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by Lisa Fabrizio |
February 8th, 2008
Conservatives need to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out the consequences of "staying home."
If you’re like me, you’re probably sitting around somewhere in the dark, trying your best to avoid all forms of media coverage of the 2008 presidential primary season. Maybe for the first time in years, you eschewed the weekend talk shows, even Fox News. And except for the crossword puzzle or the sports section, you probably refused to even open your Sunday paper, especially if it is a liberal fish-wrap like the AP-infested publication in my hometown.
Yes, if you’re anything like me you are sick of seeing headlines touting the inevitability of a John McCain nomination and tired of hearing how conservatism is dead and that its adherents had just better realize it and roll over. You’ve had it with pundits, liberal and conservative alike, who pompously quote polls like bad Shakespearian actors in an effort to influence, rather than report so-called popular opinion.
How the devil did we get here? We knew this election cycle was going to be a new experience, since Dick Cheney declared years ago that he was not interested in moving up the presidential ladder, but we thought we were in good shape. Going into the 2006 mid-term elections, GOP fortunes were still bright; George Allen seemed poised for re-election to the Senate and probably the 2008 presidential nod.
Then came Macaca-gate and the sickening spectacle of a proud conservative bowing in the face of liberal hand-wringing and pressure. Had Allen simply good-naturedly shook off the whole controversy — a la Ronald Reagan’s “the bombing begins in five minutes” gaffe — or refused to apologize as did George W. Bush in the “Clymer” incident, he’d probably be well on his way to the White House right now. Sadly, that is not the case.
Instead, we are left with a depressing scenario; a sort of death-watch, waiting for the horribly self-fulfilling prophesies of the media to manifest themselves. And it seems as if — as they almost did in 2000 when certain networks called Florida for Al Gore in order to depress Panhandle voting there — they are again basically telling conservatives to stay home, that their votes won’t matter.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. While there are still too many moderates in the fold, most Republicans yet realize that the base of the party is grounded fairly well to the Right. So much so, that our last presidential loser, Bob Dole, has stepped into the fray asking Rush Limbaugh to go easy on McCain for the good of the party should he gain the nomination. If the power of the Right was indeed waning, would Senator Dole feel compelled to issue such a letter, or more to the point; why does McCain feel it necessary to put in an appearance with the conservative base at CPAC this week?
Of course, some conservatives who are not old enough to actually remember Ronald Reagan would have similarly castigated the formerly-Democratic Gipper himself on certain issues like abortion. These folks would do well to remember the words of the Dutchman concerning the pitfalls of a slash-and-burn approach to politics:
When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything.
If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.
Wise advice from a wise man. Now that Mitt Romney has dropped out, we’ll have to live with nominee John McCain and hope that a win for him in November will at least result in a strong national defense and maybe a few crucial and competent judicial appointments. Either way, we should refuse to be beaten down by our betters in the media and hand the White House over to the Democrats; a disaster which would afford us no hope at all.
It just may be that the media don’t know everything, nor can they predict everything, even if they have ascribed to themselves that mystical power. Conservatives need to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out the consequences of ‘staying home;’ either because they’ve heard the primary race is all but over, or worse, on November 4th.
In any case, we can always cheer ourselves up by enjoying a little Schadenfreude at the expense of our opposition. It seems not all Democrats are exactly thrilled with the media’s idea of the inevitability of Mr. & Mrs. Clinton’s return to the White House either. Misery loves company.
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Responses to "Ports in a Storm"
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Lisa:
I’m hoping a lot of the "stay home or vote third party" rhetoric is just that. But unless the political unproductiveness of this strategy is pointed out, it can quickly become a self-defeating prophesy.
The Paulistinians will stay home or vote 3rd party — that’s always been a given. And some of the angst-driven anti-McCaniacs will do so too. But at the end of the day, I believe that those people who really care about things like Supreme Court nominations, and understand that politics means never getting a pure candidate, will come around once they come to their senses.
I’m convinced that the anathema for McCain is less ideological and more personal, which actually makes this process harder. My own brother can’t get over the “stick it in the Conservative’s eye” image of McCain. But like they said in one of the greatest movies of all timed, "The Dirty Dozen", why will these misfits fight the Germans when it's the Americans they hate? The answer, because the Germans haven't done anything to them — yet.
