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.
Back the pony up. I said the far right. The Very conservative base is still in tact. I am talking about the "base" that has been an opposition party since Reagan. That "base" is the loudest when demanding complete fealty to their pet issues and they are amongst the loudest on FR.
If conservatives want to shed the mantra of "Stupid Party" we should focus our efforts on the legislative branch and hold their feet to the fire, but abandoning this President for a clown like John Kerry or Howard Dean would only cement the moniker of the "Stupid Party"
Okay, RiNO, how do you spell "Ronald Reagan"?
He's the only reason there's been a Republican in the White House at all since 1980.
And don't give me that "he's not right wing" stuff: he nominated Barry Goldwater at the 1964 GOP convention with a speech that peeled the paint off the walls in Liberal Land.
Since Kerry is a known toady for rich women, it would depend on how much money Beastwoman had in her checking account when she threw the ashtray.
Commitment to national security
Strong foreign policy
Tax policy
Economic freedom
Advocate for traditional values.
In my world those are the only things I need to keep my family prosperous and happy. Both Bush and Reagan have stood tall on all of those issues. Reagan could not control government spending any more than Bush can simply because the public likes spending and will vote out anyone that tries to stop it.
Aldous Huxley wrote a book about a political system like that -- Brave New World.
You want to draw comparisons? I can play that game too.
Okey-dokey...
I love Ronald Reagan as if he was my father, he alone restored my faith in this country and I will never forget what he did for me, but he was not the far right conservative that some think he was. Reagan was a patriot who believed in us, he was an optimist to his core and that optimism was contagious, but an extremest he wasn't
That is untrue.
It's true that conservatives took credit for Reagan's first election: they nominated him when the GOP, following the Yacht Club's lead, had twice repudiated him previously -- nomination necessarily preceding the possibility of election.
And I'm not even mentioning the fact that Reagan's clear conservative principles, and his articulation of them, produced a landslide victory over the Democrats, despite the caterwauling of the liberal press (but I repeat myself).
But it is untrue, and a liberal canard, that the John Birch Society was the core of the conservative wing of the GOP. They were around -- but they were not the leadership of the Right as you say they were. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were that leadership.
I agree. If the Rat party would have proposed some of the things President Bush has done, the GOP would be outraged and would have fought them to the death.
But because their own party leader is behind the massive deficit increases, amnesty for illegal aliens...etc, they throw their ideology overboard and become the Rat-lite party.
If this is the result of Republican control of the House, Senate and White House, BRING BACK GRIDLOCK NOW!
Reagan was decidedly NOT a right winger. He held them in contempt. Reagan was a born again new deal democrat that voted for FDR 4 times and said he admired FDR over all other presidents. The best way to measure Bush against Reagan is to list the things Reagan did that Bush has not done. Reagan signed the first handgun registration bill in California. Reagan left California with its largest deficit in history. Reagan raised taxes to the tune of 500 billion dollars and called the Revenue enhancements. Reagan signed the Social Security reform act that included the largest jump in withholding taxes in its history. Reagan pulled troops out of harms way at the first taking of casualties. Reagan publicly lobbied for the Brady Bill after leaving office. Reagan pushed for and signed the only TRUE illegal alien amnesty bill in modern history and Reagan left office with their size of government at record levels.
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