Separated at birth?

Or is Romney one of Rocky’s bastards?

I delivered a couple of talks today at the Nelson Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth, which has a long wall of Rockefeller photos as well as rooms named Rocky I, Rocky II, and Rocky III. Looking at Rockefeller’s smug-self-satisfied-rich-guy face reminded me of something.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com

16 thoughts on “Separated at birth?”

  1. I’d be overjoyed if there were a few Rockefeller (or Javits, Case, Brooke, or Milliken) Republicans left in the Republican Party (overlooking Rockefeller’s odious Drug Warriorism). As it is, the Rockefeller Republicans (including President Obama) now are all Democrats.

  2. You’ve got to admit, though, Rocky would be lot more fun for a night on the town — and that’s coming from a lifelong teetotaler.

  3. This is just silly. If you respected the man and/or agreed with his policies, that “smug-self-satisfied-rich-guy face” would look to you like a “slightly amused but confident-principled-leader face.”

  4. I think you are unfair to Rockefeller. He is from the time when there was Noblesse Oblige. His family funded TWO universities and he did lots more fun things with his money - he commissioned Picasso tapestries not car elevators.

    In general, the country seems to have done well with guys who inherited wealth and then went into public service (Roosevelt, Kennedy, Rockefeller et al.) It is GETTING money that seems to have hardened Romney into a clueless idiot. This worries me.

    1. I’m not sure it’s exactly unfair to Rockefeller, but his face looks to me more like “I’m richer than god and I know it, and I don’t have to prove it to anyone” while Mitt’s face looks more like “I’m richer than you and by golly I’m going to prove it.”

      But that may also be a generational thing. The Walton and Mars and Koch offspring really haven’t done a lot for the public face of the country.

      1. Rockefeller’s SERIOUS face looks happier than Romney’s unbelievable grin.

        Why haven’t any of these guys founded universities? Don’t they have fantasies of having ME-ME-ME University eclipsing Harvard? Admittedly if art now costs over 100 million they have to pinch their millions.

        It pains me to say this, but I must. David Koch Center for Integrative Cancer Research. He did not found a new one; he bought one that was already going but he did give a lot of money which was nice of him.

      2. Well, I’m not going to call Rockefeller a saint, but he has always seemed to be a “with privilege comes responsibility” type of person to me, while the Romney type could be better defined as “with privilege come benefits and power”.

  5. This is stupid. Just a coincidence. They’re very different kinds of rich people. Romney, son of an executive though he was, actually made his own money. Romney is a businessman who thinks he should be a politician. Rockefeller was a politician. He wasn’t a businessman; his grandfather was.

    1. Thanks, Joel: I’d forgotten the bet.

      Not sure I’m really entitled to claim it, though. The news doesn’t show that Reid was lying about having a source who told him that Romney had paid zero taxes, only that (1)Reid was lying or (2) his source was lying or (3) his source was mistaken.

      But if you want to pay, then I have two options. Defining “charity” broadly as “money for non-personal use,” right now I’d say either the DCCC or the Jon Tester campaign in Montana.

      If you want to define it narrowly as a 501(c) (3), the most important work (per dollar) going now that I’m aware of is the Hopkins project on psilocybin and spiritual experience.

      You’d make a check out to:

      San Francisco Foundation, CSP Fund, #4745

      and mail it to:

      The San Francisco Foundation, CSP Fund
      225 Bush Street, Suite 500
      San Francisco, CA 94104

      If you or anyone else makes such a contribution, I’ll match it from my own funds.

      1. I can’t bring myself to send money to the DCCC, only to see Steve Israel spend it to support the most conservative available Democratic candidate in solidly blue races, while ignoring plausible but liberal candidates in other races.

        But the other two are great.
        I’ve sent a $50 check to SFF CSP (a charity of which I was previously unaware, and whose mission I support), and hit the Tester Web site for $50.

        Thanks, Mark.

  7. Again, I seem to be crotchety today. Mark, are you having a cross-ethnicity id moment? They don’t look that much alike! (I mean this in a nice way. ; >)

    1. Fair enough, though it’s not as if WASPs are especially exotic in my world. The haircuts and the noses are pretty close, and the expressions similar, though the chins, ears, and eyebrows are different. And, to respond to NPM’s commment, admittedly I can’t easily separate my reactions to the images from my reactions to the politicians. (The Rockefeller drug laws, invented to meet a transient policial need, are pretty hard to forgive.)

      But the reaction was purely spontaneous; I saw a picture of Rockefeller (not the one above) and said “That looks like Romney!”

  9. Looking at Rockefeller’s smug-self-satisfied-rich-guy face

    21st century phrenology? Professor Kleiman, I am disappoint.

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