Dan

Calabrese

Read Dan's bio and previous columns here

February 7, 2008

Ask Rush Limbaugh If Conservatism Cares About America

Movement conservatives who lament that conservatism is losing in this election cycle are right. It is losing. There are reasons for that, and an honest look at those reasons will not be pleasant for the vaunted movement.

Conservatism is out of favor at the moment not because it is the wrong philosophy of governance. It isn’t. It’s absolutely the right philosophy. It’s out of favor because its leaders have failed to apply it to address the priorities of the nation.

I hate to tell you this, but the typical American voter, unlike the typical conservative activist, is not sitting around cursing illegal immigrants, gay marriage, abortionists, left-wing media bias and gun control. Nor is the typical American sitting around wallowing in Ronald Reagan nostalgia.

Most Americans’ priorities are decidedly non-ideological. Will I have my job? Can I pay my mortgage and my grocery bill? Are my kids safe? Is the country safe? Will I be able to get health care if I need it?

Pretty straightforward stuff, really. And conservative thinking has the best answers. But movement conservatives aren’t offering them. Unless you think “I have a 95 rating from the American Conservative Union” is an answer.

Since every conservative wants to talk about Reagan, let’s remember why Reagan succeeded. In 1980, Reagan identified a few key things that addressed the hopes of the nation. He would cut taxes because we needed economic growth to create jobs. He would get inflation and interest rates under control. He would rebuild our scandalously weak defenses and stand up to the Soviets. He would slash regulations because they were getting in the way of prosperity. He would cut federal spending because government was too big.

These were the needs of the nation in 1980. Reagan didn’t go around saying, “Elect me because I’m conservative.” He convinced voters he understood the priorities of that particular time, and he convinced them he would do what he said he would do. And with the exception of cutting spending, he did. That’s why he won, and that’s why he’s now an icon. He applied conservative thinking to the problems of the day, developed solutions and convinced people he was the man to achieve the solutions.

When John McCain and Mitt Romney stand on a stage having a silly argument over which is the real conservative, do you seriously think the typical voter cares? The typical voter says, “Lay out the priorities of the nation, and tell me what you’ll do about them. Then you can have my vote.”

So why isn’t the conservative movement doing this? Consider:

For a conservative thinker, prosperity requires short-term growth and long-term spending restraint (requiring a serious reform of entitlements, especially Social Security). Health care access requires market-oriented solutions, less government intrusion, fewer regulations, more individual purchasing power and an end to tort abuse. Keeping the nation safe requires an aggressive assault against our enemies. Keeping our kids safe means a commitment to law enforcement that trumps civil liberties fetishes.

So talk about that. Oh. There’s a problem.

There is a conservative who did some of that, and tried to do the rest of it. His name is George W. Bush. He is unpopular. (Oh, and a lot of the people who stopped him from doing the things left undone were cowardly conservatives.) The conservative agenda can’t be Bush’s agenda, because people are tired of Bush and want “change.”

Well. Barack Obama would be a big change. Hillary Clinton would be a big, self-serving, narcissistic change.

Mike Huckabee has survived in the race this long because, to his credit, he has addressed the issues people care about. He will not and should not win because he doesn’t have the right solutions (among other reasons). But at least he is addressing the issues that matter.

A conservative who connects with people on the things they care about, and explains why each can and should be addressed by a conservative answer, can win. But it’s the substance of the answer that matters, not the conservative label.

Rush Limbaugh and like-minded talker Laura Ingraham both expressed a similar complaint with McCain in the days leading up to Super Tuesday. They said he doesn’t care about conservatism.

Maybe Limbaugh, Ingraham and their cohorts in the movement need to convince average Americans that conservatism cares about them. Conservatism exists to serve America, not the other way around.

The right solutions are conservative ones. There’s no question about that. But with most of the stuff conservatives have been talking about lately, would it really be a surprise if the electorate doesn’t know that?

This is Column # DC150.  Request permission to publish here.