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The Paradox of Unified Control–How Conservatives Can Win Without Bush
Vanity | 1/31/2004 | Self

Posted on 01/31/2004 3:07:29 PM PST by Kevin Curry

Can conservatives win in November if Bush loses the White House? The easy answer is "No." The thinking answer is quite different. The easy answer overestimates the power of a Democrat president who must work with a Republican-controlled Congress. The thinking answer is that gridlock is often preferable to a government shifting into high gear regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat is at the wheel. And gridlock is always preferable to progressivism, whatever its form.

Liberal nanny state progressivism is a rouged tart wearing a high tight skirt standing on the street corner, who whispers "$20 for a good time." Compassionate conservative progressivism is the wholesome girl next door in a county fair booth that reads, "$20 for a kiss"–only the bargain is even worse, because the government forces you to pay, and someone else gets the good time or the kiss.

Neither form of progressivism is acceptable to a conservative who has better and more profitable things to do with his time and money.

The key to understanding why the thinking answer attaches such small value to a Bush win this November is to understand the paradox of unified control. Common sense suggests that conservatives are best served when Republicans have unified control over the two branches that write the checks, pay the bills, and write and enforce the laws: the executive and the legislative. That was the delirious hope of conservatives, including myself, who cheered in November 2000 as Bush won the White House by the narrowest of margins and the Republican Party won combined control of the Senate and the House in 2002.

But this delirious optimism has turned steadily to dark dismay as Bush recklessly and heedlessly cranked the conservative agenda hard left and smashed it into reefs of trillion-dollar Medicare entitlements, record deficit spending, incumbent criticism-stifling campaign finance reform, illegal alien amnesty-on-the-installment-plan, NEA budget increases and the like.

Where has the Republican co-captain –Congress–been as Bush has pursed this reckless course? Mostly sleeping or meekly assisting. Would a Republican Congress have tolerated these antics from a Democratic president? Absolutely not! Why has a Republican Congress tolerated and even assisted Bush to do this? Because he is a Republican and for no other reason.

Thus, the paradox of unified control: a president can most easily and effectively destroy or compromise the dominant agenda of his own party when his own party controls Congress. Bush has demonstrated the potency of this paradox more powerfully than any president in recent memory–although Clinton had his moments too, as when he supported welfare reform.

Does this mean conservatives should desire a Democrat president when Congress is controlled by Republicans? No. Conservatives should desire a consistently conservative Republican president who with grace and inspiration will lead a Republican-controlled Congress to enact reforms that will prove the clear superiority of the conservative, small government agenda by its fruits. Bush's tax cuts are a wonderful achievement, and have had a powerful stimulating effect on the economy. But imagine how much better the result if he had not set forces in motion to neutralize this achievement by getting his trillion dollar Medicare boondoggle enacted.

Ten steps forward and ten steps back is may be how Republicans dance the "compassionate conservative" foxtrot, but in the end it merely leads us back to the same sorry place we started. It is not an improvement.

When a Republican president compromises the conservative agenda and is enabled to do so by a Republican Congress too dispirited or disorganized to resist, the next best answer might well be for a Democrat to hold the White House. Nothing would steel the courage of a Republican Congress and enliven its spirit more than to face off against a Democrat bent on implementing a liberal agenda.

Any Democrat unfortunate enough to win the White House this year will face the most depressing and daunting task of any Democrat president ever to hold the office. The Iraq War will become his war, and he will be scorned and repudiated if he does not with grace, power, and dignity bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. That means he will have to conduct the war in much the same way that Bush is conducting it now–he will not have the latitude to do much else. If he conducts the war in the manner that Bush is conducting it, his own base will abandon him.

Any Democrat president will also have to choose between spending cuts or raising taxes. If he chooses the latter, he will see his support plummet as the economic recovery sputters and stalls. If he chooses the former, he will dispirit his base supporters. In either case he will strengthen the hand of the Republican controlled-Congress and see Republican strength enhanced in the Senate and House.

If SCOTUS vacancies open up, he will see his nominees scrutinized and resisted with a zeal that can only be expected and carried out by a Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee that has suffered through years of kidney-punches and eye-gouging in judicial appointment hearings by a Democrat minority (it would help immensely if the spineless, Kennedy-appeasing Orrin Hatch were replaced as Committee Chair).

As his frustrations grow, his support plummets, and the Republican Party adds to its numbers in Congress, a Democrat president would be viewed as opportunistic roadkill by zealots in his own party, including and especially the ice-blooded and cruelly-scheming Hillary Clinton. In the run-up to the 2008 election Democrats would be faced with the choice of continuing to support a sure loser in the incumbent or a scheming hard-left alternative in Hillary. The blood-letting in the Democratic Party through the primary season and into the convention would be grievous and appalling, committed in plain view of the American public–who could be expected to vomit both of them out.

That would leave the field open for the Republican presidential candidate to achieve a victory of historic proportions in 2008. With greater Republican strength in Congress, the opportunity would again present itself for this nation to finally achieve the dream of implementing a real and substantial conservative agenda, of actually shrinking government in a large and meaningful way.

The key to achieving that dream, of course, is to carefully select an electable conservative for 2008 who will remain true to the conservative vision and not cause conservatism to fall victim again to the paradox of unified control.

It is not too soon to start looking for that candidate.


