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Rejoice! Rejoice! Victory, oh Victory!
The most common form of contemporary conservative electoral argument is flawed in its premise. They argue that we don’t win elections because we don’t follow their advice (give up on social issues / double down on social issues / the same for fiscal issues and/or foreign stuff / use stronger language / use more moderate language / educate the public on abstract issues / stop talking about abstract issues / talk about gaffes more / talk about gaffes less).
In fact, we win elections. We run the legislature in most states, reaching a level of (small d) democratic control rarely seen in American history. We have most governor’s mansions, again, right at the edge of the historical record. We have the House; after decades of suffering from Ike’s neutrality and Watergate, we got it back in 1994 and we’ve mostly kept it. We have the Senate. Even presidentially, we’ve lost just five out of the last twelve races, with the “always losing” argument often resting on the last two. If you decide on the basis of receiving two tails after tossing a coin twice that the coin must be faulty and have no heads on it, you’re probably excessively predisposed that belief.
When people tell you that we’re losing and the only way to win is to buy their snake oil, whether classy snake oil like Arthur Brooks’ or off-brand oils like Mike Murphy’s or Mark Levin’s, they’re wrong in two ways. Firstly, we’re winning, and secondly, many of those who are winning are not from their faction of the party. Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey win in blue-purple states while being unapologetically socially conservative, whatever Murphy might prefer; while Graham, McCain, Murkowski, Capito, Cochran, and Alexander can win in red states despite Levin’s assurances that their path is doomed to fail.
Allied to this is the claim that we don’t win on the issues. Sometimes this is specifically aimed at McConnell and Boehner. In the comments, I’d like people to suggest a Senate leader and speaker who have been more effective at stopping the legislative agenda of a post-war President. I don’t believe that such a man exists. Bush got what he really wanted from Daschle and Reid. Clinton got a bunch of what he wanted from Dole and Newt. Anyone who wants to argue that Reagan and 41 failed to leave a legislative legacy has a tough case to make. And so on. From tax cuts to gun rights to trade agreements to partial birth abortion to bankruptcy to the surge, the Democrats never united in the way that McConnell and Boehner have kept the party together in opposition to Obama, so time and again Bush could peel off enough Democratic moderates to get his reforms passed. Today, pro-choice Republicans refuse to vote for pro-choice bills. Pro-union Republicans don’t vote for pro-union bills. Obama has been reduced to acting through executive orders by the most effective and courageous Republican party leadership in a half century. Obama did pass radical reforms, but only while he had a supermajority; a supermajority that was kept brief between the death of Ted Kennedy and the election of Scott Brown. It’s the united efforts of moderates and less moderate Republicans that has won us our position.
At some level, most of us are aware of this. Over and over again, I speak to closeted McConnell fans who will not admit it in public (some, like James O’Keefe, are open about it if they’re asked, but don’t raise the topic). It’s not cool, and it’s bad for fundraising, to declare that affection. I’ve spoken to people who were coming off a panel discussion angry because they didn’t get to demonstrate their bona fides by attacking McConnell on a point irrelevant to the discussion. Our pundits have overwhelming incentives to bad-mouth our leaders. There’s sometimes almost as little respect for the achievements of our governors and state legislators, although the Constitution gives them the scope to go on the offensive even when there isn’t a cooperative President. Our states are popping and fizzing like mad, deregulating labor, protecting electoral integrity and self-defense rights, closing abortion clinics, cutting taxes, reducing recidivism by expanding religious charitable access to inmates, expanding school choice, shoring up the Constitution with anti-Kelo laws and the like, and finding many other ways of expanding Americans’ freedom.
It’s my belief that America, and the world, were in a precarious state in Reagan’s first term, but that we are in a better position now, and that we were in a precarious state when Ted Kennedy died, but that we are in a better position now. I outline why in posts addressing each of the three legs of the conservative stool and comparing our position to Reagan’s first term and to what one could refer to as the B.M. period of American history (“Before McConnell,” the period of supermajority).
I’ll conclude with a post on the stakes for the upcoming election. We can fix entitlements to make them affordable, but not every party is likely to do so, and even four years would make the problem much harder. We can restore American leadership to the world, but we would have to choose to do so. Almost all the regrettable Court decisions are 5-4, so we can revive our Constitutional fidelity to unprecedented levels, but the good decisions are also mostly 5-4. It is merely likely, not certain, that the shining city on a hill will illuminate the world even more brightly than before.
