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.
No where did I state that the JBS was the "core" of the conservative wing of the GOP. The JBS was the "core" of the far-right. And Goldwater was its standard bearer and for a short time Reagan hitched his wagon to the train. Which is ironic since Goldwater turned out to be to the left of JFK after leaving politics.
Yep. I agree with all of that.
The only thing I would add is that the moderates to liberals in the party do just as much damage when they beat up on conservatives, or ridicule conservative ideals.
It would also be good to remember that often those same liberals flake off on the left in an almost identical manner, especially when truly conservative policies are actually implemented.
I knew a civil debate with you would only last a few posts. Go yuck forself!
Am I supposed to feel better when republicans bring on the destruction instead of the demoRats??
Stop you are breaking my heart. How much influence should 20 % of the electorate exert? Especially a 20% that is more likely than not to vote 3rd party or sit at home sulking?
Cheers,
Mike
Oh, well, if you only except those issues........
You haven't got a whole lot left to talk about!!!
There's a flaw in the slaw, Kevin.
If Dubya gets rolled in November, then there's a good chance that other GOP candidates further down the ticket will get rolled too. When the top of a party's ticket does badly, the rest of the ticket suffers. Thus there's no guarantee that a President Dean or a President Kerry will have a GOP Congress as a counter-balance. Conservatives can beat Bush by staying home on election day, but they'll kill off the rest of the ticket and hand a real socialist a "mandate" in the process
Cobbled up lovingly by some Bush Machine oppo tank?
Of course not. The question is 'what is the wise course to bring about change'?
Those items are what made Regan a great president and GWB is equally strong on all of them and in a few ways even stronger. Add that to my list of what Regan did that Bush has not done and GWB is MORE conservative than Reagan.
IMO, your numbers and your take on the true nature of the GOP, and Reagan for that matter, is deeply flawed.
You obviously have an axe to grind against conservatives.
Oh give it a rest. It is based on public record. If you can't handle the truth then don't ask for it.
Socialists always claim a "mandate". It was everything Clinton could do to restrain himself from claiming one in 1992, when he'd have been laughed out of town for saying something like that. Didn't stop his shock troops from trying to claim it for him......liberals were running around telling the middlebrow opinion magazines that Liberalism had finally "won history", that the conservative Thermidor and its long dialogue between the competing value systems was over, and it was finally time to crystallize the perfection of the Socialist Progressive synthesis, carve it into the stone of law, and start jailing "hate speech" purveyors. My memory isn't as good as it used to be, but I remember that essay.
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