I think the deeper reason for my political gloom has to do with something that Jonah Goldberg raised in our bloggingheads chat about conservatism - namely, the sense that the era now passing represented a great opportunity to put into practice the sort of center-right politics that I'd like to see from the Republican Party, and that by failing the way it did the Bush Administration may have cut the ground out from under my own ideas before I'd even figured out exactly what they were. As I said to Jonah. I have all sorts of disagreements with the specific ways President Bush attempted to renovate the GOP, on the level of policy and philosophy alike. But the fact remains that the renovation Bush attempted was an effort to respond to some of the political, social and economc trends that Reihan and I discuss in Grand New Party - and those of us who want a reformed conservatism have to recognize Bush's attempt, and reckon with his failure.
This is by no means a new insight, but it's one that's been brought home to me by the looming end of the Bush Era and the struggles of the McCain campaign. Conservatism in the United States faces a series of extremely knotty problems at the moment. How do you restrain the welfare state at a time when the entitlements we have are broadly popular, and yet their design puts them on a glide path to insolvency? How do you respond to the socioeconomic trends - wage stagnation, social immobility, rising health care costs, family breakdown, and so forth - that are slowly undermining support for the Reaganite model of low-tax capitalism? How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant? How do you transform an increasingly white party with a history of benefiting from racially-charged issues into a party that can win majorities in an increasingly multiracial America? etc.
Watching the McCain campaign, you'd barely even know that these problems exist, let alone that conservatives have any idea what to do about them. But there were people in the Bush Administration who did understand the situation facing the Right, and set out to wrestle with these challenges - and as a result, George W. Bush had a real chance (especially given the political capital he enjoyed after 9/11) to establish a model for center-right governance in the post-Reagan era. That he failed is by no means the greatest tragedy of the last eight years, but it is a tragedy nonetheless - for conservatives, and for the country.
I'm not counseling despair here: There were people in 1976 who thought Richard Nixon had irrevocably squandered the chance to build a new right-of-center majority, and looked how that turned out. But for now, as America goes to the polls, I find myself stuck thinking about the lost opportunities of the last eight years, and the possibility that they may not come round again.
A lot of my liberal friends seem to taste a giant realignment, the reversal of the Reagan Revolution. Are we there yet?
Maybe. By 1980, the Democrats had one answer for everything: spend more money! Now Republicans seem to think that tax cuts cure everything from economic malaise to trenchmouth. Maybe conservatism has simply run its course.
On the other hand, four years ago people were talking about an era of permanent Republican hegemony. The worm can turn pretty quickly.
Obama is almost certain to disappoint in big ways; he doesn't have the money to pull an FDR, or even an LBJ. He will have to fulfill their committments before he can look to his own, and the tax situation is looking pretty dire. Obama may turn out to be the president of tax increases and spending cuts, which didn't work out so good for the first George Bush.
But for me, I think one thing is clear: the Republican party cannot survive without some time in the wilderness. Look at this election: what do Republicans have to say, except "I'll cut your taxes and pay for it by cutting spending on some entirely fictional person who lives nowhere near you?" and "Pointy headed liberals with fancy degrees are looking down on you! Are you going to stand that?" That's not a platform. It's barely worthy of a drunken 3 am rant.
I don't like most of Obama's ideas, but at least he has some. If conservatives really want smaller government and so forth, they need to step up their game.
There might be some hope for the GOP when they stop driving business owning, gun owning, property owning voters into the arms of The Redistributors.
I'm not sure I agree with your underlying point that Obama's ideas are somehow more specific than the GOP's.
I agree with Cabbage. The way I would put it is: the GOP has plenty of specific policy ideas; however, they don't get included in the simplistic rhetoric they use to get elected.
How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant?
Newsflash Ross, SOCIAL CONSERVATISM IS INTOLERANCE! You can't "sell" people the idea that they way they live their lives is immoral within some twisted value system they don't share. If conservatives want to become relevant to normal people they need to shed "social conservatism" entirely.
Smaller government is such a ridiculous governing principal that it defies belief. Yet many smart if none too wise people hold it like some pagan totem or fetish doll.
The party out of power is always granted the chance by the party in power to grab the center (right-center or left-center), and always ignores the opportunity. The Republicans have steadfastly refused to speak to the middle, instead relying on their base, which is a good short-term strategy but a poor long-term one. The Democrats will surely overreach, and quickly find that they weren't voted in because America suddenly fell back in love with Social Democratic ideas, but simply because they weren't the party in power. The inevitable backlash in 2010 can take the form of people voting for 'the other guy' or really voting FOR something. Either way the Republicans will decide America loves them again. In 1994 the Republicans swarmed onto Capitol Hill, thinking that Americans really wanted what they were selling. They quickly found out otherwise. The Democrats, in the middle of a couple decades of being for nothing more than maintaining/extending social welfare programs, wasted this opportunity, and when they subsequently picked up a bunch of seats, they chose to believe that their time had come, just as they'll choose to believe that tomorrow.
