George Will Indicates He Is Unlike Edmund Burke, I.e., Not A Populist

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

[From article]
Today we are being treated to the sight of conservative George Will of the Washington Post, denouncing Donald Trump to the bitter end. Mr. Will is the WaPo's nod to Madisonian democracy, which feels safe enough to the lefties of the WaPo – because who is going to bring James Madison back to life today?
Mr. Will is there like a gold ormulu clock on the mantelpiece, to show the intellectual diversity of the WaPo. He writes and speaks in whole sentences, but secretly, my hero George Will is a member of the Whig Party, the founding elite of the United States.
Now, I admire Mr. Will as one kind of true conservative, believe it or not. But he is not a Burkean conservative, because Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was actually a populist intellectual.
Burke believed in the intuitive wisdom and good sense of ordinary people. I'm afraid that Mr. Will sneers at popular conservatives because they are...well, popular. Like GOP winner Donald Trump, who talks the earthy language of Queens, New York.


Donald Trump

Trump is attractive to voters who are sick and tired of being preached at and lied to by our mis-educated elites. Trump is not as intellectual as Ted Cruz. Intellectuals are good for Supreme Court justices, and Cruz knows his constitutional law.
But Trump understands and likes people, which is not the same thing.
Conservatives have long been divided between intuitive people and intellectuals. Thomas Jefferson was an intellectual. Andrew Jackson was an intuitive conservative.
Abe Lincoln was a very rare politician who had a liking and appreciation for everyday people but could still make eloquent speeches that educated Americans could love. Ben Franklin was also able to bridge popularity and intellect. But Alexander Hamilton famously said, "The People? Sir, the People is a Great Beast!"
In some way George Will is more of a Hamiltonian. Nothing wrong with that, but Mr. Will consistently fails to understand the Donald Trumps of this world. Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman had sound intuitions about people. Woodrow Wilson was an intellectual.
In truth, Trump understands sophisticated ideas also, and he can talk in complete sentences. We can see that as he is making his "pivot" to more conventional politics. But Mr. Trump loves to outrage the Hamiltonians in Washington, D.C., who are still freaked out by the prospect of a practical person getting a chance.
Burke was an Irishman who served in the British Parliament, a life history that might explain his hatred for tyranny and his love and respect for human intuition. Ireland in his time was miserably poor, generally uneducated, and badly exploited by English landlords, but still rich in human talent. Burke empathized with the poor and powerless, but he also admired the decency and good sense of most people.



In Burke's time, throngs of impoverished Irish fled to Britain, America, Australia, India and New Zealand, which is why so many American politicians have Irish roots.
Burke supported the American Revolution, because he saw the Constitution as an extension of British rights and freedoms, earned over the centuries in power struggles against tyrants. But the key to Burke was his faith in the good judgment of everyday people.
That's what he wrote about in his most famous paragraph, comparing the grasshoppers of the chattering classes to the mass of ordinary people, "reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak."
His advice was not to pay much attention to screaming headlines, but to put your trust in the intuitive good sense of the people.
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.
Trump is a practical man. George Will is a classic intellectual. They don't need to fight each other, because a viable world needs both kinds of people.
But maybe it's time for conservative intellectuals to stop sulking and get with the program. Worse things than Trump have happened to this country – like the last seven years of Obama, or (heaven forefend!) the next eight years of Hillary.
Today we have a choice, not an echo.
You may not love the choice, but consider the alternative.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/george_will_takes_on_edmund_burke.html

