Bob Neal

The cartoon is famous, or ought to be, of a politician running to catch up with a moving crowd, saying something like, “I’m their leader, I have to get out front and lead them.”

A similar cartoon would be the politician who, in essence, says, “Pay attention to what I say, not what I do.” In both cases, the politicians aren’t leading. They’re scoring  points.

In neither case does the politician tackle the hard work of leadership. These would-be leaders lack courage. The courage to act. It’s all about appearance.

We have had leaders with the courage to act. Love ’em or hate ’em, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan were two. Johnson proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But he also launched the War on Poverty, which failed. Big time.

Reagan signed the immigration reform act of 1986. And he started an arms buildup that played a part in the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he also started the Iran-Contra Affair and exposed Marines in Lebanon, where 241 died in a barracks bombing.

Columnist Catherine Rampell wrote on Wednesday in the Sun Journal that government must sometimes step up and play the bad cop. She was writing about getting more people vaccinated against COVID-19, though she didn’t say exactly who or when that should be.

To his credit, President Biden is stepping up to play bad cop. He has already told federal employees to get vaccinated or undergo weekly testing and wear masks at work. He is reported to be considering setting vaccination requirements beyond the federal payroll.

Is Biden a return to leaders with the courage to do more than just sit in the power seat?

I believe his signature act so far is not the American Rescue Plan but the compromise infrastructure plan that passed in the Senate this week. That’s because it brought along 19 Republicans. First real bipartisanship in Congress in quite a while.

This doesn’t negate that the rescue plan went through with only Democratic votes or that the huge budget resolution will get through, if it does, with only Democratic votes. But it is a path that needs to be walked more often.

Reagan and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, House speaker, had almost nothing in common politically. But they put their heads together in 1983 to change the financing scheme for Social Security. O’Neill gave up Social Security as a campaign issue, and Reagan gave up on shielding high incomes from Social Security taxes. They did it in 1986 on tax reform, when Reagan got a 2% cut in the highest tax bracket and O’Neill got changes in capital gains taxes and a boost in the earned income tax credit. Not to mention immigration.

That’s leadership. And it’s also, not coincidentally, compromise.

In the new book “The Constitution of Knowledge,” Jonathan Rauch wrote: “If you are reality-based, you are in the business of seeking noncoercive ways to adjudicate disputes about reality. You are in the business of contending, persuading, compromising.” This, he said, is why James Madison — known as the “Father of the Constitution” — set up a government in three parts, each dependent on the others for some of its authority. Of necessity, the parts would compromise.

Not to say President Biden is perfect. I voted for him, but I find fault with his (still evolving) policy on immigration, with inaction on urban crime and with the hasty pullout from Afghanistan. To be fair, on Afghanistan he may have had no choice. Everyone knew that whenever we left, the Taliban would attack the government in Kabul.

Let’s finish with a look at state leadership. Gov. Janet Mills has been praised and damned for her strong stances on COVID. This week, Maine moved up to third-lowest infection rate in the country. And even with more infections, we had the lowest rate of new infections during the week that ended Wednesday. Our rate was 78 new infections per 100,000 residents. Louisiana was at 855, Mississippi and Florida were at 633.

I question Mills on other issues. How can she support the NECEC corridor carrying electricity from Quebec mostly to Massachusetts? Why has she shown no interest in reforming Maine’s sclerotic bureaucracy? Why isn’t Maine doing more to keep children from dying in their homes at the hands of their supposed protectors?

Mills may have read Rampell’s words before she announced Thursday that as of Oct. 1 all health care workers must be fully vaccinated for COVID. That adds to the list of vaccinations (measles, etc.) health care workers were already required to get.

At the same time, Maine has decided not to come up with its own masking guidelines. The federal CDC, which has botched several opportunities during the pandemic, has botched mask guidance, too, so that even though Maine has the lowest new infection rate in the country over the past week, virtually all the state is under a mask recommendation.

By taking up the challenge to be bad cop, Mills made the governor’s race more interesting.

Bob Neal noticed at the Farmington Hannaford last week nearly half the shoppers wore masks. But at a health-food store in Waterville, he saw almost no masks. Go figure. Neal can be reached at turkeyfarm@myfairpoint.net.