The million or two people who pay attention to politics, watching Fox or MSNBC, reading blogs like this one - and especially those in the media - continually (and inevitably) forget that the vast majority of Americans know and care much, much less about political theory and the minutiae of policy than we do. Most Americans want stuff and don't want to pay for it, and will vaguely support social programs when couched in the right language, and also support lower taxes. They like the party in power when times are good, and dislike it when thing s are relatively bad. THAT'S IT. Extending your party's ideology far to the left or right just loses you a chunk of the country that is kind of paying attention. America, to the degree it is paying attention, is is the middle.
And there's already a philosophy that fits very nicely: libertarianism. Just because Republicans claim the free market is a conservative construct doesn't make it so.
And there's already a philosophy that fits very nicely: libertarianism.
And the relative lack of success of libertarian politicians suggests that perhaps "normal" people are more supportive of social conservatism than Mr. Yetter is prepared to believe.
Smaller government is such a ridiculous governing principal that it defies belief.
Are you suggesting that our government is currently the absolutely optimum size? Or that we should be aiming closer to 50% of GDP? Or what?
he doesn't have the money to pull an FDR, or even an LBJ. He will have to fulfill their committments before he can look to his own, and the tax situation is looking pretty dire. Obama may turn out to be the president of tax increases and spending cuts, which didn't work out so good for the first George Bush.
*snicker*
What world is Megan living in? Even the so-called adults in the Democratic Party - the Robert Rubins and Larry Summers of the world - are advising Obama to spend like a drunken sailor.
Obama will have plenty of money to spend because there ain't gonna be any Democrats telling him to be careful with the budget, and the Republicans are going to be irrelevant.
They had quite a lot to say on quite a few issues actually. But despite repeated requests from your readers to do a comparison between the candidates on what they said about, you know, the actual issues, you opted instead to focus on how the candidates made you feel.
So there you have it then.
Obama is smart and liberal, so he will have learned from Clinton's mistakes. Clinton tried to finesse things in his first two years. Result? He passed nothing very progressive and still lost both houses of Congress.
Obama is going to make his mark while the making is good. If the Republicans take back Congress in 2010 it won't matter since they won't have veto-proof majorities and thus won't be able to erase the previous two years.
Yes, we're seeing the end of the Reagan revolution. And to some extent a repudiation of Libertarian/classical liberal laissez-faire economics (which formed a significant part of the so-called Reagan revolution). The idea of 'self-regulation' in the markets was championed by conservatives and Randites like Greenspan (who now admits it didn't work) as justification for financial deregulation (which, let it be noted, contributed significantly to the severity of the current financial crisis; see the collapse of the derivatives market, which only burgeoned to the extent that it did as a direct result of that deregulation).
At the same time, we're also seeing the fracturing of the Reagan coalition of fiscal conservatives and social conservatives; the Republican Party's Faustian bargain with the religious right will, if they attempt to maintain it, see them marginalised as a regional party whose strength is in the South, rural Midwest, and places like Utah. Increasingly, most Americans don't happen to agree with the social-conservative ideas that abortion ought to always be illegal and that legal recognition of homosexual relationships ought not to be allowed. The effect of McCain's selection of Palin should serve as an example, here; apart from her ignorance and inexperience, her extremist socially conservative/religious fundamentalist views have alienated a significant number of voters.
Thorley, I have literally done almost nothing during the day for the last three weeks but listen to stump speeches. If McCain/Palin are interested in ideas, they're doing a phenomenal job at hiding it.
I think it is better to have no ideas than mostly wrong ones.
If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.
--Calvin Coolidge
Voters gave the house to the Republicans because Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Republicans capitalized on voters' disgust with Clinton fecklessness.
The worms could turn again.
I used to explain to foreigners that we elect a limited monarch every four years, not a prime minister. Megan is a prime example. She is swayed by the Obama charisma, not by his policies.
I'd like a political party that is based upon freedom and common sense but isn't socialist.
I can't say what country you people have been living in, but here in America where I live we have suffered under a clearly criminal republican government, which lies tortures and steals it's way through the last eight years, destroying the reputation, economy, military and cultural cohesion of a country I once, fifty years ago,had some hope for. The answer to all those questions posed is no. Under no circumstances can you make what you call conservatism, and I call amoral lunacy, acceptable to more than a small fraction of delusional needy souls.