May 6, 2016
George Will Takes On Edmund Burke
By James Lewis

Conservatism vs. National Populism

[From article]
Nationalism and populism are now the amorphous terms used to inject meaning into the Trump presidential campaign – terms to distinguish this new movement from the limited-government principles that have been at the heart of the conservative movement over the last half-century.  While American conservatism includes a strong sense of what many confuse for "nationalism" – patriotism and a love of country – it is distinct from the true nationalism peddled by Trump supporters, which is removed from the principles of limited government and individual liberty at the heart of the American way of life. Conservative author and radio host Mark Levin said in a speech at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that conservatism is not about "nationalism or populism, phrases that have no concrete meaning or constitutional basis."  Conservatism is constructed on a solid set of principles, based on an understanding of human nature and guided by the example of the Founding Fathers.  It is a defense of the principles infused in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence – the cornerstones of American civilization that make this nation truly exceptional.
[. . .]
However, the failures of nationalism and populism in other countries should serve as a warning to American conservatives tempted to embrace them.  Not only have nationalist movements in Europe and Latin America failed to check the rise of leftism and socialism, but they have led to their own catastrophes and brought destruction to the people supporting them. [. . .] Nationalism as a standalone ideology rendered the minority, and individuals, defenseless against the powers wielded by the despots in charge.
[. . .]



South America has greatly suffered as a result of populist rule.  The supposed "leaders of the people" above have one thing in common: they left their countries in worse shape than when they stepped into office. There are no checks that can be applied to a populist ruler.  Nationalist populism, without limitations on the size of government and laws to protect individual liberty, enables tyranny to thrive.  It creates a nation of men and not laws, the exact opposite of what America's founders intended for our country.  Rather than help the "working man," the nationalist populist doctrine destroys his opportunities and creates a system of lawlessness in which only the powerful and connected truly thrive.
[. . .]
A popular uprising against the American elite and bipartisan corruption need not mirror the eventually tyrannical ideologies that have plagued much of the world.
[. . .]
Popular anxiety about the direction of the country and its fall from greatness flows from real problems, both foreign and domestic, that have been largely ignored by the elites of both parties.  But nationalist populism has not solved these problems in other countries; rather, it has made them worse.  In the words of an Argentine journalist, "populism loves the poor so much [that] it multiplies them." [. . .] American greatness lies in restoring her institutions and Founding principles, not in the siren song that has destroyed lives in Latin America and Europe.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/a_crisis_for_the_right_conservatism_or_nationalist_populism.html

April 13, 2016
A Crisis for the Right: Conservatism or Nationalist Populism
By Jordan Schachtel and Jarrett Stepman

European People Organize Against Middle East Muslim Migrant Invasion

Determined: Festerling poses in front of a statue of Martin Luther in Dresden. She cited his 1521 statement, 'here I stand. God help me. I can do no other.'

[From article]
The most powerful woman in far-Right Germany has made an extraordinary call for the public to ‘forget about decency’ and fight the ‘sex-jihad’ she claims is being waged against Western women.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Tatjana Festerling, 51, the second-in-command of the anti-Islam group Pegida, said ‘political correctness’ was putting women and gay men at risk of assault.
In a vicious attack on Muslim migrants and the political elite, she said: ‘Germany is like an open-air psychiatric ward with the mental illness of political correctness.
'We don’t have time for decency any more. If we don’t grab our pitchforks and fight the Islamisation of Europe, we are lost.'
Her comments, in a video for MailOnline, will cause concern that a resurgent far-Right is exploiting migration to whip up racist hatred.
[. . .]
Accompanied by a bodyguard at a cafe in central Dresden, Festerling told MailOnline:
’Pegida are the only ones who don’t care about being politically correct. We just don’t care. We have no scruples and no fear.
‘We are on the rise all over the world, regaining territory that was lost to political correctness.
‘The Muslim headscarf should be banned, and radical mosques should be closed. We need to make life uncomfortable for them.
'Migrants should be forced to register at police stations, and ultimately we need to look at deportation. If they keep crossing the border and you can't arrest them, shoot them.'
Germany’s ‘refugees welcome culture’ is like a cult, she said, with anti-migrant voices being suppressed by an out-of-touch political elite. She continued:
In peaceful times, we Germans like to be decent and behave nicely to foreigners. But in times like these, we need to forget about decency.
'F*** decency. This fight against Islamisation is the last battle.’
Her inflammatory remarks followed a week in which Pegida – a German acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – led demonstrations across the globe, a number of which turned violent.
Experts fear that the escalation in rhetoric marks a 'gear-shift' on the far-Right, raising fears of further unrest around the continent.
‘People are on the verge of panic about mass immigration, and Pegida is trying to capitalise on that,’ said Vidhya Ramalingam, a Fellow at the German Institute on Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation Studies (GIRDS).
‘It’s a very dangerous moment, because when people feel out of control they resort to violence.’
Festerling went on to compare the Left’s supportive attitude towards migrants to ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.
‘Even as the migrants are committing sex-jihad against women and homosexual men, the Leftists are offering them roses,’ she said.
‘They care more about young Muslim men than they do about their own women. They are infatuated with their own abusers.’
[. . .]
The Islamisation of Europe was ‘already underway’, she added, with churches being forced to remove crucifixes, pork being banned in kindergartens, Sharia police roaming the streets, and the whole of western Germany run as a ‘caliphate’.
'Islam is a twisted ideology,' she claimed.
As fears about immigrants have become more mainstream, there has been a noticeable escalation in Pegida’s belligerence.
[. . .]
Experts fear that this represents 'a new sense of self-confidence' on the far-Right in the wake of the immigrant sex attacks.
Like many far-Right movements, Pegida has been beset by infighting. Last year, a number of senior members lost their nerve and left the group, with one apologising to Muslims in a video message.
Yet its aggressive stance towards the government and migrants strikes a chord with an increasing number of disenfranchised Germans, particularly white men, who are driving the resurgence of the far-Right across the continent.
Launched in October 2014 to oppose ‘the Islamisation of Europe’, Pegida has expanded into other countries, including Austria, Belgium, Holland and Britain, though some of the numbers may be small.
In Dresden, where the group was founded, it regularly attracts up to 5,000 supporters to its Monday night rallies.


