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.
Except of course if you agree with them.
And why shouldn't we be attacking Dean if he's elected? Our votes won't put him in office.
It certainly is a dilemma for YOU if you want to play with fire by voting for Tancredo, and end up with Democrats in the White House, in Congress, and Bill Clinton on the USSC bench.
Well, I am not going to be a part of your little "dilemma".
The insane spending spree must stop.
The last time I looked, the lionshare of the spending went toward rebuilding the military. Are you saying the gutting of the military and defense budget under Clinton was justified?
These self proclaimed victims around here, (who call themselves "true" conservatives) that claim Bush has betrayed them, is a joke in itself. I paid attention to George W. Bush's campaign from the time he announced his candidacy and I knew he was a moderate with big spending plans, he planned on expanding the Military and has done so, he planned on Medicare reform with a big price tag and has done so, he said he would stand up to the U.N. and has done so, he said he would get us out of the ABM treaty and has done so, he said he would nominate conservative judges and has done so, he said he would push and sign his expensive Education Bill and has done so.
IMHO this is the first President that has fulfilled 98% of his promises. An Energy Policy is one thing he didn't get done yet, and he made a mistake by signing CFR with the hopes the SCOTUS would strike down the things he disagreed with during his campaign, but that problem can be taken care of in Congress. Not to mention that all of the candidates have figured a way around the law already.
To be perfectly honest, President Bush has done a lot more to steer this country to the right than I thought he would, sure he hasn't made much of an effort to reign in the spending Congress does, but I never thought he would get the Partial Birth Abortion Ban to his desk, I never thought he would be able to sell the Missile Defense program started, I never thought we would get 3 tax cuts, and his handling of 9/11 has shown me that he knows how to lead the world, not just America.
Mark my words, despite what the spoiled brats say, when history is written, this one is going to be remembered as one of the strongest ever, and when he steps aboard Marine One for the last time in January 2009, the world will be a better place because of him.
In the poll, conducted by RoperASW on behalf of Negative Population Growth published in 4/03:
More than three in four Americans want to see overall immigration levels reduced from the current one million per year;
Two-thirds supporting fewer than 300,000 immigrants per year;
"In addition to deportation, 83 percent of respondents also favored "mandatory detention and forfeiture of property" for people who are found to be living here illegally. Seventy percent said they would also support mandatory prison sentences for immigration law violations, in addition to property forfeiture and deportation."
But them's principles, dontcha know! (with apologies to Lewis Carrol)
Is he fulfilling his father’s unfulfilled mission of pushing America into a U.N.-dominated New World Order or does he have our country’s best interests at heart? I wish I had a clue.
Are you seriously being honest with that statement? How could there be any question? Bush has done more to squirm us out from under the thumb of International authority than any President since Reagan and he has firmly given the finger to old Europe, the Security Council and the U.N. in general. Kofi Annan appears to despise Bush and it's crystal clear Bush is no fan of the U.N. himself.
The simple fact is that liberals and the far-right have the following in common:
They have embraced the victim mentality
They each have a need to punish one group at the expense of another
They view life as a zero-sum game
they can never admit to happiness in any realm of their lives lest they lose their victim security blanket.
And finally the last thing in the world they want are actual solutions to problems.
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