Will there be a Democratic wave? It was forecast in the polls
for weeks and months, purporting to show that the Republicans would
be washed out of power in the same way they were carried in twelve
years ago. The so-called “generic” polls — showing party
preference, not candidates — had the Dems up by large and
seemingly consistent margins that promised Democratic control of
the next Congress. The Newsweek generic congressional poll
(November 2-3) had the Democrats up by a 16-point margin. We saw
it, too, in the Time generic congressional numbers
(November 1-3) that had the Dems up by 15 points. But what shall we
make of the ABC News-Washington Post generic congressional
poll (November 1-4) that had the Dems up by only 6, a sudden drop
of 10 points? It might be that that the momentum has shifted in
time to save Republicans from themselves. It’s just as possible
that Republicans may remain in the majority in both the House and
the Senate, or lose at least the House. So what? Two things.
First, whatever happens tomorrow, American politics will descend
into a pit of rancor that hasn’t been opened since the years before
the Civil War. Then, Senators beat each other with canes on the
Senate floor. (Those of us who would pay money to see Bob Byrd and
Ted Stevens beating each other over the head with copies of
pork-laden appropriations bills should calm down.) Second,
conservatives are at a moment that requires of us some
introspection and reinvention. Whatever happens, we need to
reexamine where we are, how we got there, and begin — right now,
today — to chart a path to 2008. We are at this pass because
George W. Bush let us down.
History will call George W. Bush many things but “conservative”
won’t be one of them. In his two terms as president his
conservative achievement consists of the appointment of two solid
conservatives to the Supreme Court. But even one of them — Justice
Alito — had to be forced on Bush by a conservative rebellion
against the risible nomination of Harriett Miers. Mr. Bush also
must get credit for cutting taxes and sticking to the cuts (but
this credit is given only grudgingly by those of us who insist that
the Bush government spending boom was inexcusable.) The
conservative movement that had unified under Ronald Reagan is now
suffering an intellectual diaspora. The conservative base is as
solid as ever, but there is no discernible conservative leadership
in Washington. Conservatives are seeking it everywhere, but that
quality is elusive and isn’t found in McCain, Hagel, Frist or any
of the other likely Senatorial suspects. The challenge for us is to
help gather ourselves together, dust ourselves off and get back
into the fight in time to elect a conservative president in
2008.
We have to realize is that we are more a coalition than a
movement. Liberals are quick to insist that conservatives are
monolithic, that there is no independent thought among us. But one
important difference between liberals and conservatives today is
that there really is a monolith called liberalism that has no
parallel among conservatives. If we are to re-unite, we need to
recognize who we are and set about working with each other.
First, are the cultural conservatives: those most concerned with
the religious and moral devolution of our nation including the
religious right and those who we used to call Reagan Democrats.
They are an enormously potent force, but now are limited in the
scope of issues they engage on: abortion, gay marriage and such.
They are a core constituency for cutting government spending.
Second, the paleos. The Buchanan isolationists who refuse to
exercise American power, want to withdraw from the engagement in
Iraq, from alliance with Israel and erect trade barriers against
China. But, like the cultural conservatives, they want less
government. Third are the Neocons, more rightly (since 9-11)
labeled neo-Wilsonians. They believe America can and must remake
the world in its own image. They think democracy is a weapon, not a
system of government. They are big-time spenders, and not much
interested in reducing the size of government. Fourth are the
Endgame Conservatives. These are people who put the vast majority
of their energy into thinking about putting the Islamist genie back
in the bottle and who don’t care who rules nations such as Iraq.
They want to fight the war with all the speed and violence we can
muster. Endgame Cons condemn the neo-Wilsonians for doing what Bush
does, tolerating the intolerable, accepting the unacceptable and
thus letting the enemy control the pace and direction of the war.
Endgame Cons find common ground with cultural conservatives once
they recognize that, though winning the war has to be our first
priority, they can’t win it alone.
President Bush, in both campaigns, promised a conservative
agenda but delivered something else. In 2004, he promised —
clearly and often — to divorce American foreign policy from the
United Nations. John Kerry promised multilateralism, but that’s
what Bush produced. On the domestic side, Bush did everything to
increase government spending. So-called “conservatives” in Congress
took advantage of Bush’s spendthrift ways. Ted Stevens, long-time
Appropriations Committee chairman, at one point threatened to
resign from the Senate if his “bridges to nowhere” were de-larded
from an appropriations bill, and they weren’t. Illegal immigration
was perhaps the worst Bush betrayal of conservative beliefs.
So what’s left of Conservatism? Everything Ronald Reagan
appealed to is still there. It could revert to a “silent majority”
because no Republican leader has dedicated himself to it and worked
to unify it. Conservatives, unlike liberals, adhere to a set of
principles: (1) A strong America, acting in its own interests, in
foreign affairs and without waiting for the UN to give us
permission. They want to define the war we’re in clearly, aim
whatever it takes to defeat the enemy, and restore whatever level
of pre-9-11 peace can be achieved; (2) preservation of America’s
Constitution, religious freedom and culture (which means refusing
to compromise on things such as illegal immigration, late-term
abortion, and phony “rights” which serve to separate Americans from
their responsibilities of citizenship); (3) fiscal responsibility,
tax cuts and commensurate cuts in the size of government and
government spending. There’s a conservative agenda we can re-unify
around. We need a leader to rally around and it’s up to us to test
the applicants. Let no faux-conservatives apply.
These next two years should be a time of a conservative
renaissance. We can’t afford to waste any of that time arguing over
who’s to congratulate or blame for the results of 2006. As the
Gipper said, it’s morning in America. Or it can be if we dedicate
ourselves to making it so.
TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are
Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004) and, with Edward
Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United
States (Regnery, 2006).