Rally: A Pegida demonstration in Dresden, where up to 5,000 people gather every week on Mondays.

Last week, the group staged demonstrations around the world under the monicker ‘Fortress Europe’.
Demonstrations took place as far afield as Australia, and 200 Pegida supporters led by Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League (EDL), marched silently in Birmingham.
Festerling herself took part in a rally in Warsaw, where she launched the Polish branch of Pegida in front of a 2,000-strong crowd,
[. . .]
There are many patriotic people in Poland.’
Her latest comments will infuriate people who refuse to buy in to fears about mass migration - and those who fear the far-Right is exploiting migration to whip up hatred.
At the same time, however, they are designed to appeal to a growing unease among mainstream voters who are not connected to the far-Right.
According to Germany’s Federal Office of Migration and Refugees, 476,649 people sought asylum in 2015. And the numbers appear to be rising: in January alone, there were more than 50,000.
Political conditions in Germany mean that those with concerns about mass migration have little representation in parliament.
The pro-migrant Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is governing over a coalition that includes the Social Democrats, Germany’s second-largest party. Other parties, such as the Greens, share her ‘open door’ stance.
Merkel is widely blamed for the current crisis. At Pegida rallies in Germany, placards depicting her in a hijab, with the caption ‘take your Muslims and get lost’, are commonplace.
[. . .]
In recent months, Pegida has pledged to form a legitimate political party; put a stop to a tax that funds German state media; launch legal action against the federal government; publish weekly ‘Pegidaleaks’ online to uncover corruption in State institutions; and lead a boycott of the economy every Wednesday.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3443786/Forget-decency-fight-sex-jihad-Femme-fatale-extremist-Pegida-group-accuses-Muslims-targeting-Western-women-gay-men-calls-public-grab-pitchforks.html

EXCLUSIVE: 'Forget decency, fight the sex jihad!' The moment the most powerful woman in far-Right Pegida launches vicious attack on Muslim migrants, telling the public to 'grab your pitchforks and protect Europe'
Tatjana Festerling, Pegida's deputy, claims western Germany is 'caliphate'
Far-right activist rants that Muslims are 'twisted' in hate-filled interview
MailOnline video of the 51-year-old shows extent of her extremist views
Festerling calls on ordinary people to fight the 'Islamisation' of Europe
Says migrants should be forced to register at police stations on arrival
Those crossing the border illegally should be arrested or shot, she said
Comes after Pegida led demos around world, some of which turned violent
Video rant exposes far-Right views that are gaining currency in Germany
For more on Germany's migrant crisis visit www.dailymail.co.uk/germany
By Jake Wallis Simons In Dresden, Germany
Published: 03:43 EST, 15 February 2016 | Updated: 05:30 EST, 15 February 2016

