Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
| Frozen Chosen: While I can understand you concerns, professor, I do not agree that a candidate who strongly advocates first principles would win this election handily. At best there is maybe 20-25% of the country who understand these concepts. There are another 15-20% who can be counted on to consistently vote conservative. There are also 40-45% of the country who will consistently vote for either liberal/socialist ideas or goodies from the trough. That leaves about 10% of the country who vote on things like physical appearance and MSM headlines. Saying we just need to articulate conservative ideas better and we would have 60-70% of the country on our side is naive. This country is far less conservative now than it was in 1980. The only reason the GOP has a chance this election is because Obama's sudden, severe lurch to the left has spooked the middle 20%. If the Dems were smart enough to play the incremental game Obama would be reelected in a landslide. Our culture is in severe decline, the family is disintegrating, our schools indoctrinate our children with secular theology - not exactly a recipe for conservative resurgence. Let's not kid ourselves. · 1 hour ago |
I quote Frozen Chosen here because I believe that he poses a question that is well worth thinking about and because he represents a view that is commonly held within conservative ranks. I also think that he is in part correct: Our culture really is in severe decline, the family is disintegrating, and our schools indoctrinate our children with secular theology. It is, I believe, the worst of times. And because of that it is the best of times, for it provides us with the perfect recipe for a conservative resurgence. It is the ideal moment for a man of courage and high principle to step forward and say, "The Emperor has no clothes." And, no, I am not kidding myself.
Consider what Barack Obama has done. He has unmasked the tyrannical potential of the administrative entitlements state, and he has once again demonstrated the defects inherent in Keynesian economics. He promised us that the stimulus would bring unemployment down dramatically. He acknowledged that if it did not do so he would be unelectable. He attacked religious liberty, attempting through a court case to interfere with a Lutheran church's ability to choose its own religious teachers as it saw fit, and threatening to make Roman Catholics, the Roman Catholic Church, and Christians and Jews who regard abortion as murder complicit with that act by forcing them to pay for abortifacients. He jammed through Congress a bill designed to undermine the health insurance industry and to institute healthcare rationing. He brought our government to the edge of fiscal insolvency. At a time of rising energy costs, he blocked the building of a pipeline that would bring petroleum from our northern neighbor and friend Canada to the United States and reduce our dependence on the Middle East.
In short, Barack Obama is forcing the American people to rethink the relationship that connects them with their government. Where many of them once saw a helping hand, they now see a threat to their livelihood, their personal and religious liberty, and their well-being more generally. A majority of Americans favor a repeal of Obamacare -- the President's signature achievement. A majority favor serious cuts in government expenditures. Most think that the President should not be re-elected. We are watching a near perfect storm. Barack Obama and his administration make Americans long for the good old days when they lived under Jimmy Carter and his administration.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan showed what can be done, and he did not eke out a victory. He won a landslide, and for the first time in decades more people voted for Republican candidates running for House seats than for Democratic candidates. Reagan even took Massachusetts, and he did not run as a moderate. He promised and he delivered radical change -- first and foremost, the end of punitive taxation.
One could argue that the country is more liberal today than it was in 1980. But that is demonstrably false. Look at the midterm elections in 2010. In them -- running as conservatives, promising to repeal Obamacare, and pledging to cut government expenditures in a severe fashion -- the Republicans won a landslide. They took the House; they made major gains in the Senate. At the state level, they gained a degree of leverage that they had not seen since 1928.
Frozen Chosen, you underestimate our compatriots. They know that our culture is in severe decline, that the family is disintegrating, that our schools indoctrinate our children with secular theology -- and they know whom to blame. All that it would take to turn the present discontents into a realignment would be for a forthright woman or man able to point out the connection linking cultural decline, family disintegration, and political correctness in the schools -- not to mention massive unemployment and fiscal insolvency -- with the administrative entitlements state and the doctrine that it is the responsibility of the government and not the individual citizen to make provision for his well-being.
People rally to strength and confidence, not to weakness and timidity. This is what President Obama once called "a teachable moment." It is a time in which the despotic character of our democracy's drift is visible. In such circumstances, a Republican could say something very much like what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia in 1936: “Philadelphia is . . . fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom . . . That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power.”
Where, in 1776, Americans had “sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy,” Roosevelt on that occasion urged them to seek liberty from “economic royalists” who had “created a new despotism” in which “a small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives.” “For too many of us,” he charged, come 1932, “life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.”
I cited this material in a blogpost, and I concluded: "In my judgment, Roosevelt’s rhetoric — or something very much like it — deserves revival, for the argument that he disingenuously advanced on behalf of state control can now in all honesty be deployed against it. We really are governed now by a small group intent on concentrating into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives. And for the first time in my lifetime Americans are waking up to the threat."
