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This week on Need To Know, National Review’s Mona Charen and and Jay Nordlinger mull the election results, re-cap the NR Cruise, and give some tough love to the Republican party. For example, Would Ronald Reagan be elected governor in California today? Jay thinks not — tell us what you think in the comments (paging Peter Robinson…). Also, Mona gives a the rundown of her personally prepared Thanksgiving feast. We gained weight just listening to it.
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Here’s a “boobish conservative voice” that takes great exception with Jay’s characterization of the criticism that Republicans aren’t conservative enough. He says this is a complaint that “will be with us until the end of time.” He mocks the idea that Republicans under Bush “spent too much” and so voters went out and voted for Pelosi and Obama so they could spend even more.
The one time in recent memory that Republicans tried conservatism it was wildly successful by electing Reagan. The complaint against Bush and the Republican Congress under him is not that they spent too much (which they did) but that they had a wonderful opportunity to shrink government and instead they grew it. And they gave us a recession. The voters didn’t elect Pelosi et.al. because they wanted more spending but because they didn’t “see a nickel’s worth of difference” between parties and they wanted to punish Republicans for causing the recession and for bailing out the rotten bankers. (Notice I didn’t say banks.)
By the way Jay, no one wants to exhume Jesse Helms.
As much as it pains me, I disagree with Jay on a couple of points. Yes, some poor Republican candidates were selected in the primaries, but there was quite a bit of help from cross-over voters who were supporting the weakest choices by design. Second, I too believe that McCain and other Republicans lost, in part, because Bush spent too much. Bush’s policies did damage the economy and Republicans were rightly blamed for it. That hurt the Republican “brand” (sorry Mona) and dispirited conservative voters. The irony is that Obama has doubled down on Bush’s failed policies (just as FDR’s New Deal was largely an expansion of Hoover’s failed agenda). Obama has out-spent, out-regulated, out-inflated and out-golfed Bush. Unfortunately, Republicans have never made that point.
Thank you Pili, I was dumb founded at Jay’s comments in this podcast. So many people that we think are conservative don’t seem to understand what being conservatism means or how to promote it.
Romney said corporations are people but then spent no time explaining what that means, so the left is able to portray him as a cardboard cut-out of a conservative. Jay seemed befuddled that Ted Cruz is considered a Tea Party candidate when his conservative values predate the Tea Party. Really? You don’t think he has become a “Tea Party candidate” because they recognize that he shares their views?
I really like both Mona and Jay but of the views expressed as to why the GOP failed two weeks ago only the conservative position was demeaned and called “boobish.”
I love that line about Karajan – “doesn’t matter, I’m in demand everywhere.”
I tend to agree with Jay, and I think it’s similar to Thomas Sowell’s assessment that Peter Robinson’s post refers to … this was also a judgment on the American people of this moment, and the people came up short.
I’m a conservative, not because it’s popular, but because I think it’s the right way to go (pun intended). Now if political affiliation was simply a matter of arbitrary preference, then the fact that the majority of this country doesn’t agree with me would be a mark of unending frustration.
But I still trust that, eventually, reality will win out. I believe in conservatism because I believe it reflects reality, and sooner or later, reality will win out.
The only question is whether reality will win out benignly (because we all come to our senses), or it will win malevolently (because the debt finally crushes us).
Reality is going to come either way, but I’d prefer the former.
Todd Akin was NOT the Tea Party candidate.
He was supported by Mike Huckabee, Phyllis Schlafly, and no other conservative. Huckabee, just as Bill Clinton, has massive pull in the southern half of the state as every southern/Baptist county supported him in 2008. Huckabee was on television so much endorsing Akin that I think half the Akin voters almost forgot they were voting for Akin instead of Huckabee. Akin also had some support from St. Charles County, his home base and the richest county in the state, to go along with support with some support from the poorer counties and some sneaky Claire McCaskill voters to win with 36.05% of the vote.
Theodore Bilbo? Really, Jay?