European Populists Organize To Protest Middle East Migrant Invasion

[From article]
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) is a grassroots movement that was formed in Germany a little over two years ago. The scale of their rallies has rapidly grown. And now they’re organizing mass demonstrations for February 6, to be held in cities across Europe.
[. . .]
PEGIDA provides a structure for citizens to come together to celebrate national pride and to express opposition to Merkel’s suicidal open-door immigration policy that has allowed in throngs of Muslims from Islamic countries – a policy that is destroying Germany in unthinkable ways.
If you’ve ever seen a video of a PEGIDA march, you’ll notice young and old, healthy and infirm, day or night, in all kinds of weather – patriotic Germans show up and wind their way through the streets. Some carry flags while others hold signs. There is often an eerie silence, though occasionally a chant breaks out or you can hear the national anthem being sung. (See here, here, here, here, here, and here for a sample of videos from a few of their marches.)
The size of the demonstrations is often large, with numbers reaching into the tens of thousands. Beginning in October, the group organized weekly marches in Dresden and other cities primarily located in the eastern part of Germany (which is likely no coincidence, given the region’s history and people’s firsthand knowledge of life under totalitarian rule).
But the core values embraced by PEGIDA are spreading beyond the eastern part of Germany. A recent study cited at the Gatestone Institute showed increasing numbers of Germans coming around to the hard truth about Islam and its incompatibility with Western culture.
[. . .]



In addition to increasing support across Germany, as noted at the outset of the post, PEGIDA’s reach is now expanding into other European countries as their base of support grows. Gates of Vienna notes that “PEGIDA is in Austria, Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland and Great Britain.
[. . .]
The representatives of the far-right movements signed a joint “Prague declaration,” warning that the “history of Western civilization could soon come to an end through Islam conquering Europe.”
As you might imagine, PEGIDA is controversial as the left tries to paint them as neo-Nazis (they’re not) and dangerous right-wingers (as if it’s dangerous to love your country and want to protect it from ruin). It’s also common for peaceful marches to be infiltrated by people who start trouble in order to taint PEGIDA’s reputation. The German government is, of course, staunchly against them, and it is typical to see police out in force at their demonstrations – more police than Germany appears able (or willing) to muster to protect its citizens from such horrors as mass rape.
[. . .]
Is this our future? (Answer: If there is not a dramatic and immediate course correction, then yes. It is.)
(To read more about PEGIDA see here, here, and here.)

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/pegida_planning_mass_demonstrations_across_europe.html

January 26, 2016
PEGIDA planning mass demonstrations across Europe
By Carol Brown

Voters and Taxpayers Stand Up To Abusive Government. Trump Is No Outsider

One of only three non establishment presidential candidates.

[From article]
In 2016 the underlying theme is the anger and disgust directed toward the political establishment. Per the polls, an overwhelming majority of the American people see their family’s’ and the nation’s future as extremely bleak, and the current political leaders in Washington as being megalomaniacal, avaricious, narcissistic or feckless. Not since the early days of the Great Depression has the citizenry, regardless of political affiliation, been so fearful of the future and so infuriated with the nation’s governing class.
[. . .]
At the risk of offending the diehard supporters of Donald Trump, who may view him as the nation’s savior, Donald Trump has been a part of the political establishment or “Ruling Class” for his entire adult life, whether as a registered Republican or Democrat or Independent.
[. . .]
By his own admission Trump has contributed, over the past 40 years, millions of dollars to both parties (considerably more to Democrats than Republicans) in order to buy influence and thus help underwrite their political agendas -- the definition of crony capitalism. He has vacillated from one extreme to the other in his various stances on the issues during the past forty years but his one consistent has been to unabashedly support the political establishment and thus he has played a significant financial role in fostering the nation’s current dilemmas. He is now claiming to be anti-establishment.
Donald Trump has unnerved the Republican wing of the political establishment not because of who he is (they are aware of his establishment bona fides) or even his ever changing positions on various issues. Rather the Republican hierarchy fears Trump is so personally polarizing in a nation whose demographics are rapidly changing that he would lose the general election
[. . .]
If the foundational basis of the angst of the American people is infuriation with the current governing class, then there are only three candidates that have either never been a part of the establishment or have without reservation confronted the current governing class. They are Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson. These same people have, not coincidentally, been declared as persona non grata by the overall political establishment.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/the_american_people_vs_the_political_establishment.html