Re: Voters gave the house to the Republicans because Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Republicans capitalized on voters' disgust with Clinton fecklessness.
Wrong! Clinton wasn't the problem. It was the corruption and incompetence of the Democrats in Congress, and their inability to accomplish anything, that doomed their control. If Bush had been reelected in 1992, I believe 1994 would still have been the year for the GOP to take over Congress.
Ross is at least honest enough to acknowledge that President Bush did pursue the sort of Democrat-lite policies Ross favors (e.g., dramatically increasing spending on education, adding a new health care entitlement in Medicare Part D, etc.). The problem with this sort of 'big government conservatism' is that Democrats can always offer a more generous version.
Republicans have a similar problem with their focus on personal income taxes: since the federal income tax code is so progressive already, most Americans don't pay much in net federal income taxes, and Democrats can always offer to make the system even more progressive. Obama has done just that, advertising that his tax plan would give those in the middle class $1000 checks, versus the $150 he claims they'd get back under McCain's proposals.
The way forward for Republicans is to focus on policies that will encourage the creation of high-paying private sector jobs. I mentioned two of these in a recent post comparing the economic environments of Rhode Island and Utah (energy costs and taxes on businesses). Republicans also need to advocate an immigration policy similar to that of, say, Australia or Canada: one that welcomes immigrants with high levels of human capital. The idea that we can import millions of peasants from Mexico with 4th grade educations and that their children will end up voting Republican for cultural reasons was always daft.
I think that increases in taxes and reductions in spending would be nice. I might bemoan at least the former immediately after it occurs, but would surely moan far more loudly if I live in a hopelessly insolvent nation thirty years hence. I hold a beleaguered, forlorn and misbegotten hope that Senator McCain will be elected as President for no other reason than that the Democratic party will surely increase their command of the Congress and thus must be countered by a contrary opinion in the executive. The mad dreams that he might revert to what he was eight or six years ago, exaggerated as his virtues might then have been, and serve but a single term add some imaginary sweetness to that otherwise miserable desire.
Stilletto (sic), your histrionics suggest some degree of derangement and surely blame the Republicans for far more than they have done or could have done. You would do yourself credit by more scrupulously distributing blame and by reveling less in the convenient nation that your political opponents are uniformly stupid and evil.
"Yes, we're seeing the end of the Reagan revolution. And to some extent a repudiation of Libertarian/classical liberal laissez-faire economics (which formed a significant part of the so-called Reagan revolution). The idea of 'self-regulation' in the markets was championed by conservatives and Randites like Greenspan (who now admits it didn't work) as justification for financial deregulation (which, let it be noted, contributed significantly to the severity of the current financial crisis; see the collapse of the derivatives market, which only burgeoned to the extent that it did as a direct result of that deregulation)."
Chris,
Two questions for you.
1) How do you square this meme of rampant deregulation with President Bush's signing of Sarbanes-Oxley, the most rigorous financial regulation in decades?
2) Can you explicate your thoughts on the 'collapse of the derivatives market'? I haven't heard of any recent problems with exchange-traded derivatives. Perhaps you were referring to the market for credit default swaps? According to this column in the Financial Times last week by Robert Pickel, the head of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, "Is it really fair to cast CDS sector as the central villain?", that market hasn't collapsed:
I will, alas, once again be voting _against_ the crazy man.
That being said, any libertarian who voted Republican in 2004 and 2006 deserves exactly what they got; which is bigger, more repressive government contemptuous of basic liberties and civil rights.
Thinking that tax cuts trump everything else is the mark of, shall we say, unsophistication.
That being said, I'm terribly, terribly disappointed in the supposedly morally 'superior' party that still let outrages like FISA get through.
Is all of this really so hard?
Take social issues. The Republicans are largely (if not entirely) on the wrong side. Hold whatever view you wish on these matters, but in the end, the impact on society is nominal if there is any impact at all. You want to ban abortion? I get it and respect your view...but abortions will continue to occur. The same is true with every other social issue. You cannot legislate morality. Mind your own business.
Taxes. Nobody likes to pay them, but it takes revenue to run the government. Surely there are enough smart people like Megan who could devise a tax policy that made at least a little bit of sense. (Yes, I have a few ideas, but they'll keep). In the alternative, we could ask Paul Krugman and just do the opposite.
Spending. We cannot spend more than we take in, and there is a limit on what we can take in before it makes all of us poorer. We have to start with across the board cuts - everything gets cut, no excuses and no exceptions. Americans are adults - we won't be happy, but we understand. It's not like this principle doesn't hold true in the real world.