I posted this claim on Powerline on 2 August 2009 -- more than a year before the great Republican victory in the mid-term elections of 2010. Nothing has changed to make me think otherwise now. If anything, the crisis that I discerned then has ripened further. I would not be shocked if a timid, milquetoast managerial progressive were able to eke out a victory in the Presidential election in 2012. To win a landslide, however, one must do what FDR did: one must appeal to first principles. One must indict those intent on creating “a new despotism” in which “a small group" is concentrating "into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives.”
Frozen Chosen, if you really want to do something about the fact that "our culture is in severe decline, the family is disintegrating, [and] our schools indoctrinate our children with secular theology," you have to take the bull by the horns. As Margaret Thatcher once said to George W. H. Bush, "This is no time to go wobbly, George."
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Mar '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Stuart Creque: If Conservatives believe that the only way they can get elected is by hiding who they are, then they will figure that the only way they can stay in office is by governing as Liberals.
I'll say this much for President Obama: while he blatantly lies about wanting to govern from the center, he can't bring himself to govern as anything but the Progressive that he is in his heart of hearts. That's at least a kind of honesty.
The old saying goes, "If you don't stand for something, you'll stand for anything." I prefer to vote for a Santorum or Gingrich who, whatever their past failings, at least always proudly declared that their hearts are with Conservatism, than for Romney, who has been more flexible in his declarations about where and with whom he stands. · 19 minutes ago
Romney's biggest problem seems to be that he ran in the wrong primary this time around. He won't have any coattails to speak of, and will end up compromising/capitulating in order to "get things done."
I can vote for him. Enthusiasm will not be forthcoming, however.
Feb '12
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
wmartin
thelonious
Plain and simple this election is a referendum on Obama. It always been that way in incumbent elections. · 18 minutes ago
Exactly, As was the case in 1980. That election was a referendum on Jimmy Carter; we did not win it because the public heard Reagan's eloquent case for conservative principles and then said "Yes, I see the light!" George H. W. Bush would probably have won by a larger margin. · 5 minutes ago
If 1980 had been a referendum on Carter, then Carter wouldn' t have been 20 points ahead in the spring of that year. There were big doubts about Reagan's competence.
In any case, we won't gain a majority for conservative principles without stating what those principles are. Shying away from discussing them is self-defeating. How we discuss them is another question, but discussing them, and without apology, is essential.
Dec '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
If the strategy is to nominate someone who acts like he cares about average Americans, we need a better actor.
Nov '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Prof. Rahe - as one of the most ardent fans of your writings (not to mention of your scholarship), I want to share your optimism. I really do. There's probably no point in my saying this, but I find the following to be wide of the mark: "One could argue that the country is more liberal today than it was in 1980. But that is demonstrably false."
Illegitimacy rates among white Americans are up by how much over the last thirty years? I don't have the stats on hand, but they've skyrocketed.
There are also the unquantifiable aspects of decay -- ones which I take to be equally (if not more) telling. I'm thinking of ordinary, everyday phenomena such as: I cannot take my little nephew to a Dodgers' game because of the tremendous amount of profanity that laces onlookers' "speech acts." (Or let's just stick with profanity: since when does the editor of a highbrow, libertarian magazine non-chalantly write such a foul, profanity laced article for public consumption?).
I suppose I could also go on about how the majority of white kids today listen to rap music; twenty years ago none did...
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 12:11amAug '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Dr. Rahe, I would glady rally around a candidate who took his stand on the lines you drew, who held this as his core conviction and did not muddy the waters with narcissism and blatant pandering.
When you start driving home these points it's like watching Ted Williams take batting practice.
No one took this course and held it.
Instead I witnessed:
Palin's perpetual fan dance.
Bachmann's vaccine fear-mongering nuttery.
Perry's alternately somnambulant then thuggish debating style.
Cain's torturous repetition of the numbers 9-9-9. Shamwow hucksterism distilled. Oh, and his giant Mexican bug zapper.
Then Huntsman momentarily wandered on to the wrong playing field.
And T-Paw lost the farm on the Iowa straw poll.
Newt's just a blur of bald faced lies about lobbying and something about moon bases. Whomping on moderators don't impress me much.
And Ron Paul is, well, Ron Paul.
By comparison, Romney's tone deaf acclaim for cheesy grits and Santorum's white knuckle grip on his own tendencies toward petulance and culture war-making seem almost tolerable.
Not one took the stand you call for. That I would love to see, and support.
Feb '12
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
wmartin
thelonious
Plain and simple this election is a referendum on Obama. It always been that way in incumbent elections. · 18 minutes ago
Exactly, As was the case in 1980. That election was a referendum on Jimmy Carter; we did not win it because the public heard Reagan's eloquent case for conservative principles and then said "Yes, I see the light!" George H. W. Bush would probably have won by a larger margin.
