Dan
Calabrese
Read Dan's bio and previous columns here
January 24, 2008
Fred Thompson Wasn’t a
Conservative Champion, But Then No One Is
The end of Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign – in case you didn’t
know it had ever begun – has brought cries of the fall of the republic
among much of the conservative blogosphere and on right-wing message
boards.
Thompson didn’t attract a lot of national attention, but a great many
doctrinaire conservatives were FredHeads because they considered
Thompson the “one true conservative” in the race. Well, one of two if
you count Duncan Hunter, who dropped out the day before Thompson.
The rest of the Republican field is so unsatisfying to self-described
conservative purists, many see little reason to bother showing up to
vote, and little difference between any of them and either Hillary
Clinton or Barack Obama.
The leading lament, in the wake of all this, is that the Republican
Party has turned its back on true conservatism, and has become little
more than a big-government party with a bit more of a pro-military,
pro-business bent.
Let’s consider the possibility that the converse explanation is true.
The Republican Party hasn’t turned its back on conservatism so much as
conservative leaders have failed to earn the party’s leadership mantle.
The Republican Party believes in one thing – winning. When a
conservative president was carrying 49 states, the GOP was a
conservative party to its core. There’s a reason you hear so much Ronald
Reagan talk these days. He was the last conservative politician in
America to not only set a conservative agenda but achieve it. He did it
in California, then he proposed to do it for the whole country. And when
he got the chance, he succeeded a lot more than he failed.
This year’s field of candidates did not include any conservative whose
achievements would recommend him for such a mantle of leadership. But
then, if you went looking for a conservative like that in the entire
country, who exactly would you find?
Conservatives had a golden opportunity to fundamentally alter the
governance of the nation when they won control of Congress in 1994. It
became a super-golden opportunity in 2000 when they won the presidency
too.
They failed. Spending is not under control. Tax rates are lower, but the
tax code is fundamentally what it was under Bill Clinton. The nation has
made no progress on energy independence. Health care works pretty much
the same way it did back when Hillary Clinton almost made it the
stepping stone to institutionalized socialism. Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid are the same big-government monstrosities Franklin
Roosevelt created in the 1930s. Even conservative successes, most
notably those in foreign policy, are run from rather than embraced by
leading conservatives – because they don’t poll well.
What if Republicans, in the six years they controlled both Congress and
the White House, had seized the initiative on these issues? What if they
had limited federal spending increases to just the rate of inflation? Or
actually cut spending in real terms? What if they had truly reformed and
simplified the tax code? What if they had enacted free-market reforms in
health care and entitlements? What if we were actually drilling our own
domestic oil resources?
There is no doubt in my mind that if the Republican Congress had brought
these reforms to George W. Bush at any point in his presidency, he would
have signed every one of them. And if that had happened, the
congressional leaders who spearheaded the reforms would, today, be
heroes of the conservative movement. One of them would be heading for
the GOP nomination by acclimation, and there would be no hand-wringing
about how we have to settle for squishy moderates and vote for a lesser
evil.
The time for a conservative leader to emerge and shine was when the GOP
ran the show in Washington. But they elected leaders, like Dennis
Hastert in the House and Bill Frist in the Senate, who may have had
conservative voting records, but didn’t seize the opportunity and change
history. They tolerated big-spending committee chairmen like
California’s Jerry Lewis, and pork-barreling pigs like Alaska’s Don
Young, because they had seniority.
You can’t tell me there were no true conservatives in those majorities.
There were plenty of them. Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey were policy
visionaries, and the ideas Gingrich is putting forward today are
fascinating. But when he had the most power to enact the most change, he
didn’t get it done. Neither did Armey. Neither did Trent Lott, who was
one of the conservative Young Turks of the House before he became a
historically inconsequential Senate Majority Leader.
Conservatives should have changed this country after 1994, and
especially after 2000. They had their chance. I realize they didn’t have
absolute power, but they had no business controlling Congress for 12
years, and controlling Congress and the presidency for six, and
achieving so little.
Fred Thompson, as a presidential candidate, declared his support for
conservative ideas. But he was part of that Republican majority, and he
never turned any of those ideas into reality when he had the chance.
Neither did any other conservative when he or she had the chance.
If
the conservative movement wants a conservative nominee, it should take
care not to waste its next shot at power. There is a reason the
Republican Party is not about to nominate a great conservative champion.
None exist.
© 2008 North Star
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