Health care. Socialized medicine will not work. Medicare is an abject failure. Scrap it and start over with various HSA models. There are no more free lunches, and come to think of it, a lot of folks could afford to skip lunch altogether. We reward people for bad habits and wonder why the price keeps going up.
Education. Abolish the federal Department of Education. Encourage a back to basics "old school" system with memorization, real homework and teachers who can punish students who misbehave. Repeal IDEA and re-think special education. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. (Cold hearted, but true). If teacher's unions oppose an initiative, adopt it. If they favor it, oppose it. Experiment and see what works.
Infrastructure. It matters. More dedicated use taxes.
Government. How about pay cuts rather than layoffs? And the 20 years and then you retire the plan? WTF were they thinking? Most government employees do not have lucrative jobs in the private sector waiting for them.
Foreign policy. Washington told us to avoid foreign entanglements. Smart man. Fix the problems at home before we worry too much about the world.
We make it harder than it has to be. It isn't easy, but we agree on far more as a nation than we disagree. Politicians have forgotten that and fight over stupid shit.
Republicans have been running the same campaign since 1968. It's called the Southern Strategy. Dumbassery about tax cuts and gay baiting and whatnot was also involved. But this year's model isn't anything new. The Cheney Administration has been so awful, that's finally OK to vote for the smartypants faggot elitist (a scary Islamomarxisthitlernegro one at that).
Right Wingers keep wanting the Next Reagan to lead them. George Bush, Jr, John McCain, and hell Sarah Palin aren't demonstrably different than Ol' Dutch. They're all a bunch of deeply stupid race baiting (or race baiting tolerant/enablers), war mongering, budget busters at the mercy of their handlers. Celebrity ones at that.
Pretending that things have changed reeks of naivety or jackass punditry. It's a fine line.
If Obama wins, why will he win?
A record black turnout with 97% of the black vote going to Obama. Most of these voters care less about his polices and more about his skin color. Perhaps 3-4% of the white vote is against any black candidate.
McCain is one of the worst communicators to run for President since the invention of the radio. Plus his age hurts him in the polls.
We have the worst stock market in the lifetime of 95% of voters. People are very afraid.
Most of the media is cheerleading for Obama.
Obama has spent more money then Bush and Kerry combined spent in the last election. The most expensive campaign in the history of the world. ( I guess that demonstrates that Obama will be a fiscal conservative?)
The current President is one of the least popular in history.
Yet the election looks like it might be close. With so many things against McCain, why is the election, in most of the country, so close?
Because even if many people want change, the Obama agenda is awful.
Obama is a socialist, a Social Democrat. He wants a single payer health care system. He wants price controls on pharmaceuticals. He wants to turn Social Security into another welfare system. He claims that his taxes will only affect the top 5%, but the top two percent can afford tax avoiding plans (look at the tax returns for Senator Kerry's wife). So that leaves 3% of the population to pay for a trillion dollars in new spending. Obama is a liar. Plus he wants to increase payroll taxes for people earning over $100,000 by 12.4%.
Obama wants to increase regulations, on just about everything. But regulation is a political process. Democrats have used regulatory powers not to insure prudent oversight but to achieve social engineering goals. If they lack the tax revenue to pay for new programs, they use unfunded mandates and regulatory power to force compliance with their social goals.
The candidate who's early claim to fame was that he was anti-war stood up in a debate and said that he would attack Pakistan in pursuit of Osama. Because the ant-war candidate wanted to look tough on TV he brags that he would invade and destabilize an important ally in the war on terror. Then he said that he would get involved in third world civil wars if they have enough Hollywood support. And the anti-war folks stayed mute.
I am amazed at how many people are voting for Obama and think that he his lying about his agenda. They think he is lying to get elected but will move toward the center once elected. Why? Wish I knew.
If McCain promised to nap for four years, we has a better plan for the country then Obama.
BTW
to Ross, China, India, Ireland and others are moving in the opposite direction of the Obama vision. Why? because the conservative approach works. It creates opportunities and wealth for all people.
Obama, and many of his supporters are Social Democrats who believe that Capitalism is flawed by it's nature and that governments must intervene in the constant class warfare to redistribute wealth.
If America wants to remain great, it should reject the Obama message. Or we can become another Russia. A third world nation with a big army.
The Republican Party is demographic road kill. As whites shrink as a fraction of the electorate the Republicans have to move left to attract lower class whites who want benefits from government. The Republicans can't hope to ever get a majority of Hispanic or black votes. So the Republican Party is going to become the Rino party. Basically, it will become a center-of-the-road party while the Democrats move left.
