Posted on 09/28/2006 12:38:45 AM PDT by nickcarraway
If a successful steakhouse stopped selling beef and substituted stale vegan sandwiches as part of a strategy to increase its customer base, the restaurant wouldn't remain in business very long. Yet for some reason, the Republican Party has adopted precisely this strategy for governing.
Instead of rewarding its loyal voters with the limited government they were promised, the Republican Party has decided to increase its voter base by offering the stale ideas of big government liberalism. This tactic is difficult to understand given that in modern midterm elections, voter turnout has hovered around 40 percent, meaning that winning is about having an energized base that will show up on Election Day. Nothing would energize that base more than if Republicans used their power to reduce the size and scope of government, so why doesn't the party give its voters what they want?
"It's what I call Republican Disease," former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told me recently. "They want to be loved by the beautiful people. They want the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post to say nice things about them."
At a breakfast hosted by TAS last week, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), one of the few remaining small government warriors in the Republican Party, described the logic behind the Republican leadership's embrace of big government. As they pushed for a massive expansion of federal control over education in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act, Pence recalled Republican leaders justifying it by arguing, "Democrats have a huge advantage on education." A similar attitude took hold as Republicans added the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, marking the largest expansion of entitlements since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.
Expanding entitlements and federalizing education clearly runs contrary to conservative principles, but the programs' defenders on the right would argue that they were politically necessary in order to win elections. However, it's difficult to see any evidence that Republicans won over moderates or Democrats as a result of betraying small government conservatives. If anything, the evidence supports the exact opposite conclusion.
According to the exit polls from the 2000 election, those voters who identified education as the issue that "mattered most," favored Al Gore over George W. Bush by a spread of 52 percent to 44 percent. The No Child Left Behind Act had passed by the time the 2004 election rolled around, and yet, according to exit polls, John Kerry trounced President Bush among voters who thought education was most important, by a margin of 73 percent to 26 percent. The numbers are similar with voters who thought health care was the most important issue. In 2000, Gore had a 64-33 advantage among these voters; in 2004, despite the passage of the Medicare prescription drug law (or perhaps even because of it), Kerry was favored by a margin of 77-23.
Defenders of the policy of triangulation may stress that Republicans maintained their majority in 2002 and 2004, but this was largely the result of national security and values issues, not because of any pandering they did on health care or education. Those Republican leaders who see expanding government as the means to maintain power overlook the fact that they have power in the first place because 1994's "Contract With America" promised to get government off of people's backs. They forget that a generation of conservatives was inspired by Ronald Reagan's eloquent defense of limited government, not by statist gobbledygook.
But there is a much simpler reason why Republicans should once-again embrace limited government: it works. If Republicans believe that conservative ideas are right, the best way to prove that to other people is to institute them.
When we spoke, Dick Armey pointed to welfare reform as evidence that if Republicans persevere and actually achieve something, it will be looked back on as a success. Though conservatives might argue that the reform didn't go far enough, it was clearly a vast improvement over the system that existed before it.
If Republicans showed the political courage to implement such policies as school vouchers, market reforms in healthcare, and Social Security personal accounts, at a minimum, they would thrill their base, and would likely win over moderates as liberal scare tactics are proven baseless.
Were they to govern this way, Republicans would be a lot more confident going into Election Day, and they'd be able to run a campaign based on more than simply calling Democrats "fraidy cats." Just as a great steakhouse wouldn't last long were it to start dabbling in vegan cuisine, the Republican Party will not survive as the party of big government.
As Mike Pence put it: "We will never win by being them, we will only win by being us."
Philip Klein is a reporter for The American Spectator.
All four statements are true - both parties lie to both us and themselves.
I'm very glad to say Mike Pence is now my Congressman.
Who wants to be loved by the Ugly People?
Blah, blah, blah...Dick ARmey, blah, blah, blah...Bush, blah, blah, blah.
I want names and facts to go along with my whine. EVeryone knows this stuff already, it's just more whining.
Then maybe the Pubbies need to to start pleasing conservatives or get used to being a minority?
You all would love Jeanine Pirro's TV ads for Attorney General here in NY (where Republicans are ashamed to call themselves Republicans).
In it, all she does is list how Democrat she is, how pro-abortion she is, how she always agrees with Democrat Eliot Spitzer!
Disgraceful, and an embarrassment for all NY GOPers, as if we're capable of any more embarrassment. What a creep she is.
Nice party base Pataki leaves here after 12 years. Now the moron goes to Iowa to chase windmills and leaves his state ruled by Spitzer, Cuomo, Hillary and Schumer. Thanks George. Good luck with those GOP primaries.
Socialism has nothing to do with foreign affairs.
"What's the difference who wins?
We can vote for Secular socialists or Christian socialists. Either way, we get bigger government and less freedom."
But the Democrats will invite the burglar into the house. There is a difference.
Tax cuts - Ghengis Khan NEIN! NEIN!,Einigkeit Ghengis ist JENGKISSCAUN (according to Herr sKerry)
You have somethng there roses, look what the press is doing to Allen. I guess, from the reports being bandied about, Allen was using the "N" word the moment he escaped from the womb.
Tried and true british axiom : divide and conquer. Jesus : a divided house can not stand. Republican Conservative pouting and petulance is just what the bad guys are hoping for, perhaps their only LITTLE RAY of hope...
Another truth - the lesser evil is still evil.
If the 'Pubbies want my vote they have to give me someone worth voting for.
Or they have to give me enough of a distinction in the platforms to make the other candidate worth voting against.
Unfortunately, the 'Pubbies are looking more and more like the Democrats I used to vote against in 1980's. I voted against 'em then, I'll vote against 'em now.
What will you have to say for yourself when you've not-voted pelosi in as speaker? It's the "perot effect"...the PURIST attitude that's killed us twice before. What is it they say about doing the same dumb thing over and over again....and always expecting a different outcome? No my conservative collegue, you may hold your nose but vote republican, it's the only way we'll keep the bad guys on the left marginalized. Give them the levers of control in congress and it will be your worst nightmare...
You remind me of the Rats, now pushing the Mark Foley story for all it's worth. And you have the same thing to offer as the Rats do: Spooky scare tactics (though it IS close to Halloween) and more of the same. More and bigger government. More erosion of our rights. More use of the Constitution as toilet paper.
So just what IS the difference between you? Oh, that's right... "Vote Republican this November. Remember, we may look, sound and act like them, but we're NOT Democrats. Don't let the Democrats in or they'll act just like we are, only more so."
Sorry, my nose is too damned sore to hold anymore.
They aren't beautiful people to me. They are evil.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
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