the punchline at the beginning becomes more irony and less humor.

As for what is needed, Ms. Noonan does not specify, which is not an indictment of her.  It’s a recognition that no viable solution exists, at least not in the current economic environment and political arena.