Posted on 04/09/2005 5:13:01 AM PDT by infocats
The Republican Party is running into a problem: the conservatism of the American people. Over the past decade, the Republicans have set themselves up as the transformational party. That's fine for a party with big ideals.
But the American people, who can be quite bold when it comes to transforming their personal lives, tend to be temperamentally conservative and cautious when it comes to government. They have a taste for order and a distrust of those who want too much change on too many fronts too quickly.
It's become increasingly clear that the Republicans are bumping into some limits.
First, there's the Terri Schiavo case. Republicans charged boldly forth to preserve her life and were surprised by how few Americans charged along behind them. Fewer than a third of the American people opposed removing her feeding tube.
Being conservative, most Americans believe that decisions should be made at the local level, where people understand the texture of the case. Even many evangelicals, who otherwise embrace the culture of life, grow queasy when politicians in Washington start imposing solutions from afar, based on abstract principles rather than concrete particulars.
Then there is Social Security reform. Republicans set forth with a plan to give people some control over their own retirement accounts. Here, too, Republicans have been surprised by the tepid public support.
Americans understand that there is a big problem, but right now most oppose personal accounts invested in the markets. According to a Wall Street Journal poll this week, a third of Republicans currently oppose them.
Being conservative, many Americans are suspicious of bold government initiatives, especially ones that seem complicated and involve borrowing. Being conservative, they prefer the old and familiar over the new and untried.
Then there is the Tom DeLay situation. Conversations with House Republicans in the past week leave me with one clear impression: If DeLay falls, it will not be because he took questionable trips or put family members on the payroll. It will be because he is anxiety-producing and may become a political liability.
Being conservative, the American people don't want leaders who perpetually play it close to the ethical edge. They don't want leaders who, under threat, lash out wildly at beloved institutions like the judiciary. They don't want leaders whose instinct is always to go out wildly on the attack. They don't want leaders so reckless that even when they know they are living under a microscope, they continue to act in ways that invite controversy.
House Republicans like what DeLay has done, and few have any personal animus toward him, but his aggressiveness makes them - and his own constituents - nervous. Only 39 percent of DeLay's Texas constituents said they would stick with him if he were up for re-election today, a Houston Chronicle survey found.
Then there's the lavish public spending, which offends the conservative sensibility. Then there is the talk of going to the nuclear option on judges' confirmations, which smacks of the radical confrontationalism that led to last decade's government shutdown. All in all, intellectual conservatism is bumping up against dispositional conservatism.
This does not mean good news for Democrats. That party is at risk of going into a death spiral. The Democrats lost white working-class voters by 23 percentage points in the last election, and now the party is being led by people who are guaranteed to alienate those voters even more: the highly educated and secular university-town elites who follow Howard Dean and believe Bush hatred and stridency are the outward signs of righteousness.
According to a Democracy Corps poll, the Democratic Party's standing has dropped eight percentage points since the election.
Nor does it mean that Republicans should abandon their ideas, but it may be time to think about methods. Public opinion is not always right, but it is always worth respecting. And the message the public seems to be sending these days is that there is a need for prudence. The world is risky enough. Leaders who want to change things had better not give off the impression that they love change for its own sake.
The public face of the Republican Party these days should be, when he recovers from minor surgery, the House speaker, Denny Hastert. This is a moment for leaders who seem stolid and secure, a moment for tortoises, not hares.
The current Republican government is no different from the previous Democratic government.
- No protection of state's rights
- Uncontrolled pork barrel spending
- Failure to control our borders ( National Security weakness)
- Increased size of government with thousands of pages of law passed each year.
The current Republican government is conservative only in name and not in action.
"As far as Thomas Jefferson could see, the only way in which a state could both remain in the Union and retain its liberties in the face of an unconstitutional act on the part of the federal government was for the state to declare that by virtue of its being unconstitutional, the federal action was null and void and would not be enforced within the borders of that state."
Change for the sake of change is exactly what Democrats always want, and the NY Times is the voice of that party. To read this rhetoric from Brooks is nothing more than liberal hypocrisy.
If the signers of the Declaration of Independence had waited for majority support we would have been under British rule for many more years. Sometimes you have to be out in front of public opinion. It's called leadership.
Funny how this article is predicated on the skewed poll numbers on the Schiavo case. The Zogby poll revealed the error of the CNN/USA Today poll.
Then there is this humorous passage near the end:
"This does not mean good news for Democrats. That party is at risk of going into a death spiral. The Democrats lost white working-class voters by 23 percentage points in the last election, and now the party is being led by people who are guaranteed to alienate those voters even more: the highly educated and secular university-town elites who follow Howard Dean and believe Bush hatred and stridency are the outward signs of righteousness.
According to a Democracy Corps poll, the Democratic Party's standing has dropped eight percentage points since the election."
He mentions a "death spiral" and then quotes a "Democrcy Corps" poll. Or should that be "Democrats Corpse" poll???
Have a great day Beloved Freepers!!!
The "Big Lie" method. Get it out there and then repeat it over and over. And a very good day to you, too :)
Brooks is a conservative. Perhaps he speaks for the large percentage of conservatives (like myself) who differ with the conventional view of the Schiavo case posted on Free Republic.
"They (conservatives) don't want leaders who, under threat, lash out wildly at beloved institutions like the judiciary."
I see Brooks is hitting the hash pipe again.
So says the Jayson Blair Slimes!
Think of the alternative. With Kerry or worse- Hillary in the White House and a democratic controlled congress.
The war in Iraq would be over for the U.S., with us pulling out too soon. Tax the "rich" would be the rule of the day, "Rich" being anybody not on the government dole.
Open season on Americans all over the world because the terrorists would correctly see us as a paper tiger.
Yes, I wish President Bush and the Republican congress would try to act more conservative but they are much better than the alternative.
Don't you just love it when a liberal "newspaper" trys to describe conservatives? What a hoot!
The word evangelical is an attempt to color conservatives as fanatics and as to Social Security reform, most Americans, not just Republicans would love to have CHOICE just as all federal employees have, as well as unions and teachers. The libs are trying very hard to make seniors believe fixing SS will take away their SS savings – and that is just not so. Nothing changes for those of us on SS or even those who will be on SS in the next few years, sadly, we will receive a paltry return on our hard earned dollars and be taxed on what we receive. So be it – it is too late to fix that now. However my children and grandchildren have a chance to a better savings plan – and I am repeating myself here - the very same plan that ALL federal employees use with the CHOICES afforded that plan. We all know it is the money that will no longer be in play for the liberal mid-night basket ball and other social reforms just as stupid, that the liberal/socialists want – they don’t want you to have savings, why, they are there to take care of you cradle to grave - except it will be your money from SS that will pay for their grandiose plans.
The NYT is not telling YOU the truth, the article is pure spin and propaganda.
Because most of them knew very little about the case.
- No protection of state's rights
- Uncontrolled pork barrel spending
- Failure to control our borders ( National Security weakness)
- Increased size of government with thousands of pages of law passed each year.
got those right
Well, that's as good a reason as any to cite a biased poll. Did he also make up some other "facts" to fit your way of thinking?
He's an MSM flack before anything, peddling the MSM line. The entire article relies on already-discredited pro-death push polls. 15% is only a "large" percentage if one's expectations were near zero.
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