Published in Domestic Policy, Politics
Can we keep the blasphemous boasting to a minimum, please? In addition to not tempting fate, if we’re going to compare Democrats to Death and the Devil we should do so far more directly.
About the picture in the OP:
Another way the Congressional leadership could win points with the frustrated base is if they forced Obama to blink on any issue. I think all agree the sequester was the best conservative victory during the Obama presidency, but it only worked because the caucus stood up to McConnell and Boehner when they wanted to end the sequester caps.
The four basic personality types:
The glass if half full.
The glass is half empty.
The glass is half full…no empty…what was the question again?
Hey! I ordered a cheeseburger!
– Gary Larson
Did I miss out on this? Darn it.
I was at a conference a couple years ago, had a big panel on federalism. There was much kvetching. I went to lunch with another professor who is, like me, a moderate-hang-out conservative at a neighboring institution. We got to talking about the panel, and concluded that there were some people who were just not happy that Conservatives had discovered this whole federalism thing and were using it to create “red state federalism.”
My current State Politics textbook calls it “Bottom up Federalism” which I strongly suspect is burying the lede. The Federal Government is not cutting off the states, the states are telling the Federal Government to go to hell.
That said, I am not as optimistic as Amy. We are still in the new phase of this revolt by the states. They’ve already been slapped down in some places by willful Democrats (Hollingsworth v. Perry) with the help of Federal judges.
And I’ve seen the anger in my colleagues. Which is why I am a moderate-hang-out, and not a full-hang-out-raise-the-black-flag conservative. I will feel more comfortable when we consolidate our victories and the Democrat’s responses fall apart. Wisconsin is still close -even with the John Doe investigations falling apart, the Left isn’t done yet. And Brownback won’t be in office in Kansas forever, even though I do like him.
So I still see the storms, but I am willing to acknowledge silver linings.
I cannot agree with this enough.
You left out “Is she single?”
James this is true, but they could have done more. We had the votes to end Obamacare on constitutional lines. That we didn’t and instead authenticated an expansion of federal authority into places it didn’t exist cannot be counted as a victory.
Couldn’t agree more regarding republican success at the state level. It is impressive and deserved. My question is why don’t republicans celebrate it?
We have six (6) (I think) accomplished governors running for POTUS. I include Christie, Pataki, and Gilmore as accomplished because living in the state mansion with an R behind your name in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia of late is an accomplishment.
However, it appears when they all run for POTUS they want to be central power executives rather than get the federal government out of the way of their former peers and let the republican party really put on a show at the state level.
I always laughed at the hypocrisy of G.W. Bush in his first term. His brother was known as an Education Governor in Florida, yet G.W. Bush was partnered with Ted Kennedy to ram through NCLB. How does that work?
“Jeb, you are such an awful governor that I need Ted Kennedy to ride shotgun and bring the full force the federal gov’t to bear on Florida’s children to ensure they are properly educated”. I wonder how that went over at Thanksgiving?
Two thumbs up for the fluid dynamics engineer in the picture.
Gilmore was the end of a run of GOP governors in VA. The rest of the state has been turning redder and has been solidly Republican for decades now, but the DC area continues to explode with transplants working for the federal government who keep that area Democrat.
Yes, yes, yes! I’m tired of the whiners and complainers. The fact is our form of government is slow and changes evolve at a snail’s pace. Obama didn’t get a third of what he wanted done, so that snail’s pace works for and against both sides. This whole Trump phenomena is built on a false premise that the elected GOP aren’t trying to change the status quo.
Frank, Gov’t as a percent of the GDP can be deceiving. The GDP has been down the last few years and so makes that growth seem high. GDP in the 1990’s was very high, so it makes it look as if gov;t shrank. True reduction of the size of gov”t should be compared both as a function of GDP and independent from GDP. The better the economy does not give gov’t the right to spend more, at least from a conservative perspective.
Thank you for the kind word for Jeb, who I’m supporting mostly because of his conservative record in Florida. Sometimes it seems like I’m the only one who sees how conservative he actually governed.
Sigh. I was really hoping someone from Virginia would tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about and proceed to educate me.
I’ll keep banging my head against the wall, and maybe someday write the post I’ve had at the back of my mind on the subject.
McDonnell?
In the spirit of the OP, watching Gillespie almost win in Virginia was simply thrilling. A pity he didn’t quite make it over the top, but when you erase a 30-point lead by the most popular politician in the state — and no one saw it coming — you get to claim moral victory.
Virginia’s not a blue state yet.
I love that phrase. Did you make that up? It’s great.
Yes, and I’m sick of the conservative versions of the MSNBC demagoguery.