The Republican Party can't win on ideas. I realize this cuts against the way intellectuals would like to see the world work. But that's the way it is.
"I don't like most of Obama's ideas, but at least he has some"
Jeebus save us - this is the dumbest thing I've read so far from a supposedly "smart" person, and it has been a season full of dumb things.
The Republicans can't hope to ever get a majority of...black votes.
They would have said that about the Democrats until Kennedy came along. The worm can indeed turn.
Randall Parker,
"As whites shrink as a fraction of the electorate the Republicans have to move left to attract lower class whites who want benefits from government."
That's essentially Ross's vision, and you're right that it won't work.
What will align working class whites (and non-whites) with a party that is in favor of less redistribution? Economic opportunity that obviates the need for that redistribution. Where will that economic opportunity come from? From entrepreneurs and businesses that decide to set up shop or expand in the U.S. What sorts of policies will encourage that? Let's see:
Those are the sorts of policies Republicans should advocate for, and they should clearly articulate how these policies will encourage businesses to start and expand here, and how they will create jobs.
*Sarah Palin's husband Todd is a prime example of this. Here's a working class guy who is conservative. Why? He's been making six figures working for BP on the North Slope, so he doesn't need transfer payments from the government.
"They would have said that about the Democrats until Kennedy came along."
If memory serves, it was FDR who first got Dems the black vote, not JFK.
In countries that ban abortion the ratio of "abortions per pregnancies" is actually lower. Those nations have high abortion rates because they have much higher pregnancy rates. Take a country with low pregnancy rates that ban abortions, say Poland or Malta, and you'll find
1: They actually do have low abortion rates.
2: Their rate of "death from pregnancy" is normal or low for their level of human development.
The idea that "abortion restrictions don't work" or "kills more women than it does anything" is largely based on a clever numbers game that doesn't compare nations of similar development or fertility rates.
That being said banning abortion as thoroughly as they do in Poland is not plausible in this society. There's a saying "the perfect is the enemy of the good." Elements of the "Pregnant Women Support Act", parental consent laws, continued bans on public financing, and a national *ban on third trimester abortion might be the most plausible solution for now. It would also be a solution a Democratic Presidential candidate could never support so the Republicans would remain more Pro-Life.
*Exceptions for "life of the mother" of course. And no, there is no national ban on third-trimester abortion. It is, I believe, allowed in thirteen states with little restriction.
And Sen. McCain has some that you particularly agree with, like reducing the corporate income tax, being against agricultural subsidies, and being for free trade. But those are apparently not exciting enough for you, who broadly agree with them, to vote for, and certainly not then for most anyone else.
"Obama may turn out to be the president of tax increases and spending cuts, which didn't work out so good for the first George Bush"
Don't forget that Obama will also have the responsibility of wrapping up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - ignominiously if need be. Until those two gaping holes in the country's budget are patched up, balancing the budget is impossible. So, that's spending cuts, tax increases and concluding two lost-cause wars - all of them political suicide and absolutely essential at the same time. Thanks, George W Bush and everyone who voted for him - twice.
The Repub party exists for very few reasons chief among them are a small government bias in affairs of the state and fiscal restraint in things legislative.
The Repubs blew a historic opportunity/mandate from 2000 to 2006 when they had all three branches of government. The reason they are desperately trying to hang onto 41 Senate seats has nothing to do with the war, morality, demographics or other such nonsense. They are out of power and Bush will forever be a failed domestic President because they blew their mandate for existence--fiscal restraint and a small government bias.
I put it to you---had the Repubs reasonably balanced the budget and not enlarged the government through new programs do you really think they would have lost seats in 2006? The Repub law makers were a disgrace and Bush proved to be an enabler signing the trash they put on his desk. They road the infamous bridge to nowhere. They will be in the wilderness until a new group of fiscal conservatives rise. At some point we are going to need a President who is prepared to veto virtually every spending bill that hits his desk while at the same time explaining in plain english why he is doing it. We need an educator.
Fat chance.
John,
please reread Megan's and then your own comment. Are you a member of the current GOP? Do you really want to make a case based on lowering taxes? That's why people should vote Republican? How many post does Megan have to write in order to explain why this is bull? Seriously - have you ever looked at an international ranking regarding tax income as a % of GDP???? How low do you want to go? Who are we not competitive with in this respect? Do you want a negative tax rate where we get paid for every $ we spend? The only people who pay lower taxes on earth are those who are starving in Africa etc. No - the tax argument is a phony and one of the best reasons NOT to vote for the GOP.
