The American Spectator

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Richard Viguerie Weighs In

10.30.07 @ 12:01AM

CONSERVATIVES AND ROE
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Dr. Dobson and Justice Bork:

Dear Mr. Lord:

I read with great interest your recent American Spectator article, "Dr. Dobson and Justice Bork," in which you blame conservatives for the U.S. Senate's 1987 failure to confirm President Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court and the subsequent survival of Roe v. Wade. You use that incident to support your recommendation that conservatives settle for the "half-loaf" of pro-abortion Republican candidates as a path to overturning the 1973 decision.

I don't see any evidence supporting your conclusion that Roe v. Wade is "the conservative legacy" at which "the late Justice Harry Blackmun must be smiling." I find in your article only anecdotes, relying on a few 20-year-old conversations with anonymous conservatives, and some vague unhappiness with some Republican senators from unidentified sources to support your article's far-reaching conclusion. This is very thin gruel on which to blame conservatives and by implication the conservative movement for the Republican loss of the Senate in the 1986 elections.

It seems to me that a more robust analysis of the historical record points to the conclusion that it was moderate/liberal Republicans, not conservatives, who caused the GOP to lose the Senate in the 1986 elections, which you infer led inevitably to the Bork defeat and the survival of Roe.

There was no Reagan Senate during 1981-86. There was a Republican Senate, and President Reagan's conservative agenda was weakened by the big-government proponents in his own party. Many of these establishment Republicans went down to defeat because they did not advance the Reagan agenda.

In your own writings you acknowledge how Abraham Lincoln and Reagan were viewed in their times as "extremists" who "looked at the center and saw the need to move it." Lincoln, of course, helped move the country on the issue of slavery, and Reagan on communism.

Dr. James Dobson, whose appeal to "moral principle" you criticize, would surely have been on the morally principled -- and ultimately victorious -- side on the issue of slavery, as he is on abortion today.

Establishment Republicans, who have squandered the election victories won by millions of conservative activists, are now laying the groundwork to blame Dr. Dobson and those many conservative activists for 2008's expected thumpin'. That's a typical and tired Establishment ploy. It won't work.

Republican strategists who lay anticipatory blame for potential political losses at the feet of moral, principled conservatives ignore what Lincoln, Reagan and their supporters did, which even now, using your own words, "is universally viewed as the bedrock of the American political center."

The Republican Party historically loses elections when it turns its back on its conservative base. Don't try to blame Dr. Dobson and the millions of conservatives for insisting that the Republican Party stick to principles when it has been the party leaders who have wandered, and not just on abortion, but on government spending and many other so-called "Republican brand" issues.
-- Richard A. Viguerie
author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006)

Jeffrey Lord replies:
Thanks to Richard Viguerie for his forthright response on my recent article "Dr. Dobson and Justice Bork."

To begin, so that there is no mistake, I am recommending no candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, much preferring that the process and conservative primary and caucus voters work their will. The focus here is about principle in politics, not about picking personalities. And I certainly agree that there was no "Reagan Senate" between 1981-1986 but rather, just as Mr. Viguerie says, a "Republican Senate." Yet even Mr. Viguerie admits that "many of these Establishment Republicans went down to defeat because they did not advance the Reagan agenda." That, of course, is precisely my point. But while some of these candidates did not support all of the Reagan agenda, they did support pieces of it, and their mere physical presence in majority numbers guaranteed that the Reagan agenda did, in many critical respects, get a hearing and a vote as provided by the Senate leadership machinery.

Under no circumstances am I critical of Dr. Dobson (or others) for appealing to "moral principle." Bravos all around. I am certainly on board with the Viguerie assertion that Establishment Republicans have squandered victories won by conservatives. And yes, I have not the slightest doubt that if there is a GOP "thumpin'" in 2008, Establishment types will be out there blaming Dr. Dobson for the loss just as they blamed Goldwater or Reagan in 1964. But this isn't 1964, it's post-Reagan 2007 and there is a considerable conservative army that simply learned decades ago how utterly eternal and bogus the allegation will always be. The plea to be Hillary-lite will be dismissed (just as was the idea that we could be Lyndon-lite or Jimmy-lite). As a matter of fact I cited an original version of this (in the 2006 December issue of The American Spectator) that popped up in paperback book form barely a month after the Goldwater defeat. It's a very old dog, it will be set loose yet again if there is a 2008 loss, and it will never hunt.

Mr. Viguerie and I do seem to disagree, or perhaps the better phrase is talk past one another, on one point. I do not blame conservatives for losing elections because they take conservative positions. To the contrary. Given a choice between a real liberal and a liberal-lite, voters will take the real thing every time. Never would I advocate that conservatives seek to be the un-conservative. It's bad politics and, as we have found all too often, dreadful governance as Goldwater so aptly pointed out with the phrase "dime store New Deal." I do blame conservatives for walking into a general election voting booth long after the primary choices have been settled, knowing something as important as Roe v. Wade is at stake, having a full understanding of how the Constitution has set up the legislative, executive and judicial machinery and deliberately taking a pass because the GOP candidate is imperfect.

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