True lies

Last night, around the time that Arnold was saying that Hubert Humphrey sounded to him like a socialist, Humphrey was delivering his 1968 acceptance speech on C-SPAN. To me, Humprhrey sounded on that occasion more like a man whose world was collapsing around him than like a socialist. It is true, though, that Humphrey had some socialist tendencies. But what about, Richard Nixon, the man whose words sounded so different to Arnold that he became a Republican? As president, Nixon proposed a guaranteed annual income, wage and price controls, and quota hiring in the construction industry.
Yet there’s no point in quibbling with Arnold about this. Nixon and Humphrey did sound different on the issue of economic freedom and, whatever Nixon may have done in office, the difference does represent a major divide between the parties. Nixon told a true lie, and it looks like a good thing for the party that Arnold believed it.

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