Regarding "farm subsidies". I swear to the white, blue-eyed God of Palin and Cain that I would vote for McCain in case he was serious about abolishing ALL farm subsidies. Problem is, John, that those of us who are really concerned about the environment and who really follow the discussion (we even read papers and statements etc) - know how full of BS McCain is on that.... George Bush was a more open opposer, at least recently, of farm subsidies than McCain. Bush was, finally, concerned that rich farmers get too much - McCain was mainly going on about "ethanol" - a marginal issue compare to all farm subsidies livestock etc. (ethanol is also not a food ergo agricultural issue but an environmental policy but lets ignore this for a sec)
Do you know when the GOP decided that McCain was ready for president? It was in 2006 as CNN reports:
Hugo is giving a dishonest account of the McCain interview.
McCain said that he was still against subsidies to ethanol but with oil prices increasing we should reconsider if ethanol was becoming a viable alternative - without government subsidies.
The CNN piece was a hatchet job on McCain but even they clearly state that McCain still opposed subsidies for ethanol.
You can listen to McCain speak on energy issues today, even when Iowa could be a difference maker in the election, he still speaks out against ethanol subsidies.
Please tell me where the flip flop is?
That’s bullshit and you know it. First of all, I and other readers have been after you for months not just the last couple of weeks in the campaign about your failure to discuss where the candidates stood on the issues. Second, most of your readers aren’t journalists and and have day jobs that don’t pay us to follow and learn about candidates or issues. Yet we managed to find out quite easily from the information that the candidates put out themselves where the candidate stood on all sorts of important policy issues. If you didn’t blog about those policy issues in the election, it was because you simply didn’t want to.
I don't like most of Obama's ideas, but at least he has some.
Better no ideas than bad ideas. In fact, for a libertarian, isn't a government with as few 'big ideas' as possible actually kind of the goal?
Whither conservatism? Everett Dirksen once said: "When I start to feel the heat, I start to see the light." If conservative ideas are not winning elections, then it is time to examine the assumptions underlying those ideas. For example, it is widely assumed, almost without question, that government policies which promote rapid economic growth will solve our problems, e.g. funding social security, etc. But is that really true? Didn't that assumption lead to the bubble and many other problems? Some conservatives, like myself, look at the Obama stump speech platform, summarized as placing the health, safety and welfare of the American people first while avoiding "dumb" wars and preserving educational opportunity, and see an inherently conservative approach. The Republican party will change with the times, after all it is institutionalized in the states of this country. Its time in the wilderness will be long or short depending upon the popularity of the opposition in power.
"But for me, I think one thing is clear: the Republican party cannot survive without some time in the wilderness."
I've seen a few self-described libertarian bloggers say this, but they never provide any explanation for why the Republican Party that emerges from the wilderness will be to their liking. My own prediction is that 4 years from now we'll be looking at the most populist Republican presidential candidate we've seen in our lifetimes, basically Pat Buchanan with a human face. That Republican will have a platform alright, one that includes higher tariffs on imported goods, subsidies to domestic business, severe regulation of the financial sector, etc., along with all the social conservatism that's still there now.
Some conservatives, like myself, look at the Obama stump speech platform, summarized as placing the health, safety and welfare of the American people first while avoiding "dumb" wars and preserving educational opportunity, and see an inherently conservative approach.
Good luck with that. Be sure to check back in over the next couple of years and see how that works out.
Even if you believe Obama has conservative instincts, he will have large Democratic majorities in Congress pushing him away from those instincts.
That is, if he have those instincts in the first place.
(Although I do agree with you that his stump speech does sound some conservative themes. His campaign rhetoric is effectively to the right of McCain in some substantive ways. I understand his appeal. If he governs the way he has campaigned, he could be a very effective president. I simply don't trust his campaign rhetoric or his willingness to push back against Congressional Dems)
"The Republicans can't hope to ever get a majority of Hispanic or black votes."
This is the thinking of a racist. The Republicans actually made gains among Hispanics under Bush, so it is possible IF the party rejects xenophobia and racism. Basically, if the party kicks out the Tancredos it will have a chance.
Obama and most blacks tend to be social conservatives. Bush won Ohio in 2004, in part, because a gay marriage act was on the ballot and socially conservative black churches, especially around Columbus, decided in large numbers to defeat the bill - and then voted for Bush in surprising numbers. One of the reason exit polls were initially wrong in Ohio, they really underestimated black social conservatives. It was not something the Obama people were going to have happen to them this time.
So it is not surprising that Obama has preached on some social conservative issues. The black community is more receptive to those issues then the liberal press cares to admit.
But on economic issues Obama is very far to the left. He is a Social Democrat.