I think Mona was too hard on Romney for the 47% comment. He was right. There is a certain percentage of the population that will never vote for him no matter what he says simply because he is a rich white Republican and for whom tax cuts do not resonate because they don’t pay any federal income tax to begin with.
First . . . Jay, Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have run in California because he would’ve left it long ago for Texas, Florida, or Nevada like so many others have done. And he would’ve been Gov of one of those States.
Second . . . Jay, nobody cares, including me, that Mitt Romney is “one of the most philanthropic, charitable, decent men around.” None of those qualities gets a person elected. I’ll take a cheap S.O.B. if he’s going to shrink government and stay out of my life. And libs will take the same type of person if he’s gonna give them stuff.
Third . . . Mona, you totally, totally missed the point in regards to Romney’s “Obama is nice but he’s just out of his depth” strategy. Yes, that plan left Obama’s attacks go unanswered. But, the true miscalculation in that strategy is this: when you tell the voters your opponent is nice, you give them “an out”, no matter the economy, to voting for him, especially in this era of the low-information voter. An unforced error by Romney.
Of course, we all know Obama isn’t nice. And Romney should’ve said it.
Democrat shamelessness.
They filled my mail box with e-mails warning me that Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, and the Tea-Party Republicans were going to help the rich and take away my government benefits, er, programs that help the middle-class.
James Lileks is quick witted, who knew? Actually, everyone knows.
What I do not know is how James can muzzle himself during podcasts. How many “water board” interjections are never uttered because someone else was speaking and then the moment passes.
It’s hard to be quiet when necessary, I can’t do it.
A commonly heard phrase in Japanese is “baka-shoujiki” (foolishly honest). The 47% remark was precisely that. Yes, Romney was also painting with an excessively broad brush, but the grim truth of it remains. Contemporary American liberals are really old-fashioned leftists, who believe in the inevitability of “progress” and thus in the historically determined triumph of their cause. Conservatives share a tragic or at least an ironic vision of the human condition. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, they fervently uphold American ideals, even as they see, far more realistically than the left, how the Republic may decline and even fall, with grave consequences for us all. It seems to me that MC and JN (bless them both!) have gone beyond Romney in saying, rightly I fear, that America has indeed changed, slipping from the center-right to the center-left, both politically and culturally, and not just because of demographics. For me, having spent my foolish youth on the far left, it is truly appalling.
The Christmas album that Jay mentions is on Spotify under “The Gift of Christmas,” artists: Kevin Murphy, Heidi Grant Murphy. Very nice!
Not sure I was imagining it but for the first time I sensed some tension between the two of them.
I don’t think most voters care about left and right. I think what most voters want, fundamentally, are better lives for themselves, their neighbors, and their families.
Conservative solutions to life’s problems involve people shouldering their own burdens in conjunction with family and friends. These solutions are hard work and guarantees are not offered.
Liberal solutions to life’s problems involve the state making decisions and paying for things. These solutions are easy, and they come with stated guarantees. The government may not be able to make good on the guarantees, but the guarantees are made anyway. Also, the costs of liberal solutions (limiting productivity and growth) are not obvious to the average citizen.
Liberals are offering the public unlimited cake and promising them that it will not make them fat or induce diabetes. It’s hard to compete with that promise.
Great podcast and the spoonful of sugar was appreciated. More please…
As much as I respect Mona and Jay, I, too, did take exception to Jay’s comments about the conservative criticisms of Romney. Yes, I voted happily for him. Yet, 3 million who had voted for McCain, did not. Could they have been other conservatives who wearied of yet another Republican claiming repeatedly he would ‘reach across the aisle?’ Ack!
Because of my deep respect for Jay, I wondered if I was completely wrong – so thankful to read in these comments that those more eloquent than I had the same problem.
Todd Akin was not a Tea Party candidate (TP was split between Brunner and Steelman). Neither was Tommy Thompson, George Allen, Linda McMahon, Connie Mack.
They all lost.