And so it will be the same, I hope, when the words “President Hillary Clinton” or “President Obama” become a real possibility, not just a distant hypothetical threat as it is now.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 8, 2008
By the way, before anyone gets the wrong impression, I wasn't implying that the anti-McCain people are "misfits". For anyone who's seen the move, I've always considered myself a cross between Posey and Gilpin.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 8, 2008
Make your own choice on voting for one of three democrats! I, on the other hand, will not. Let's review McCain for commander in chief, looks like a failure to me. Why? He is an open border and amnesty apologist. How can you pursue a "war on terrorism" unless you know who is in your country and have control of entry and exit? The war on terrorism has to start at home and McCain has no understanding of that basic principle, rather he thinks that sending our military thousands of miles away protects us.
In any event I have taken the pledge to protect our country:
I will vote, and actively work for the election of, any candidate that is willing to sign an agreement that illegal aliens may not have:
1. sanctuary,
2. jobs
3. guest worker programs
4. taxpayer funded benefits,
5. anchor baby citizenship,
6. drivers licenses
7. police no ask policy,
8. day worker centers,
9. legal services,
10. chain migration,
11. amnesty
12. Language support other than ENGLISH.
If no candidates for an elected position will sign the agreement THEN I will vote for a write-in candidate.
I also will not contribute to non-signers campaigns AND I will return their campaign material marked as REFUSED RETURN TO SENDER.
Comment by Mickey G | February 8, 2008
Of course, President Reagan was never as conservative as some of his rhetoric or as his current-day cheerleaders imply. He never traded losing for the right to be ideologically pure. He got what he could and went on with it. If the conservatives want to get rid of all of the moderate Republicans, they will have a minority party that can do nothing at all. What is the value in that?
Comment by freelunch | February 8, 2008
freelunch,
We've ascertained previously that your opinion of the Reagan presidency is biased by the results achieved by two Democratically controlled houses of congress at the time, and by the fact that Reagan was in favor of Cold War spending. That's great. We'll say, for the sake of argument, Reagan was no conservative. But we can certainly say that he didn't soft-peddle his message for the sake of getting elected anymore than he "traded losing for the right to be ideologically pure" (a statement that is rather short on validity given that it took Reagan 16 years from the first time he ran for the Republican presidential nomination and when he actually won it and got elected to office). If a conservative candidate were running, and then compromised with majority Democrats to get things accomplished while in office, that would be one thing. You're not supposed to start compromising BEFORE you get elected, or even get the nomination of your party. There's a big difference.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 8, 2008
Reagan compromised as governor of California. He compromised as President. The Senate was not always controlled by Democrats while Reagan was President and the House still had a number of very conservative Democrats in it, mostly as committee chairmen. He could get a majority when he needed it. The total deficits he ran were roughly the same as all of the defense spending. It didn't come just from the increase from baseline. Reagan, Bush and Bush have been willing to spend money, but unwilling to collect the taxes necessary to pay for that spending.
Comment by freelunch | February 9, 2008
Haha. I actually literally laughed out loud. There haven't been "very conservative Democrats" since about 1900. Certainly since 1930. And there were none by any standard in 1980. Majorities were accomplished by political leveraging. Practical compromise was sometimes necessary to do things like deregulate industries that were nearly socialized, halve the size of the federal register, reduce domestic spending, etc. Those are things which conservatives view as very favorable. Reagan accomplished them - sometimes by compromise. But he didn't run on a platform of compromise, or of bipartisanship, by any stretch of the imagination. Which might be why it took 16 years for him to get elected. Compromising to achieve your agenda is one thing. Preemptive compromise on every major issue of relevance to your party's constituents is quite another. To paraphrase a Mitt Romney quip from a couple weeks ago: there's a difference between reaching across the aisle and walking across the aisle.
Again, the defense spending under Reagan was directly related to the Cold War. It's important to keep historical context in mind when you level a charge that someone isn't conservative because he oversaw a massive military budget. Reagan's administration is considered a "peace time" administration, but the absence of active military conflict didn't really equate to "peace" or geopolitical stability. Reagan's defense spending was more analogous to wartime - and accomplished a Cold War objective. Wartime spending is always necessarily higher than normal. In any case, even with the additional spending for defense, the annual federal spending growth rate actually decreased from 4% under Carter to 2.5% under Reagan. Increasing taxes wouldn't have helped Reagan pay for an increase in defense spending either - tax rates at 70% for individuals and 48% for corporations under Carter were a large part of why the economy was stagnant with a comfortable 12% inflation rate. The economic activity generated by reducing tax RATES during the Reagan administration actually increased tax REVENUES.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 10, 2008
Patrick, I have never said and will never say that Reagan was not conservative because of the size of his military budget. I said he was not conservative because he intentionally ran massive deficits every single year. I also didn't ask him to increase taxes. I would have asked him to limit his tax cuts to responsible levels. We know he ran huge deficits because he cut taxes more than was prudent. Even he realized that and rolled back some of the irresponsible cuts, but not enough. GHWB rolled back some more of the cuts and the 'conservative' Republicans decided that Clinton should be president instead.