"Obama may turn out to be the president of tax increases and spending cuts, which didn't work out so good for the first George Bush."
Not so good for Bush 41's re-election, but it helped set the country down the road to reductions in both the deficit and the debt. That's what sacrifice looks like. A willingness to set your personal ambition aside for the greater good. Here's to more of the same, for a change.
Wow. It's amazing to see the insanity that runs through the heads of republicans these days. The GOP's "policies" have dug us as massive a hole as we've ever seen. Do you really think raising the marginal tax rate for people making $317,000 a year from 33% to 36% is going to hurt the country? Get a grip. Seriously.
You guys had everything you wanted - the presidency, a house that would pass anything, two supreme court vacancies, etc...And your legacy? "The Party that Wrecked America." So don't go fear-mongering Obama because he wants children to have health insurance. You had eight years to stand up against the "ideas" that would destroy our economy and bankrupt the treasury. You stayed silent. Now you get to suck rocks. Enjoy.
I'm not sure what you mean, could you please provide some examples where Obama's campaign rhetoric is effectively to the right of Mccain in some substantive ways? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious what those substantive ways (as opposed to mere rhetoric) are.
Okay...but where did FDR get the money to "pull an FDR?"
Talking to Republican friends (in Mississippi, I have a lot of those), what strikes me most is this:
They are smart people who want the New Deal and the Great Society reversed.
No more Social Security, no more Medicare and Medicaid.
"The government should only be printing money and paving roads" as one put it.
I would venture to guess that the GOP is going to have to learn to love Big Brother, er, Big Government, or else become a fringe party.
Whither conservatism indeed.
Absent from the endless diatribes is the proposal from conservatives on what their governance offers the people asked to vote for them.
The reductio ad absurdum of conservative philosophy is that there is no need for government or governance.
The logic of the US Constitution is its checks and balances against tyranny.
Conservative philosophers rarely account for this, with the possible exception of "defense/war" and in this case the same philosophers are all to willing to accept tyranny. ala G. W. Bush
The Republican Party has become the bastion of charlatans parading under the guise of limited government while all the while exercising power like despots.
You'll find Obama and the Democratic Congress is not so much left wing whackos, but center left pragmatists. You know, there are many "conservative Democrats".
What type of conservative party forbids liberal Republicans?
In its coming years out of power, conservatism is due for a complete overhaul. The great Reagan coalition of low-tax small-government types with defense hawks, social conservatives and libertarians was held together by anti-communism .. a glue which no longer exists.
Social conservatives made an end run over the past decade and managed to impose a good deal of their agenda on the Republican White House and Congress. But a party led by social conservatives must be a permanent minority party ... the majority of voters are pro-choice and socially fairly laissez-faire and seem to be becoming more so over time.
The GOP must carefully reform itself, treating evangelical and social conservatives the way the Democrats treat radical black leaders ... giving them lip service and not much else. Social conservatives are free to pursue their goals, but they must no longer expect the full force of the GOP behind them on every issue.
The GOP cannot win elections until it recommits itself to core principles of small government, lower taxes, less regulation, and more personal freedom.
Over the past eight years the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress seem to have hoped no one would notice when they abandoned these core principles in favor of pork, free spending, and social conservative meddling. Guess what: people noticed, and the result is an electorate that was evenly split Democrats to Repubs ten years ago is now close to 65% to 35%.
Social conservatives are welcome as part of the conservative coalition but they can no longer expect to impose their agendas and litmus tests on all Republicans. Unless we want the GOP to end up with about the same slice of the electoral pie as the Peace and Freedom Party...
Back to a big tent GOP or accept one-party Democratic rule for the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure what you mean, could you please provide some examples where Obama's campaign rhetoric is effectively to the right of Mccain in some substantive ways? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious what those substantive ways (as opposed to mere rhetoric) are.
Pitching his tax plan as "tax cuts for the middle class", "we know Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, we need to go an take 'em out", calling for taxpayer protections in the bailout, etc.
Now, I agree this is all rhetoric, but my point is that he's staking out rhetorical positions that are to the right of McCain's rhetorical positions. Is his rhetoric a fair representation of how he'll govern? I'm guessing not, but others think so. We're about to find out.
I'll tell you where the Republicans lost America .. at the airport. The nationalized, centralized and dehumanized gestapo that greets the average American at one of the few remaining common public squares was installed by a regime that worked under the 'conservative' brand of freedom, individualism and privacy. That brand is now ruined indefinitely.
P.S. if McCain could have conducted a twin crusade to victory against the humiliation of air travel and the socialism of the mortgage bank bailout - but that would have required the mind of a true maverick.
