Left Turn: Is the GOP conservative?

National Review ^ | July 23, 2003 issue | National Review Editorial Board

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

he news this summer has been rather bleak for conservatives. The Supreme Court first decided to write "diversity" into the Constitution. A few days later, it issued a ruling on sodomy laws that called into question its willingness to tolerate any state laws based on traditional understandings of sexual morality. In neither case was there much pretense that the Court was merely following the law. At this point it takes real blindness to deny that the Court rules us and, on emotionally charged policy issues, rules us in accord with liberal sensibilities. And while the Court issued its edicts and the rest of the world adjusted, a huge prescription-drug bill made its way through Congress. That bill will add at least $400 billion to federal spending over the next ten years, and it comes on top of already gargantuan spending increases over the last five years. The fact that a pro-growth tax cut is going into effect this summer hardly compensates for these developments — especially since expanding entitlements threaten to exert upward pressure on tax rates in the future.

Republicans have been complicit in each of these debacles. Both the affirmative-action and sodomy decisions were written by Reagan appointees. President Bush actually cheered the affirmative-action decision for recognizing the value of "diversity." Bush has requested spending increases, and not just for defense and homeland security. He has failed to veto spending increases that went beyond his requests. But let it not be said that the president has led his party astray. Many congressional Republicans have strayed even more enthusiastically. Bush originally wanted to condition prescription-drug benefits on seniors' joining reformed, less expensive health plans. When the idea was raised, House Speaker Denny Hastert called it "inhumane." Congressional appropriators — the people who write the spending bills — have been known to boast that they would beat the president if ever he dared to veto one of their products.

We have never been under any illusions about the extent of Bush's conservatism. He did not run in 2000 as a small-government conservative, or as someone who relished ideological combat on such issues as racial preferences and immigration. We supported him nonetheless in the hope that he would strengthen our defense posture, appoint originalist judges, liberalize trade, reduce tax rates, reform entitlements, take modest steps toward school choice. Progress on these fronts would be worth backsliding elsewhere. We have been largely impressed with Bush's record on national security, on judicial appointments (although the big test of a Supreme Court vacancy will apparently not occur during this term), and on taxes. On the other issues he has so far been unable to deliver.

It is not Bush's fault that Democrats oppose entitlement reform, or that the public wants it less than it wants a new entitlement to prescription drugs. He should, however, have used the veto more effectively to restrain spending. Had he vetoed the farm bill, for example, Congress would have sent him a better one. We need presidential leadership on issues other than war and taxes. Instead we are getting the first full presidential term to go without a veto since John Quincy Adams. Bush's advisers may worry that for Bush to veto the bills of a Republican Congress would muddle party distinctions for voters. But this dilemma results from a failure of imagination. Why must the House Republican leadership always maintain control of the floor? When Democrats and liberal Republicans have the votes to pass a bill, sometimes it would be better to let them do so, and then have the president veto it. The alternative — cobbling together some lite version of a liberal bill in order to eke out a congressional majority — is what really makes it hard to press the case against big-spending Democrats.

The defeats on racial preferences, gay rights, and the role of the courts generally reflect a conservative political failure that predates this administration. Republican politicians have never been comfortable talking about moral or race-related issues, and have been eager to slough off these responsibilities to the courts. Their silence is not, however, only an abdication of responsibility; it is also politically foolish. Opposition to racial preferences and gay marriage is popular in every state of the Union. And if the courts are going to block social conservatives from ever achieving legislative victories — and Republicans will not even try to do anything about it — social conservatives may well conclude that there is no point to participating in normal politics. There goes the Republican majority.

To get back on track will require effort from President Bush, congressional Republicans, and conservatives generally. Bush ought to bear down on spending; we suggest that an assault on corporate welfare, followed by a reform of the appropriations process, would be a fine start. Republicans need a strategy for dealing with the judicial usurpation of politics that goes beyond trying to make good appointments to the bench — a strategy that now has a two-generation track record of nearly unrelieved failure. On gay marriage, a constitutional amendment appears to be necessary to forestall the mischief of state and federal courts. But a mere statute can make the point that Congress controls the federal judiciary's purview. Congressman Todd Akin's bill to strip the federal judiciary of jurisdiction over the Pledge of Allegiance has the votes to pass the House, and has a powerful Senate sponsor in Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch. It should be high on the Republican agenda.