Yes, I agree. Unfortunately the culture is being altered in two ways that I see. (1) Gov’t ability to effect the culture is far less than how it effects fiscal policy and the economy at large. (2) From the political perspective, the conservative side is being fragmented because the Libertarians essentially agree with the cultural values of the left. Cultural conservatism can’t build enough of a head of steam to effect the country.
He can govern as a socialist for all I care, as long as he cuts corporate welfare, cuts the size and scope of government, and returns power to the states and the people.
I’ve lived here in central VA my entire life, and the local media never cover what’s going on in the state legislature unless it’s something major. It’s just an afterthought for most for some reason.
McDonnell came after Warner and Kaine. Gilmore damaged GOP credibility when he ran on eliminating the car tax then did an about face once he got in office for “budget reasons”. He became such a non-entity most in this part of the state even knew he was running for Senate against Warner until they saw his name on the ballot.
Gillespie should have won, but that was loss wasn’t on him. It was due to the McDonnell scandal, the dysfunction of the state GOP, and the static from the government shutdown being played up by the Washington press.
It was very encouraging to see Cantor replaced and still retain the seat despite the handwringing by some over how we were handing that seat over to Democrats because of an inexperienced candidate.
Sorry, all I can think of is:
Leigh, let me add, VA is about 80% GOP if you go district by district. But statewide, it’s 50-50 and depends on turnout in any given election. Red local, purple statewide. McDonnell ran a masterful campaign and showed a solid GOP candidate can win statewide, but then came the downside.
Count me in with John Derbyshire. We are doomed, we are doomed, we are doomed.
Smile, peasants. This is as good as it’s going to get.
Wisconsin’s slightly bluer than that, I think, and presidential election results would back that up.
It’s bizarre to me that I feel less informed about state government in Virginia than county government in Milwaukee — and not for lack of trying. And I don’t know which is more typical. I need to write that post.
It’s on that turnout issue where I suspect the media makes a difference. It makes a difference in candidate quality, in keeping government accountable, in promoting political involvement, and — to bring it back to the OP — in letting people know when they have genuine victories to celebrate.
That’s not deceiving, that’s a feature of looking at it this way. Holding spending down as the economy grows is an effective method of getting the government’s finances under control without electoral backlash.
It’s definitely not solely because the media doesn’t want to talk about the GOP. I’m 40 so I can remember when VA was solidly Democrat, and they never covered it then either.
I’d be interested to see a demographic by age on attitudes toward Republican victories. I’m in the over 50 set, and I see the trends being very bad for the country, whatever the state houses and legislatures are doing. My perception is that we’re much less free, much more in debt, and our moral compass is broken. But, other than that…
Your imaginary man comment reminds of the complete helplessness in deporting or even finding illegal immigrants, but the same government functions quite well when used by the IRS or EPA to intimidate relatively honest Americans. Read Conrad Black’s comments about the American legal system’s power to intimidate rather innocent Americans.
Politicians are fearful creatures. If you attack the king, you have to kill him. Leaders like Churchill, Lincoln, Washington, Thatcher, Reagan, and Eisenhower are the exception. Such people often earn respect before moving to elective office. Fighting the establishment is also a young man’s game. Who to replace Mitch McConnell? McConnell is more of a McClellan or Meade instead of a Grant or Sherman. Let anyone have a shot at it. Inhofe and Sessions are both senior statesmen ready for a fight. If not Cruz, Cotton, or even Rubio, why not a Grassley or Portman just for a change of pace?
Who would do better as speaker? Heck, any random name would work for me. Congressman Daniel Webster, former Florida speaker, seemed like the best candidate 7 months ago. You could let Rubio run the senate and have two former Florida speakers running Congress, but Rubio wanted to rush into immigration with Schumer and quit to run for prez.
Well, cutting the size and scope of government is pretty much the opposite of governing as a socialist.
If elected, I am absolutely confident that Jeb would govern as a conservative, and that the country would be vastly better off after his term(s) in office than under any Democrat who might be nominated. He’s not at the top of my personal list at the moment. I don’t agree with him on everything, and I don’t expect to agree with any candidate on everything.
Obviously I don’t know him personally, but from everything that I’ve seen and heard, he is a fine and good man, of tremendous talent and accomplishment. I would say the same for everyone involved in the first debate, with 2 exceptions.
Fiorina appears to be a fine and good woman.
And I don’t think that I’d call Trump “fine and good,” but he is undoubtedly talented and accomplished, is often entertaining, and there is something likeable about his brashness.