January 22, 2016
The American People vs. the Political Establishment
By Steve McCann

Media Morality No Longer Controls Populist Candidates and Voters

[From article]
In the feudal era there were the “three estates” — the clergy, the nobility and the commons. The first and second were eradicated in Robespierre’s Revolution.
[. . .]
The fourth estate, the press, the disciples of Voltaire, had replaced the clergy it had dethroned as the new arbiters of morality and rectitude.
Today the press decides what words are permissible and what thoughts are acceptable. The press conducts the inquisitions where heretics are blacklisted and excommunicated from the company of decent men, while others are forgiven if they recant their heresies.
With the rise of network television and its vast audience, the fourth estate reached apogee in the 1960s and 1970s, playing lead roles in elevating JFK and breaking Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Yet before he went down, Nixon inflicted deep and enduring wounds upon the fourth estate.
[. . .]
In “The Making of the President 1972,“ Teddy White [said]
“The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion, and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about — an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.”
[. . .]
Millions now regard the media as ideologues who are masquerading as journalists and use press privileges and power to pursue agendas not dissimilar to those of the candidates and parties they oppose.
[. . .]
[Trump's] popularity is traceable to the fact that he rejects the moral authority of the media, breaks their commandments, and mocks their condemnations. His contempt for the norms of Political Correctness is daily on display.
And that large slice of America that detests a media whose public approval now rivals that of Congress, relishes this defiance. The last thing these folks want Trump to do is to apologize to the press.
And the media have played right into Trump’s hand.
[. . .]
the names you call Trump — bigot, racist, xenophobe, sexist — are the names you call us, nothing but cuss words that a corrupt establishment uses on those it most detests.”
What the Trump campaign reveals is that, to populists and Republicans, the political establishment and its media arm are looked upon the way the commons and peasantry of 1789 looked upon the ancien regime and the king’s courtiers at Versailles.
Yet, now that the fourth estate is as discredited as the clergy in 1789, the larger problem is that there is no arbiter of truth, morality and decency left whom we all respect. Like 4th-century Romans, we barely agree on what those terms mean anymore.

http://buchanan.org/blog/why-liberal-media-hate-trump-124373

Why Liberal Media Hate Trump
Thursday - December 3, 2015 at 11:29 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Populists In Spain Challenge Two-Party Rule

Reuters/Reuters - A man holds a a book written by Pablo Iglesias, Secretary General of Podemos, during a local assembly of Podemos at Madrid's Salamanca district December 18, 2014. REUTERS/Susana Vera


[From article]
The sudden rise of a new anti-establishment party has transformed Spanish politics a year before a general election, forcing the center-right government to veer away from austerity and the left-leaning opposition to scramble for new leaders.
In just a year since its founding, the party "Podemos" - We Can - has overturned the two party system in place since Spain embraced democracy in the 1970s. It is now polling around even with the ruling People's Party (PP) and main opposition Socialists, and has even led in some polls.
[. . .]
Podemos has set up hundreds of local assemblies known as "circulos" across the country, staging unruly weekly meetings at which Spaniards can vent the anger built up during worst economic crisis since World War Two.
"The one thing we all share is the outrage over what's going on in Spain," said Jose Luis Soriano, a 32-year old unemployed computer scientist who has been coming to the circulo in the upscale Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca since the summer.
[. . .]
Created in January by a group of political science professors from the Complutense University in Madrid and led by charismatic 36-year old Pablo Iglesias, the party is tapping into the sentiment behind the "Indignados" movement of youths that occupied Spanish squares in 2011.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/rise-spanish-populists-overturns-two-party-system-070629468.html