If 1980 had simply been a referendum on Carter, then Carter wouldn' t have been 20 points ahead in the spring of that year. In any case, we won't gain a majority for conservative principles without stating what those principles are. Shying away from discussing them is self-defeating. How we discuss them is another question, but discussing them, and without apology, is essential.
Feb '12
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
I'll offer a sad "amen" to Robert's description of our world. I could never take any child on my daily urban commute, as I can barely stomach it myself. There are highly explicit advertisements, frequent foul language from passers-by, and several adult shops. Heck, in a reputable law school, the majority of the professors used curse words and sexual jokes in class.
And that's just the start of the degradation. How many read books? I hear more talk about television shows from professionals. How many know any history? Many law students' lack of basic historical knowledge should have embarrassed them, but didn't because it was all too common.
License and ignorance afflict almost everyone now.
But my conclusion is that it is only that much more urgent to start talking about first principles again. Building will be slow, but we have to build.
Dec '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Out, damned double-post!
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 12:36amOct '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Leporello
The accomplished businessman would have been in office for who knows how many years had he been able to win a senate race and had he not declined to run for re-election as governor in order to avoid defeat.
A pro-life Republican would have little chance being reelected in Massachusetts, who would have thought?
Let's not give him any credit for taking a principled conservative stand in the bluest state and paying the price.
May '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Leporello
wmartin
thelonious
Plain and simple this election is a referendum on Obama. It always been that way in incumbent elections. · 18 minutes ago
Exactly, As was the case in 1980. That election was a referendum on Jimmy Carter; we did not win it because the public heard Reagan's eloquent case for conservative principles and then said "Yes, I see the light!" George H. W. Bush would probably have won by a larger margin.
If 1980 had simply been a referendum on Carter, then Carter wouldn' t have been 20 points ahead in the spring of that year. · 8 minutes ago
Springtime 1980 the country was rallying around Carter because of the Iranian hostage crisis. Later when Carter proved that he was completly impotent and incompetent in dealing with the crisis is when the voters turned on him. The fact he was a dour ninny didn't help
him either.
Apr '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Paul A. Rahe
Wrong, James. In one crucial regard, Reagan did run on repealing the New Deal: tax policy! Had gerrymandering not prevented the Republicans from taking the House, you would have seen the cuts as well. · 45 minutes ago
I suppose tax rates were part of the New Deal. If Reagan had described them as such, though, I don't think he'd have won. A policy of keeping the benefits, but ending the paying for them would have been a poor way of framing the issue, and his explicit support for the New Deal was important during a race where a lot of effort went into making him seem sane, reasonable, and competent.
Regardless, my point is that Reagan ran and governed with conservative elements and moderate elements, just like every other President since Hoover other than Ford and Obama. Your position relies on a radical distinction between, eg., Reagan and Bush, and Reagan and Bush, and Reagan and Romney, that I simply don't see.
Feb '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Tom Wilson
A pro-life Republican would have little chance being reelected in Massachusetts, who would have thought?
Let's not give him any credit for taking a principled conservative stand in the bluest state and paying the price.
I'm not inclined to give him any credit for this because I get the distinct impression that he was rather less than candid about his true feelings on the subject when he stood for election.
I get the same impression now when I hear him tell us over and over again how really really conservative he is. I'm reminded of that saying from an earlier era- "the louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons".
Bluntly, I simply don't trust Romney and I don't believe anything he says, either.
Dec '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Tom Wilson
A pro-life Republican would have little chance being reelected in Massachusetts, who would have thought?
Let's not give him any credit for taking a principled conservative stand in the bluest state and paying the price.
Why couldn't a pro-life Republican have been re-elected in Massachusetts? He was anti-gay marriage when he was elected and that didn't keep him out of office. Of course, he didn't succeed in blocking gay marriage in Massachusetts. The big difference is that gay marriage was something determined at the Commonwealth level, whereas abortion is determined ultimately at the Federal level.
(There's also the question of how principled his stand looked to voters who believed him when he said he was unequivocally pro-choice in 2002.)
Oct '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Paul A. Rahe
Wrong, James. In one crucial regard, Reagan did run on repealing the New Deal: tax policy! Had gerrymandering not prevented the Republicans from taking the House, you would have seen the cuts as well. · 1 hour ago
I don't know if I agree. Politicians will always want to run, at the very least, small deficits--it lets them capture the revenue from economic growth and inflation. Party affiliation doesn't seem to change that.
Apr '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Robert Lux: Prof. Rahe, I want to share your optimism. I really do. There's probably no point in my saying this, but I find the following to be wide of the mark: "One could argue that the country is more liberal today than it was in 1980. But that is demonstrably false."
Illegitimacy rates among white Americans are up by how much over the last thirty years? I don't have the stats on hand, but they've skyrocketed.
