WASHINGTON — The most momentous political story of the hour is
not what you might think…whatever you might think. It has to do
with an American politician now living in London and his aspiration
to become president of the United States. His name is Boris
Johnson. He, an exemplary conservative, has just beaten one of the
most rebarbative left-wing reactionaries in the United Kingdom, to
become mayor of London. Johnson ran a very fine campaign, an
amalgam of high intelligence, sound principle, rollicking good
humor, and energy that could be branded New Tory. Mind you, New
Toryism will arrive on these shores in due course.
Presidential aspirants are often accused of pursuing office with
the intent of using that office as a “stepping stoneâ€
to still higher office. The wife of a former Arkansas governor,
when running for a Senate seat in New York in 2000, was accused of
intending New York to be her “stepping stone†to the
presidency. Her husband too was accused of using his reelection to
the Governor’s Mansion as a stepping stone to the White House;
months after reelection Boy Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign
began. For that matter, the New York Senate seat that Hillary now
holds is the same seat once held by Robert F. Kennedy, who also was
presciently accused by opponents of intending the seat as his
stepping stone to the highest office in the land. Incidentally,
both Hillary Clinton and Robert Kennedy came to New York as
outsiders, she from Arkansas, he from Massachusetts. Consequently,
both suffered the charge of being called
“carpetbaggers.â€
So using a governorship or a Senate seat as a stepping stone to
the presidency is not new. Using City Hall in London is.
Geographically speaking, Johnson’s presidential campaign will make
him the most ambitious carpetbagger in American history. He was
born in New York General Hospital, New York, New York, on June 19,
1964—the year remembered by American conservatives as the
Goldwater Year.
It is now faintly circulating through American media that
Johnson was born here, but so is the report that he gave up his
citizenship in 2006 after encountering passport problems with fussy
U.S. immigration authorities. The report is in error. I can now
reveal that The American Spectator in another of its world
exclusives has discovered (see the June issue) that the newly
elected mayor of London never terminated his citizenship. He is as
American as Barack Obama.
The confusion arises because of a comical piece Johnson wrote in
the August 9, 2006 issue of The Spectator of London. In it
he reported his rude encounter with our immigration authorities and
his vow to give up his American citizenship. But hold! Now I can
report that when he presented himself at the American embassy to
terminate his U.S. citizenship he good-naturedly changed his mind.
The procedure threatened to become too expensive in terms of tax
liabilities alone. When Johnson sets out for the Republican
nomination, there will be no doubt as to where he stands on tax
cuts.
Already Johnson’s presidential ambitions are being circulated in
the British press. Apparently he has joked about his plans for
years. This week Stuart Reid, a confidant of Johnson’s at the
British Spectator, which Johnson then edited, has written
that Johnson will not actually launch his campaign until 2016. Reid
believes Senator Obama will win the presidency this fall.
I doubt Obama will defeat Senator John McCain, and readers of
this column might recall that one year ago in The Clinton
Crack-Up I predicted Senator Clinton’s faltering before a
challenge from the Democratic Party’s younger generation. My
prediction came at a time when such political savants as Dick
Morris were touting Clinton as the “inevitableâ€
nominee and next president. Today I predict that Johnson, working
from the City Hall of London, will have a salubrious influence on
conservatives both in the UK and the U.S. His campaign for the
American presidency will begin long before Reid speculates that it
will, and it cannot begin too soon for me.
I say Johnson will be a salubrious force because I have known
him since his tenure as editor of The Spectator. He brings
to conservatism something it has lacked, at least on this side of
the Atlantic, since the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the
retirement of William F. Buckley. Frankly, it is my kind of
conservatism: libertarian, admiring tradition, and employing
government only in those areas where government is needed. After
his stint in journalism (where he was superb) Johnson entered
Parliament. There he was Thatcherite, but with beneficent bacteria
of skepticism, irony and subversion.
All of this comes together on the campaign trail, where he is a
refreshing contrast to the solemn blowhards. Campaigning in upscale
Henley he joshed about his Conservative Party’s excessively grim
slogan — “You’ve paid your taxes. So where are the police?” —
employing his own whimsical alternative: “You’ve paid your taxes.
So where are the tennis courts?” Campaigning in 2004 he famously
declared, “Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts
and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.” Now after all these
months of Barack and Hillary’s poppy and cock, imagine the heap
Mayor Johnson would leave them in. It is only a matter of time
before he returns to his native land and saves conservatism from
Newt Gingrich.