Rise of Spanish populists overturns two-party system
By By Julien Toyer
Reuters
December 29, 2014

Populism, Nationalism On The Rise

[From article]
According to every national poll, Americans believe that our country is on the wrong course, that it is less respected than it has ever been abroad and that our children and their children will most likely not know the good life that we have had.
Americans disapprove of the president and have little confidence in either party or in Congress. Few believe that the government is as well-run as it was in World War II or when Ike was creating the federal highway system or America was sending astronauts to the moon.

http://buchanan.org/blog/populist-path-power-6457

A Populist Path to Power?
Friday - June 13, 2014 at 4:18 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Surprise?

Surprise?

Why is it a surprise that Cadillac Deval "is not quite the progressive,
populist lefty?" (David Bernstein, "Fender nBender," Boston Phoenix, July 27,
2007, News page 12) Anyone paying attention knows he is a Harvard corporate
lawyer with two McMansions. Are populists usually appointed to corporate boards?
The clueless are surprised.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

Fender bender

Last year, opponents thought they had killed auto-insurance reform for good. Its resurrection could be a headache for Deval Patrick.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

7/26/2007 11:52:16 AM

070727_politics_main

Crash test dummies
After their candidate, Kerry Healey, was defeated, Liberty Mutual quickly began buttering the other side of the bread: the company was one of nine “Platinum” $50,000 donors to the Patrick-Murray Inaugural Committee.

Another reform-boosting company, Worcester-based Hanover Insurance, has been particularly cozy with lieutenant governor and former Worcester mayor Timothy Murray, observers say. Hanover was also a Platinum donor for the inauguration, and bestowed a $2 million gift for a Murray pet project: restoration of Worcester’s Poli Palace Theatre. Hanover’s chairman, Michael Angelini, was a co-chair of Patrick’s transition committee.
Recent signs on Beacon Hill indicate to some that Deval Patrick is not quite the progressive, populist lefty that many of his supporters — and detractors — think he is. On issue after issue, Patrick’s instinct is to offer breaks and incentives to corporations and large nonprofits, and it’s beginning to diminish the support of an increasing number of legislators — including several state senators who are crucial to the success on his more ambitious agenda items.

Pushing several would-be allies over the edge was the announcement this past Monday that Patrick’s insurance commissioner, Nonnie Burnes, will end Massachusetts’s decades-long experiment with auto-insurance-rate regulation. Instead of a state commission setting those rates, insurance companies will now have the freedom to compete, within limits. Liberal legislators, who argue that the current system protects poor, young, and urban drivers, have expressed shock that Patrick will usher in this change; they fear that insurers will raise rates most on those who can least afford it, and will punish drivers based on location, credit history, and factors other than one’s driving record. Although Burnes says that she will protect against such outcomes, opponents still think this is a bad, anti-consumer idea that they believed had died when Mitt Romney left office.

This auto-insurance stunner, along with other perceived pro-business policies, has helped push progressive senators Joan Menard, Frederick Berry, Steven Panagiotakas, Marc Pacheco, Dianne Wilkerson, and Patricia Jehlen to sour on Patrick, to varying degrees. These are pols who supported Patrick’s candidacy, and should be solid allies now that he is in office. “There are a lot of unhappy people in the building right now,” says Wilkerson.

This dynamic is contrary to Patrick’s public reputation, which was forged by the high-profile fight over closing corporate-tax loopholes. That battle cast Patrick as the populist, and the legislature — House Speaker Sal DiMasi in particular — as the corporate shill.

But aside from that one issue — which Patrick pushed for the fiscally conservative purpose of balancing the budget without adding new taxes on residents — the governor has embraced a string of what some see as corporate-friendly policies.

Patrick has taken heat, for example, for alleged “corporate welfare” in pushing a $10 million grant to the developers of Boston’s Columbus Center. He enthusiastically supported, and this past week signed, new tax breaks for movie studios to film in the Commonwealth. He supports a sales-tax holiday, seen by some as a gift to retail chains with little benefit to the state. He has endorsed financial breaks to help those building the Boston University biotech lab and the Cape Cod wind farm. And in his bio-med/stem-cell bill, he intends to push a billion dollars of investment to companies and universities.