Conservatives, finally, have to find ways to work with the Republicans — their fortunes are linked — while also working on them. The Pennsylvania Senate primary offers a choice between a candidate who is conservative on both economics and social issues, Pat Toomey, and one who is conservative on neither, the incumbent, Arlen Specter. The White House and the party establishment has rallied behind Specter. But President Bush's goals would be better served by a Senator Toomey. And as recent events underscore, this is not a bad time for conservatives to declare their independence from the GOP establishment.

[B Knotts]

That was supposed to read "party infrastructure." I think I need some more coffee.

[Dane]

It's a little frustrating to feel like we're being actively fought against by Rove & Co., though.

JMO, but "Rove & Co" aren't fighting you. "Rove & Co." are fighting the modern American political landscape, while you, IMO, are fighting "Rove & Co.".

[Trace21230]

In Massachusetts, it's like this:

Option One: Don't vote.

Option Two: Vote for the liberal Democrat.

hehe....I can't say I pity you because you have the dreaded RED SOX...it's not much better in Maryland.

You can't tell me that Romney is just as bad as a liberal democrat when it comes to taxes, or is he?

Trace

[B Knotts]

How am I fighting Rove & Co.?

I just vote for conservatives, when I'm allowed to.

Meanwhile, they're working behind the scenes, as hard as they can, to defeat conservatives.

[BlackElk]

Precisely. When JFK was president, it was possible for a Democrat to appoint a Byron "Whizzer" White who, years later, would prove a fortress of law and morality in opposition to abortion. Those days are long gone. It is hard enough for a Republican president to find a worthy nominee, nominate him or her and obtain ratification. What we need is another ten GOP senators (as conservative as we can get) pronto.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Fabianism worked for our enemies as a strategy and it will work for us, too.

[B Knotts]

And I vote for conservative Republicans, not the fringers, BTW.

I voted and volunteered for Bush. I knew he wasn't a conservative then, so I'm not terribly disappointed. I just wish Rove would stay out of state races.

[Dane]

How am I fighting Rove & Co.?

Oh I don't know, maybe in your reply #176 where you stated this,

It's a little frustrating to feel like we're being actively fought against by Rove & Co., though.

Like I basically said in reply #182, "Rove & Co." are fighting big politcal battles in the modern American political landscape.

Call me a communist if you want, but your whining against the professionals actually fighting the battle gets us nowhere, IMO.

[Xenalyte]

Is the GOP conservative?

Not anymore. That's why I'm a Libertarian.

[BlackElk]

Since Pearl Harbor, at the very least, conservatives have believed that we should do unto hostile others BEFORE they do unto us. We no longer live in a world where we can make up for the mistakes of timidity over a period of years or in which we are protected in any meaningful way by the oceans. Reality is reality and if 9/11 was not enough of a strategic wakeup call for some who want to resist wars consistent with American interests, I am sorry, but tyhey ought not to use the word "conservative" regardless of prefix in vain.

By the way, bear in mind that Abu Nidal died a resident of Baghdad, possibly as a suicide, probably because he no longer titillated Sadddam Hussein. He was certainly a terrorist and certainly an enemy of this country. You can bet he was not alone as such an enemy residing in Saddam's Iraq.

[BlackElk]

Rove has the president's ear. As proven by Simon in the California GOP primary last year, we have the issues and votes in GOP primaries.

[B Knotts]

But who are the professionals fighting? The left? Or us? Or both?

I'm not a complete idiot; I realize that sometimes ideological purity is not desirable. It's just a question of degree with Rove. I think he goes overboard in trying to keep all GOP candidates "accessible." And I think he does it to the injury of the party, eventually.