The economic activity generated by reducing tax RATES during the Reagan administration actually increased tax REVENUES.
You assume that there would have been no growth in the economy without tax cuts. That is not a valid assumption. You need to compare actual revenues with expected revenues. Reagan cut taxes and never made up for it with Laffer's Voodoo Economics.
Comment by freelunch | February 10, 2008
"You assume that there would have been no growth in the economy without tax cuts. That is not a valid assumption. You need to compare actual revenues with expected revenues. Reagan cut taxes and never made up for it with Laffer’s Voodoo Economics."
That's actually a very valid assumption given the previous years of history and the economic situation the United States was in. Reducing the 12% inflation that existed at the time required squeezing the money supply, which (necessarily) caused the recession of the early 80's. Recession plus increased taxes (or even stable taxes at the late 70's rates) equals… stagnation. At best. Or worse recession. Increasing tax rates during a recession was the brainchild of FDR and his Keynsian brain trust, and resulted in the Great Depression. Generally not viewed as a favorable economic policy.
If you actually understood what the Laffer curve and the accompanying theory represent, and not just the 30 second sound bites you heard on the Today show 20 years ago, you probably wouldn't consider reducing a 70% individual tax rate "Voodoo Economics". That the Laffer curve/theory exists is undisputed by economists. The only dispute is at what level increased tax rates result in diminishing returns - it's generally thought, even by the most Keynsian economists, to be around 60%. And again, the spending increase rate, even taking into consideration the large increase in defense spending, was reduced during the Reagan administration. Running temporary defecits to finance a wartime run up in defense spending is often necessary, and usually more favorable in the long run than hiking taxes (especially when they're at especially high levels - like 70%) and applying more brakes to the economy.
In any case, regardless of your opinion of the Reagan presidency, to say that he was a pseudo-conservative analogous to John McCain is absurd. I don't agree with everything he did in office, but I'd hardly call him a RINO. Like I said, compromising once you're in office in order to achieve conservative ideological goals is one thing. That's practical politics. Being ideologically at odds with your party and siding with the opposite party BEFORE you get into office isn't a compromise - you haven't traded anything, and haven't gained anything for your "side". That is McCain.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 10, 2008
Lunch;
Several factual errors…
Of the eight years Reagan was President, he submitted a BALANCED budget to the Congress for six of those years. It was the Democrats in Congress who were solely responsible for there being a deficit during those six years.
Reagan never had a Republican majority in the Senate, only a very narrow margin in the House from 1981-1983. The rest of his Presidency was hamstrung by divided government with Democrats controlling the legislature.
From the Congressional Budget Office's website:
Total federal tax receipts in 1981 were: $599 Billion
Total federal tax receipts in 1989 were: $991 Billion
While Reagonomics did indeed center on the Laffer curve, the real effect of tax cutting and wringing inflation from the economy was that the aggregate demand curve for that period shifted vertically downward and a bit left, while the aggregate movement of the supply curve was significantly to the right. Effect? Commodity prices fell, real earnings increased by about $4,000 per household, (that's after adjusting for CPIs and inflation), productivity soared.
From the Federal Reserve website and in 2000 dollars,
Real GDP for 1981: $5.3 Trillion
Real GDP for 1989: $7 Trillion
You can scoff all you like at "voodoo economics" but the numbers don't lie.
Phil;
Yes, you're not calling us misfits, just saying that we've lost our senses and that we don't really care about Supreme Court nominations. You're also mistaken about the rejection of McCain being personal rather than ideological. Everything I've read on various blogs iterates and reiterates the ideological basis for disliking McCain.
Lisa;
As Patrick pointed out, there is not equivalency between Reagan's willingness to compromise in order to get conservative initiatives enacted, and McCain's willingness to forgo conservative initiatives altogether in order to enact liberal ones.