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KEYWORDS: gop
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To: arasina
Thanks for posting that! This is the man I voted for and shall vote for again, come November. :-)
1,281 posted on 02/01/2004 8:14:51 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Neets
Pleasant dreams. :-)
1,282 posted on 02/01/2004 8:15:28 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons
Good, I'm delighted we understand each other.

Oh yes, most unquestionably.

1,283 posted on 02/01/2004 8:15:40 PM PST by Lazamataz (WANTED: Pretty, young chick to satisfy depraved desires. Must have clown suit, monkey, and vacuum.)
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To: Joe Hadenuf
Hey, I said you won. Why keep going on and on about it? I thought it was over.
1,284 posted on 02/01/2004 8:16:56 PM PST by rdb3 (If Jesse Jack$on and I meet, face to face, it's gonna be a misunderstanding...)
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To: Lazamataz
:-)
1,285 posted on 02/01/2004 8:17:01 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Neets
Night and sweet dreams, Neets :-)
1,286 posted on 02/01/2004 8:17:17 PM PST by Tamzee (W '04..... America may not survive a Democrat at this point in our history....)
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To: Howlin; Neets; nopardons; ohioWfan; gatorbait
I only had to read 400 posts since I was last here. Looks like the fumigating is coming along nicely.

1,287 posted on 02/01/2004 8:18:13 PM PST by onyx (Your secrets are safe with me and all my friends.)
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To: Lazamataz; Willie Green; Senator Pardek
Meanwhile, here at FreeRepublic, Willie Green and Senator Pardek are singing love songs to one another in the background.


1,288 posted on 02/01/2004 8:20:15 PM PST by arasina (So there.)
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To: nopardons
It's juvenile, pathetic, and mentally deranged...

I've heard people can get Valium over the Internet now, no prescription.... perhaps we should order them a bunch? ;-)

1,289 posted on 02/01/2004 8:20:59 PM PST by Tamzee (W '04..... America may not survive a Democrat at this point in our history....)
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To: rdb3
Hey, I said you won. Why keep going on and on about it? I thought it was over.

No, that's not what you said, here, let me help you.

You didn't answer the question at all, but you win.

But your right, I did win *and* answered the question.

Case is now closed..

1,290 posted on 02/01/2004 8:21:44 PM PST by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: arasina; Senator Pardek; Willie Green
Meanwhile, here at FreeRepublic, Willie Green and Senator Pardek are singing love songs to one another in the background.

Check those lyrics over closely. There might be something 'verboten' in there.

1,291 posted on 02/01/2004 8:22:05 PM PST by Lazamataz (WANTED: Pretty, young chick to satisfy depraved desires. Must have clown suit, monkey, and vacuum.)
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To: Joe Hadenuf
Case is now closed..

Okay, then. Moving on.

1,292 posted on 02/01/2004 8:23:44 PM PST by rdb3 (If Jesse Jack$on and I meet, face to face, it's gonna be a misunderstanding...)
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To: Lazamataz

;-)


1,293 posted on 02/01/2004 8:25:23 PM PST by sauropod (Better to have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!)
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To: Lazamataz
C'mon, you left out Herr Robinson.

Then it would be like funny, not.

1,294 posted on 02/01/2004 8:27:26 PM PST by Kryptonite
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To: Tamsey; nopardons; onyx; Howlin; FairOpinion; Texasforever
I just read honeygrl's plaintive post over on EllPee.. Good God, the paranoia is deep over there. VERY deep. Among otherthings, very deep.Some of us ar stas in their alternative universe.
1,295 posted on 02/01/2004 8:31:21 PM PST by gatorbait (Yesterday, today and tomorrow......The United States Army)
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To: Jim Robinson
"And I've given every person on this web site plenty of advance notice (I've been saying it for the last three years) that FR will NOT be used to help replace Bush with a Democrat. Period. End of story."


Thank you!

The constant battering of anything/everything 'Bush' here and in the media has been instrumental in driving down his approval rating and is part of the dem playbook, IMO.

Open discourse differs significantly from the blatant attacks that are occurring and your stance on the issue is appreciated.
1,296 posted on 02/01/2004 8:31:54 PM PST by windchime (Podesta about Bush: "He's got four years to try to undo all the stuff we've done." (TIME-1/22/01))
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To: nopardons
Who is coteblanche and why is that name familiar. ?
1,297 posted on 02/01/2004 8:32:24 PM PST by gatorbait (Yesterday, today and tomorrow......The United States Army)
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To: Lazamataz
And you call others ignorant?

LOL

(though I see you have a point with some, but you don't have me pegged well at all.)
1,298 posted on 02/01/2004 8:33:04 PM PST by cyncooper
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To: Lazamataz
Check those lyrics over closely. There might be something 'verboten' in there.

Just an old fashioned love song
Playing on the radio
And wrapped around the music
is the sound of someone promising they'll never go.
You'll swear you've heard it before
As it slowly rambles on and on.
No need in bringing em back
Cause they've never really gone.
Just an old fashioned love song
Coming down in three part harmony.
Just an old fashioned love song
One I'm sure they wrote for you and me,

1,299 posted on 02/01/2004 8:34:19 PM PST by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Lazamataz
I wouldn't vote for Bush this round for a million bucks, but I hope he beats his Democrat opponent - what does that make me?
1,300 posted on 02/01/2004 8:34:46 PM PST by Senator Pardek
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