[B Knotts]

True, and Simon turned out to be not the ideal candidate (although, I still maintain that Riordan would have been worse than reelecting Davis; heck...now we're going to get a do-over!), but I got the feeling that even had Simon been a better candidate, Gerry Parsky would have given him zero help, just because he wasn't in the "image" he wants to present.

[BlackElk]

Not real wars, not anymore. If the Arkansas Antichrist needed to divert attention from perjury or frolicking with Ms. Monica or molesting Kathleen Willey, he might bounce a cruise missile off Afghanistan to land inadvertently in Pakistan or whack an aspirin factory in the Sudan or do a little death from the sky over Serbia. As a war-President, Slick Willie was strictly Amateur Hour. War Democrats are extinct.

[BlackElk]

That is true in that the Roves and Parskys undermine candidates like Simon. Our candidates have the obligation to put on the best possible campaign. If Simon had won, you can bet that Parsky would now be history. California's governor, if a Republican, will decide who runs the state party. If Simon got 5% more of the vote, Rove would be kissing his posterior. Nothing succeeds like success. Success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan. Not necessarily a moral stance but it is the way the world works.

Don't underestimate vote fraud either, the hallmark of Demonrats everywhere and particularly in California and Chicago.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Reed covered all these complaints and in the end the bottom line is that 96% of REPUBLICAN conservative base support the President enthusiastically. He also went on to say that without the increased spending for DoD and Homeland Security including Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget for the Country would be shrinking not growing.

What particular area of the budget actually shrunk?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Remember 1992 and the "jobless recovery" that proceeded that election?

[LibTeeth]

Re:"...conservatives have believed that we should do unto hostile others BEFORE they do unto us." Yes, prior restraints have always been a guiding conservative principle, got to punish those thought crimes before they turn into real ones (sarcasm).

Of course, to be consistent with your view, the concept of a government of assigned powers means that the right to pre-empt a threat also resides inherent in individuals, as all government powers originate in the people. I guess Timothy McVeigh was quite prescient when he remarked that government was the great teacher. He just got the lesson down long before it was popularized.

Far from articulating a vision of protecting civilization, you've just justified a nation of Thugees and Assassins. With the dialectic transformation of our culture, it doesn't surprise me to hear barbarianism masquerading as civility. Funny though, threads that follow this ideal to its logical conclusion get pulled pretty fast around here. Double-think is no longer monopolized by the left, and that is their secret victory.

Given your philosophy, might a pre-emptive action against say the NEA or the DNC, or perhaps NPR/PBS, or even CBS be in order? Who has done more damage to our Republic? Don't you think this new found conviction ought to be applied by the pareto principle towards targets that present the greatest danger?

Please consider these as hypothetical questions for discussion rather than a call to arms. A modest proposal as it were.

[misterrob]

Massachusetts might be liberal but the last 3 elected Governors have been Republican and that should tell you something. Dukakis oversaw a huge financial disaster which lead the citizens to chose between John Silber, a democrat with distinctive conservative social leanings and Weld, a fiscal conservative with social liberal views.

One thing to remember is that people will generally vote with their pocketbooks. The democrats who stood in the 1990 primaries were the same old liberals. Silber almost won but was killed in the media for positions like:

No welfare for women who keep having kids out of wedlock and even taking them away if they kept doing it.

Rationing healthcare resources in favor of children over seniors. Thinking was that child immunization was more important than 80 year old people having a triple bypass.

Anti-homosexual stances

Anti-choice

And not pandering to the media.

The weekend before the primary a local news anchor named Natalie Jacobson asked him to refute charges that he was "Bubba of the North". He barked at her on the air for asking him such a rude question and was skewered for it.

Weld took an axe to the budget and got the state turned around. He took a lot of heat for it but when he left the state was in good shape.

A bit of history.

[Southern Federalist]

I don't really understand your post. If you are suggesting that I don't see any difference between a second Bush Administration and a Kerry Administration, perhaps you should read the whole thing again, since I think you've missed something.