\u00a0New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance<\/a>. Doar joined AEI in 2014 and became president of the organization in 2019.<\/p>\nDoar opened the event by introducing AEI\u2019s values, such as free enterprise, limited government and operating as an independent organization.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAEI has distinguished itself, I believe, by preserving our independence,\u201d Doar said. \u201cWe\u2019re always non-partisan, we\u2019re always civil, we\u2019re always empirical and we\u2019re always supporting certain principles about free enterprise, limited government and a strong American role in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nAfter Doar\u2019s opening remarks, Watkins-Hayes asked him about the different approaches politicians take when advocating for specific policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c(In) so much of what we\u2019re talking about, there\u2019s an underlying importance of how it gets done, not just what gets done,\u201d Watkins-Hayes said. \u201cSo I wonder if you can talk about methods of persuasion, methods of moving policy forward, because the strategy of \u2018we don\u2019t like it, therefore it\u2019s gone,\u2019 is one approach versus \u2018we don\u2019t like it, can we think about how we can change the method?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Doar agreed with Watkins-Hayes\u2019s comment about what he described as a closed-minded approach that many politicians have adopted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is entirely played out in our public policy world in Congress, which is broken,\u201d Doar said. \u201cIt has lost its ability to reason together across party lines, and decisions are only being made by the majority and the speaker, and that\u2019s a real tragedy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, U-M alum Ashley Burnside, who attended the event, said she appreciated listening to diverse political perspectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n\u201cI was interested in the diversity of speakers here,\u201d Burnside said. \u201cI\u2019ve followed AEI a lot, so I was just kind of interested to get both of their perspectives and hear what they had to say about this very dynamic political moment we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rackham student Margaret Owsiany said in an interview with The Daily she was interested in attending an event that would discuss conservative viewpoints, as she believed those were not as commonly hosted by the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to support the events that they hold, and I try to go to different ones and see different perspectives,\u201d Owsiany said. \u201cMichigan is a quite liberal school; to have an event that is right-of-center is rare here, so I wanted to come to that and listen to what he had to say and how the school handles a right-of-center event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toward the end of the event, Shaefer asked Doar about the reasoning behind the event\u2019s title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really struck by your title, \u2018Whither the Center-Right?\u2019\u201d Shaefer said. \u201cThat was phrased as a question, so I wanted to ask you to reflect on that a bit more. Should we take that as you wondering why the center-right is withered, and are these sorts of reflections part of that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nDoar said that the title\u2019s meaning was more to show that the center-right continues to contribute to U.S. politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just trying to say \u2018it\u2019s still here, still viable,\u2019\u201d Doar said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that the story is over today. The story keeps going. We keep reinventing ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daily Staff Reporter Grace Park can be reached at <\/em>gracepm@umich.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n
Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Thursday evening, about 50 people gathered at the Ford School of Public Policy for an event called, \u201cWhither the Center-Right?\u201d to hear Robert Doar, president of the American Enterprise Institute, and Celeste Watkins-Hayes, dean of the Public Policy School, speak about the role of the center-right in the American conservative movement today. Doar also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3032,3031,774,325,3030,775],"class_list":{"0":"post-2884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-centerright","9":"tag-doar","10":"tag-ford","11":"tag-hosts","12":"tag-robert","13":"tag-school"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}