In my mind, Kansan conservatives are likely to rub against the Texans. There is far less bravado, and no ten-gallon hat; just speaking frankly and with a dose of common sense. It should be no surprise then to read Sheila Bair shakes up Washington.
“We have different perspectives frequently, and I think that’s a healthy thing,” she said. “You don’t want to get everybody in the room nodding.”
Critics say her record of helping consumers stave off foreclosures is mixed and that she has steered the FDIC into an activist role to the detriment of the agency’s traditional purpose of limiting the damage from failed banks.
“She’s off on a lot of social missions,” said Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant in Alexandria, Va.
Bair, though, said she remains “very much a capitalist.”
“Sometimes people misinterpret that as somehow I’m not a real Republican or something. I very much am. I guess I’m more of a Teddy Roosevelt kind of a Republican … It’s been said that Franklin would be proud of me, but I think Teddy would be proud of me too.”
Why on earth a capitalist and/or a conservative would not be allowed to instigate social missions is a real puzzler. Conservatives can regulate, believe it or not, and Bair makes an excellent argument why. The self-loving ten-gallon hat crowd might spin a good yarn about sunshine, but that won’t change the weather.
My favorite part of this story is how her podium manner affected the financial crowd:
The mortgage industry was sitting on a ticking time bomb and just didn’t get it. Pick up the phone, she said, and talk to borrowers.
“The sense of hostility from that audience was overwhelming,” said Howard Glaser, a Washington-based mortgage industry consultant who sat at Bair’s table that day in October 2007.
“I thought they were literally going to throw their desserts at her.”
Just desserts? Let them eat cake! Wait, that’s backwards. Anyway…
She gave them the Bair facts. Are they afraid of a Bair market? Haha
No doubt Kansas is conservative, but many women in public office from there seem exceptionally open minded with a firm grasp of common sense. Bair is no exception. Although she is close to the Dole family, she seems a world apart; more like Nancy Kassebaum or Kathleen Sebelius.