Guantanamo Charter City Update

A quick update: Paul Romer does (still) support a charter city in Guantanamo, and thinks using the city a means to help Haiti is a good alternative to the goal of a charter city in Haiti itself, which we acknowledge isn't feasible right now.

He also said, in an email, that the largest hurdle to getting the project off the ground is the current lack of bi-partisan agreement about what to do with the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Logically, since the prison takes up only a small part of the overall area that the US controls, closing the prison wouldn't necessarily be a pre-condition to starting a charter city. However, I do agree that they seem to be linked, and that broad support would likely require a change in rhetoric on the prision issue.

Sen. John McCain (R, AZ), a former POW and anti-torture advocate, is the most logical candidate for a GOP sponsor for this project. An aide in his DC office told me that the senator does support closing the prison, but there's no urgency - he is waiting for Pres. Obama to try (and fail).

Sens. Durbin (D), Graham (R), and Lieberman (D?) are also in favor of closing the prison.

My impression is that we need a narrative that will appeal to the Republican political machine - we need to make the "replace the Guantanamo prison with a charter city for Haitians" idea fit with Republican rhetoric.

Here are the things, as far as I can tell, that Republicans "care" about:

I need help brainstorming how the charter city project fits with these disputed values. For example:

• National pride - let America take pride in leading the global response to the Haiti crisis by giving them a city to use as an incubator for rebuilding their own country
  
• Work important / Hard work / Money- a charter city would spread the free market/capitalist ideal to the corner of the world that needs the positive effects from these values the most
• Family important / Child needs both parents - letting whole families emigrate would preserve family structure that might otherwise be destroyed in the aftermath of this disaster

Any other ideas?

It occurs to me that this exercise would work equally well the proposal to give large numbers of Haitians work visas, and other large scale policy responses.

Here is an explanation of the Key Disputed Values matrix.