Well, it’s not like there’s any conclusive proof that it was a phony endorsement, but it seems to be the feeling. It just seems pretty hard to believe that woman has ever read any of those things…let alone that Mises is her vacation beach chair pleasure—which freeradicals supported with his quick list of economic statements she’s made. Not to mention the point brought up in that other thread about the phrasing of “von Mises”. I think that’s a pretty decent rule of thumb that anyone who calls him that isn’t very familiar with his work, and certainly not the Austrian community. (Which, I’m not real sure how you could be very familiar with the first without being at least somewhat familiar with the second). She may actually agree with some of the ideals, but that whole statement sounded like nothing more than just an attempt to drop any name that’s somewhat well-known and associated with free market thinking.
I mean, I can excuse the slight contradiction of mentioning Friedman and Mises in the same comment, as everyone who has studied free markets has read some Friedman and his influence is undeniable. Not to mention, even Rothbard said he was right on 90% of things. But Art Laffer? Seriously? It seemed pretty evident to me she just knew that that was another name people might recognize…and of course associate with everyone’s favorite Conservative, Reagan. Laffer was thrown in there because she knows that even if someone doesn’t recognize any of the other names she spit out, they’d remember Laffer, and less than a second later they’d think "supply siders, Reagan, 80’s recovery). It seems like total politicing to me. It’s like throwing out as many different things as you can to appeal to as many people as possible. It’s what politicians do. It’s what she does. This is the woman who couldn’t even give an answer to the stupid “this or that” style question posed to all the candidates in the last debate. Hers was “[Johnny] Cash, or Elvis?” Her answer: “Both.”
The range of views expressed in that list she rattled off is really as close you can get to simply naming popular people with diametrically opposed views and saying you’re a fan of all of them…without actually getting there. She’s just one more “say what they want to hear” politician who happens to pander to the Tea Party crowd. It could just as easily have been the rich folk crowd (if Romney hadn’t taken it) or the downhome Republican crowd (if Palin hadn’t taken it), or any other political flavor.
Of course that’s not to say I’m not happy with the publicity. Believe me, I’m thrilled about any mention we get. (Notice the majority of posts in that thread are mine). And the LvMI seems to be in the same boat. But that doesn’t mean I’m fooled by a simple politician’s pandering.