New gov, old fight
“For a long time, we’ve been the Democratic shield stopping the Republican bullets,” says Pacheco of the State Senate. “We finally have a Democratic governor, and we keep having the same kinds of battles.”

Advocates of auto-insurance reform insist that naysayers such as Pacheco are a small but vocal minority, and that they are the pawns of insurance companies, including Arbella, Plymouth Rock, and Commerce Insurance, which would be hurt by increased competition from national insurers that currently shun the state because of the restrictive rate-setting system.

Nevertheless, criticisms from liberals in the legislature have prompted the governor to unleash his PR machine, to insulate him from Burnes’s decision. Although Patrick is publicly supporting the reform, he has done so with tepid language. Meanwhile, his staff and Burnes herself have stressed that she worked independently, apolitically, and non-ideologically in making her decision. Together they have hammered that point home in a series of public comments.

Burnes tells the Phoenix that she did not have any conversation — any at all — with Patrick concerning auto-insurance reform until she briefed him on her decision days before announcing it publicly. Instead, Burnes, a former Superior Court judge, argues she was required by statute, not driven by ideology, to implement the change. “It really was a legal decision,” she says.

Patrick has another reason to insist it was not his decision. Just three weeks before the Burnes bombshell, Patrick solicited, and accepted, $20,000 worth of contributions from executives at Liberty Mutual, the company fighting hardest for reform. That looks unseemly at best, unless Patrick really was totally uninvolved in the decision.

According to people close to the issue, Patrick’s advisors had to be aware that Burnes’s decision to adopt a market-driven rate system would cause political problems. Those advisors also knew that they gained little or nothing by it: even supporters of the reform concede that the public isn’t clamoring for such a change.

The fact that Patrick allowed Burnes to proceed, then, certainly looks like an example of good government as pledged on the campaign trail — just as his “corporate welfare” items look to many to be smart economic-growth initiatives. In this light, Patrick hired Burnes based on competence rather than ideology or loyalty, gave her the freedom to act independently, and didn’t allow politics to get in the way.

But the reaction by angry legislators demonstrates just how hard it is to insulate any governmental action from charges of politics.

For starters, opponents of the reform, including Pacheco, are pointing to a large number of Romney holdovers on Burnes’s staff — and to specific high-placed employees who formerly worked for State Representative Ronald Mariano, a Democrat who has spearheaded auto-insurance-reform legislation. Those staffers, critics say, influenced the decision by feeding Burnes bad information. Burnes denies the charge.

Then there’s the money trail, including that recent bonanza from almost all of Liberty Mutual’s management team. Edmund Kelly, Liberty Mutual’s CEO, stood beside Romney when the then-governor denounced the existing system as “Stalinist” in 2005. In 2006, Kelly and other Liberty Mutual executives contributed more than $20,000 to Kerry Healey and her running mate, but since the election have opened their wallets for Patrick (see “Crash Test Dummies” sidebar).

But if the Patrick administration was for sale on this issue, the other side — the losing one in this past week’s announcement — was also bidding. Reform opponents Arbella and Commerce Insurance were among those Platinum inauguration contributors. Commerce employees and board members also gave tens of thousands to Patrick’s campaign.

The war isn’t over
Public attacks on Burnes’s staff, or on contributions to Patrick’s campaign, are not as potentially damaging as the other charge being leveled: that Patrick is, at heart, the corporate boardroom director that progressives were willing to overlook when electing him.

If that perception takes hold, particularly in the State Senate, Patrick could find himself under increasing attack from the left — as he was recently by state senators who challenged him to debar Big Dig villain Bechtel from eligibility for state contracts.

How well he quells those concerns may be seen in the coming months, in how big a fight senators, including Berry, Menard, Pacheco, and Wilkerson, are willing to put up to preserve the auto-insurance status quo.

It would be an unwelcome challenge to the administration from the left, particularly if it is joined by Senate President Therese Murray, who is said to be sympathetic to the anti-reform argument — and who has herself received contributions from Commerce Insurance board members.