Francis Schaeffer once wrote, " It doesn't matter whether you elect a right wing Humanist, or a left wing Humanist, you end up with a Humanist". Substitute the word "Liberal" for "Humanist" and you've caught the essence of voting for McCain. In short, the difference between McCain and a Democrat would be marginal - a matter of style points.
Regards.
Comment by Julian Cate | February 11, 2008
From the US Senate,/a> website:
97th Congress (1981-1983)
Majority Party: Republican (53 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (46 seats)
Other Parties: 1 Independent
Total Seats: 100
—————————————————————————————————-
98th Congress (1983-1985)
Majority Party: Republican (54 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (46 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100
—————————————————————————————————-
99th Congress (1985-1987)
Majority Party: Republican (53 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (47 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100
Is the rest of your research as reliable?
Comment by freelunch | February 11, 2008
Comment by freelunch | February 11, 2008
Sorry about the typo. Preview would be a nice feature here.
Comment by freelunch | February 11, 2008
If you don't believe in the numbers, look them up. She told you where they came from. A cursory Google search will return you the same results.
I like that your only retort after your entire original argument has broken down is to nitpick a 5 seat majority in one house of Congress. Conveniently missing, too, are the '79-81 Senate makeup, which was majority-Democrat by 17 seats, and the '87-'89, which was majority-Democrat by 10 seats. Reagan took office in 1981 and left in 1989, so those still "count".
The argument you were making is pretty secondary anyway. The only part really relevant to the article is that Reagan didn't run on a centrist, or leftist, platform and abandon conservative principles to get elected, as you assert. He was not a John McCain by any stretch of the imagination. Compromise to achieve one's goals is understandable and sometimes necessary. Having the same goals as the opposition, compromising conservative principles, and not gaining anything from it is not acceptable.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 11, 2008
I just realized "She" is kind of presumptuous. "Julian" is a name that could go either way, so my apologies if I picked the wrong adjective. No insult was meant.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 11, 2008
Patrick,
'79-'81 was when Carter was president. I demonstrated my claim that the Senate was not always controlled by the Democrats, rather it was controlled by the Republicans for six of the eight Reagan years. Julian directly contradicted me. I provided evidence to show that Julian was wrong. Given Julian's track record on something that simple, why should I give credence to the rest.
Reagan talked a good game, but he governed from the middle (except for his massive deficits). The hard-line conservatives in the Republican Party would object to him because he was far too much like Giuliani, McCain and Romney.
Comment by freelunch | February 11, 2008
freelunch,
True. Because congress convenes from Jan. 3 that one ended three weeks before the president was seated. My apologies.
To your point, rather than debate the accuracy of one citation based on the inaccuracy of another, why don't you actually bother to check the other citations? The sources are provided, so you don't even need to waste any valuable time using a search engine. If you find them in error because they are incorrect, that's a good reason to reject them. Rejecting them without examination because something else Julian Cate said was not correct is a logical fallacy. Feel free to fact-check the data I posted as well. You should believe those facts because they are, uh, facts. If you could take the time to look up the Senate makeup from 1980 through 1987, something tells me you probably already did check out the other facts and can't make an argument against them, so you would rather ignore the facts on the grounds that the person who posted them is not credible. Which would make perfect sense if the facts had been generated by the person who cited them, and not the sources that the citations came from. That not being the case, again, that brings us to a logical fallacy.
Your opinion of the Reagan presidency is illogical, and frankly stupid, in light of actual history and not the history that apparently happened exclusively in your mind. To address your "argument" any further would be futile and redundant. If overseeing a larger than expected military budget and granting amnesty to 3 million illegal aliens (with the false promise of better security to follow), weighed against cutting taxes, reducing spending, supporting economic policies that controlled inflation and reversed economic stagnation, deregulating industries that had been socialized or nearly socialized for decades, easing restrictions and regulations on business and banking, halving the federal register, to name just major issues - if that constitutes "governing from the center", then I'd agree that Reagan "governed from the center". Those are positions taken predominantly by the right though, and despised virulently by the left (as evidenced by the fact that the exact opposite positions were held by the Democratic president Reagan replaced), so if I had to choose a term to describe them, I'd tend to lean more towards "Right/Conservative" than "Center/Liberal". But hey, that's me. And since John McCain supports all those same positions, I guess I'd call him a "conservative" too. Why, wait a minute, John McCain doesn't support those positions at all. Silly me.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | February 12, 2008