WASHINGTON — If you talk to conservatives around D.C., and they
ignore conventional wisdom and give you a pure “wish list” of the
candidates they most want to win this fall regardless of how polls
look now, three names stand out: U.S. Sens. Rick Santorum and Jim
Talent of Pennsylvania and Missouri, respectively, and Ohio
gubernatorial candidate (currently Secretary of State) Kenneth
Blackwell.
Here’s saying that none of the three is a lost cause.
First, let’s examine Santorum’s predicament. For months he has
led every list of “most vulnerable Republican Senate incumbents.”
Recent polls still put him behind opponent Bob Casey Jr. by low
double-digits. Cognoscenti say that Santorum is suffering
politically not just because he is a make-no-apologies conservative
in a slightly left-leaning state, but also because he gives off an
air of arrogance and a refusal to listen even to the friendliest of
critics.
But consider that a senator who stands on conservative principle
amidst all the Beltway pressures needs a rather thick skin of a
sort that often comes off as a form of arrogance. On issue after
issue after issue, Santorum has stood firm while others caved in.
Most insiders, for instance, say that Santorum has been
particularly impressive in pushing within the Senate leadership for
diligence in confirming conservative judges. As disappointing as
the Senate’s performance on that issue has been, word is that it
would have been even worse without Santorum there. And that issue
will almost certainly be of crucial importance in the next two
years: Santorum on Sept. 26 told a group of conservative bloggers
that he fully expects “at least one more vacancy in the next few
years” on the Supreme Court.
As for Santorum’s political prospects, it’s worth remembering
that when he first ran for the House, the NRCC thought he had so
little chance that it virtually ignored his race — but he came
from behind to win, on his own. Then, when he ran for Senate the
first time, he was again seen as an underdog — and he won again.
Then he won re-election in another tough year. This time around,
his fellow Pennsylvanian senator Arlen Specter a few months ago at
a Spectator dinner gave a “guarantee” that Santorum would
win. Said Santorum to the bloggers two weeks back, “We have an
incredibly strong grassroots organization.”
All of which is why if Santorum is within even six points in the
final pre-election polls, he has a chance to pull out the victory.
If he is within five points, I predict he will actually win. The
little-understood reality of this election year is that
conservatives are being under-polled. If you asked me, for
instance, if I am happy with the job that President Bush is doing
or that the Republican Congress is doing, I would say “no.” But if
you give me a good conservative to vote for, I will go out of my
way to vote for him. And if you put Bush on the ballot versus a
liberal Democrat, I will still vote for Bush even without much
enthusiasm — and I will make more certain to go to the polls in
the first place because I have a conservative (like Santorum) to
vote for. I think lots of people are like that. Finally, what is
misunderstood is that non-ideological voters will respond to strong
conservative appeals from candidates who are clearly people of
integrity who say what they mean and mean what they say. Ronald
Reagan showed that conservative candidates, boldly presented,
attract “swing” voters.
SOME OF THE SAME CONSIDERATIONS give Ken Blackwell more of a chance
to win the uphill battle for the Ohio governorship than is
generally acknowledged. Blackwell also has a tremendous grassroots
organization, which includes significant support in black churches.
(He claims to have earned around 40 percent of the black vote in
each of his three previous statewide elections, all of them
successful, in Ohio.) “We’re going to win the African American
community,” he told a group of conservative bloggers on July 25.
“We’re going to start the great re-alignment.”
Plus, Blackwell has the sort of charisma that inspires
volunteers to go all-out to elect him. He’s an imposing, impressive
figure, yet he’s personally very approachable and warm. And he has
a way of making his words stick: He not only makes good sense, but
he is effective at making listeners understand that he makes good
sense. Among his gems from his conservative-blogger interview in
July: “It’s a simple principle: Capital seeks the path of least
resistance and most opportunity.” And: Ohio’s “regulatory
nightmare” and high taxes have created a situation where “risk
taking has itself been put at risk.” And: “The flip side of poverty
is wealth creation….There is an upward-mobility tradition in our
society” — a tradition he intends to tap into. And: Poor people,
especially African Americans, must “build an asset base that
actually wins the war on poverty.” And, thank goodness: “I don’t
govern by the editorial pages.”
On economics, Blackwell melds the best of Jack Kemp and John
Kasich. On cultural issues, he melds the best of Lynne Cheney and
Bill Cosby. All of which is why conservatives say they can’t afford
to count Blackwell out until the last vote is counted.
FINALLY, LET US CONSIDER Sen. James Talent of Missouri, whose
talent as a legislator should count as an ace in the hand.
If readers will excuse a personal digression, I use that “ace in
the hand” language deliberately. I first became a particular fan of
Talent’s one day about a decade ago when I found myself sitting in
for two or three hands of a bridge game with Talent and several
other Republicans. My bridge game was rusty and I was out of my
league, but I knew enough about the game to recognize the excellent
mind of a truly fine player when I saw one. That excellent mind
belonged to Talent — and, in truth, skill at bridge is a relevant
one for a lawmaker. Forget the game’s musty image as a relic of
aging grandparents: Played right, it requires every bit of the
“people skills” and boldness of poker, but at a far higher
intellectual level.
A good bridge player, like a good legislator, remembers not just
where the cards are but how each player has wielded them in past
hands — and must be both highly effective analytically and able to
communicate well with a partner who may have different ideas. And
while it may be a cliche, there really is something to
say, both in bridge and in Congress, for knowing how to play one’s
cards well. Bridge requires many of the same tactical skills that
are necessary for effective legislating. They are skills sorely
lacking in the Republican leadership today.
Meanwhile, conservative insiders know James Talent as a man of
high principle and integrity. He’s a conservative through and
through, but he’s impossible to portray as an extremist. Instead,
he has a record, Reagan-like, of working effectively across the
aisle for conservative ends. A great case in point is the
legislation that he and J.C. Watts spearheaded, when Talent was in
the House of Representatives, to create “community renewal”
projects that effectively amounted to the next generation of Jack
Kemp’s famous “empowerment zones.” One problem was that
then-President Bill Clinton wanted credit for inner-city renewal,
but he kept pushing versions of the idea that involved typical
liberal giveaways more than real market incentives and personal
responsibility. It took about five years of patient negotiation,
but Talent, aided by a superb hand-picked staff, held firm for
including both conservative economic and conservative
cultural elements in the package.
Indeed, when Joe Lieberman was chosen as Al Gore’s running mate
in 2000, one reason a group called “American Atheists” sharply
criticized the choice was that Lieberman was a chief co-sponsor of
what the atheists called “the ‘Talent-Watts’ bill” which, the
atheists sourly noted, “would use a combination of tax credits and
government grants to promote faith-based drug and alcohol rehab
programs and other outreaches.”
In the end, Talent and Clinton reached an accord and the bill
was made law — mostly along Talent’s more conservative lines.
Talent also had a large hand in designing the wildly successful
welfare reform law of 1996.
For months now, Jim Talent has been running about even in the
polls with popular challenger Claire McCaskill. But he thoroughly
outclassed her in a recent debate, and he is accustomed to the
rigors of races that go down to the wire. It is near-universal
wisdom among national conservatives that his re-election campaign
is the linchpin for conservative legislative hopes in the next
Congress.
Every pundit in the land knows that Talent can win his
race. Every knowledgeable conservative will try to see that he
does.