Yeah, this is an endless argument amongst libertarians. We have more political correctness, more breakdown of the family, less Christianity, more deficits, less good healthcare laws and the possibility of worse coming into effect, more federal abuse of state's rights in education, a smaller military, environmentalism, way more legal protection for LGBT Americans, and more restrictions on the police.
We have less unionism (although slightly more in government), lower taxes, less communism, less domestic radical violence, no fear of the ERA, better welfare laws, the legacy of amnesty, way better gun rights, somewhat better protection for the unborn....
Swings and roundabouts, ultimately. We have a better SCOTUS, but no Henry Jackson in the senate. I prefer now, on balance.
Apr '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Stuart Creque
Tom Wilson
A pro-life Republican would have little chance being reelected in Massachusetts, who would have thought?
Let's not give him any credit for taking a principled conservative stand in the bluest state and paying the price.
Why couldn't a pro-life Republican have been re-elected in Massachusetts? He was anti-gay marriage when he was elected and that didn't keep him out of office. Of course, he didn't succeed in blocking gay marriage in Massachusetts. The big difference is that gay marriage was something determined at the Commonwealth level, whereas abortion is determined ultimately at the Federal level.
(There's also the question of how principledhis stand looked to voters who believed him when he said he was unequivocally pro-choice in 2002.) · 2 minutes ago
He never said that. Indeed, he denied it when he was running in 2002. His shift was between saying he was neither pro-choice nor pro-life, but would not change the law, to saying he was pro-life, but would not change the law. Hence pro-lifers endorsed and supported him for governor, pro-choicers opposed.
Feb '12
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Tom Wilson,I gladly give Mr. Romney much credit for his accomplishments as governor (excepting Romneycare and certain judges).I reject all his hypocritical attacks on Santorum as a "lifelong politician" when Romney sorely wished he could have served just as long in office!Romney's campaign has good organization and lots of money, both points in his favor. I have no respect, however, for lifting himself up mainly by making deceitful and hypocritical attacks on opponents. As far as I'm concerned, Romney should have dropped out after Michigan and Ohio. Winning your virtual home state by 3 pct, and Ohio by half a pct, when you dominate the field in money and men, amount to two disastrous defeats.
Nov '10
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
James Of England
Yeah, this is an endless argument amongst libertarians. We have more political correctness, more breakdown of the family, less Christianity, more deficits, less good healthcare laws and the possibility of worse[...]
We have less unionism, lower taxes, less communism, less domestic radical violence, no fear of the ERA, better welfare laws, the legacy of amnesty, way better gun rights, somewhat better protection for the unborn....
Swings and roundabouts, ultimately. [...] I prefer now, on balance.
James - you make a powerful case. Nonetheless, the single greatest area where we see the (Pyrrhic) victory of liberalism is in the assault on the family and in family breakdown. Which is coeval, of course, with breakdown in civility and increase in dependency. There's no more important task for any liberty-loving polity than the creation of good citizens -- a task to which most libertarians, sadly, are purblind.
I'd quibble with your asseveration that gun laws are way better; better, yes, but not greatly -- and certainly not where it would most count (urban LA, NY, etc).
I'd quibble with taxes as well. The top 10% paying 70% of taxes, and 1% paying 40%...this is insanity.
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 1:17amOct '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
Stuart Creque
Why couldn't a pro-life Republican have been re-elected in Massachusetts? He was anti-gay marriage when he was elected and that didn't keep him out of office. Of course, he didn't succeed in blocking gay marriage in Massachusetts. The big difference is that gay marriage was something determined at the Commonwealth level, whereas abortion is determined ultimately at the Federal level.
A pro life Candidate won't be elected in Massachusetts for the same reason a pro abortion rights candidate won't be elected in Utah: It's too far outside the opinion tolerance of the mass of voters. Romney was never "unequivocally pro choice" There is a big difference in saying you won't change current law, and anything goes unequivocally.
As to Romney being elected as an anti gay marriage candidate being evidence that a pro choice candidate cold win in Mass. I think it's a poor argument. The opinion ground has shifted dramatically on the question of gay marriage / civil union from the time Romney ran for Governor to now. Lots of people are accepting what at one time they recoiled at.
Apr '11
Re: Could a Genuine Conservative Win in 2012?
thelonious
Leporello
wmartin
thelonious
If 1980 had simply been a referendum on Carter, then Carter wouldn' t have been 20 points ahead in the spring of that year. · 8 minutes ago
Springtime 1980 the country was rallying around Carter because of the Iranian hostage crisis. Later when Carter proved that he was completly impotent and incompetent in dealing with the crisis is when the voters turned on him. The fact he was a dour ninny didn't help
him either. · 33 minutes ago
Exactly. Carter and Reagan were actually in a dead heat until the final 72 hours, and Reagan didn't break through until the debate, in which he reassured the public that he wouldn't blow up the world or cut the New Deal and Great Society programs they loved.