10 Reasons Obama will be bad for America
1) His goal, as he has said, is to move toward a single payer health care system. Remember when the federal government tried to create housing for the poor, what we got was a public housing disaster. Next, look at the Oregon plan in this country where the state denied a women treatment for cancer but did agree to give her drugs to hasten her death. Or the recent collapse of the health care system for children in Hawaii, that went broke after 7 months because, as government solutions always do, they great underestimated the true cost of the program. Bad idea, really bad.
2) He wants price controls on drugs. We have very recently seen Merck announce layoffs and a reduction in R&D. His desire to control pharmaceutical companies will mean fewer cost effective cures in the future. Price controls do not work, never have worked, to encourage innovation or cost effective breakthroughs.
3) He is not the second coming. He can not recreate the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. His claim that he will raise taxes on the top 5% and will be able to fund trillions in new spending while giving tax credits to the middle class is a lie. For one, look at the tax return of John Kerry's wife, the top 2% can easily afford tax strategies to avoid much of the Obama tax plan. So that leaves about 3% of the population to pay for his grand plans. Why the press ignores this is beyond me. BTW under the Obama plan 44% of tax filers pay no income tax, under McCain 43%.
4) He will turn the Social Security system into just another welfare program. People making over $100,000 will see a 12.4% increase in payroll taxes under Obama. You see Obama parses his words more then President Clinton or a used car salesman. He may claim that he will not increase income taxes on families below $250,000 but he does plan a big jump in payroll taxes. However most experts doubt that will be enough to fix the system.
5) His view of a fair tax system is a very complicated tax system. With gifts to this group or that group, rewards based on political muscle. Democrats and Republicans once upon a time united under President Reagan to lower tax rates and remove complexity from the tax code. Both sides have since used he tax code as a way to reward supporters. But in the end society loses. Obama wants to escalate this trend, and politicians in Washington salivate at the thought of the favors they can grant.... for a price.
6) Obama wants to increase regulations, on just about everything, I invite you to read the American Enterprise Institute study of the regulatory history on Fannie and Freddie. http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080930_Binder1.pdf
Regulation is a political process. BTW name one deregulation idea that President Bush signed into law in the last eight years. The answer is zero. The current regulations are all pre-Bush and include 8 Clinton years. Plus we are seeing world wide economic problems that go beyond the United States. Still, bottom line, Democrats do not see regulation as a way to ensure open and honest transactions. They view regulatory powers as a way to achieve social change by other, often destructive to the economy, means.
7) The Democrats intend to pull the government to the left, the extreme left. Obama is a socialist. Orwellian attempts to deny that are crazy. If you prefer you can call him a Social Democrat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
8) While the anti-war candidate needed to look tough in a Presidential debate, he puffed up his little chest and said that he would invade Pakistan in pursuit of Osama. While I can understand his need to look tough for political reasons, his words were dangerous. Is the pursuit of a single man worth destabilizing an ally in the bigger war on terror? Or is the political need to look tough more important to Obama? The Obama doctrine, according to Obama, is that the United States should commit troops to civil wars, if the humanitarian goal has enough Hollywood support. Obama talked about how he admired the Kennedy administration foreign policy. Now is that the Bay of Pigs or the Vietnam War? Obama will make us weaker in the world, but he will win some pr points. But as the President of France has said, Obama is amazingly naive.
BTW Obama talks about invading Pakistan and intervening in civil wars and the anti-war crowd stayed mute. What is that all about.
9) His views on trade, comments like he will tear up NAFTA and his lies about Columbia, will be destructive not only to America but the world.
10) His view on the courts is that judges should administer what he considers justice. i.e. redistribute wealth. Plus he does view the world as a class struggle and that the courts should be used to correct that alleged imbalance. He will appoint the most leftist judges since Joe Stalin. If you think that is extreme, please explain why he wants to remove secret ballots in union voting?
I wish I could vote for Bill Clinton. A left of center Democrat who had the charisma to check liberal democrats and work with republicans. Instead we are getting a left wing president, with a super majority congress who will drag our country farther to the left then most of europe. We can watch India and China, who poltically are moving the other way, surpass us.
Obama is closer to President Bush then McCain. Obama thinks that Bush didn't do enough destructive things to the economy and wants to move the country further down the increasingly wrong path Bush followed.
And for Ms McArdle, I supposed libertarian. she wants a President who is socially conservative but economically an extreme left winger. Kind of make your head dizzy with that spinning act.
The Republican Party is in serious trouble. Conservative radio host, Kevin Price (of the Price of Business show) wrote at www.BizPlusBlog.com that it may take years for the party to recover.
Good post.