The American Spectator

Political Hay

LBJ's List and the Conservative Challenge

By Jeffrey Lord on 6.10.08 @ 12:08AM

(Page 2 of 2)

The disturbing thing in all this is that there are in fact Republicans out there -- no names please -- who look at a list of LBJ's legislation and immediately assume the posture of what Goldwater called the dime store Republican. You know the approach. "I agree with my distinguished opponent in principle, but I would reduce the funding for this program by..."

WHICH BRINGS US HOME to the central fact for conservatives in this election season. The Obama policies -- which are in fact the LBJ policies as presented by a better orator -- will in fact fail. The principle behind them -- government control -- simply does not work. If it did Medicare and Medicaid would not be headed toward financial ruin, Social Security would be in the black as far as the eye can see, and the citizens of New Orleans, like the school children of Detroit -- beneficiaries one and all of LBJ's largesse -- would be in an infinitely better place than they are today.

Forty-four years ago this year the seeds of the conservative success that would flower with the leadership of Ronald Reagan were firmly rooted in the landslide that elected Lyndon Johnson. It is not without irony that the power to transform the liberal agenda into the list LBJ cited so proudly in his memoirs eventually backfired and backfired badly, fueling the Reagan Revolution. Lyndon Johnson took FDR's New Deal and ran the string out to its logical conclusion in the American system -- and Americans, appalled at the cost, the bureaucracy, the extravagance and the incompetence, finally rebelled. The bill for LBJ's list had come due.

Barack Obama has without doubt now lashed himself irrevocably to the 21st century version of LBJ's domestic agenda. What should disturb liberals is that even if Obama manages to make it past John McCain in the general election, he is headed for a presidency, like LBJ's, that will leave a legacy of failure. LBJ's failures, reinforced by the mercifully brief disaster of Jimmy Carter, helped ensure the defeat of seven post-LBJ Democratic presidential nominees who voluntarily assumed his mantle. Even the supposedly unbeatable Bill Clinton could not muster fifty percent of the vote in either of his elections, something Ronald Reagan had no problem with in the three-way 1980 election. To underline the point, after watching Clinton spend his first two years trying to jam an LBJ-style health care plan through the Congress, Americans gave control of both House and Senate to the GOP for the first time in over four decades.

Just as oysters need irritation for pearls, the next golden age of conservatism hovers at the edge of an Obama presidency.

YET WHETHER OBAMA or McCain wins the White House, the challenge for conservatives in 2008 is to illustrate conservative principles with a sharp and vivid clarity. To understand them, to teach them -- and yes to fight for them. Relentlessly, no matter who is president or who controls the Congress. To fight in Washington, sure. On the campaign trail, yes. But most particularly in the media, making the case no matter what Republican candidates or office holders do or do not do.

If the Republican Party of 1964 learned anything -- and they didn't learn it all at once way back then either -- it is that elections are about principles, not candidates. The paradigm-shifting 1964 election was not about Goldwater any more than the 1980 election was about Reagan or the 2008 election is about McCain. In the post-1964 world, conservative principles faithfully understood and represented will win. When you run from them, in an elusive search for the fool's gold of a phantom popularity with liberals, you will lose. You will lose an election or you will lose your office or you will lose your legacy.

More to the point? If you call yourself a conservative yet think it's your job to add to LBJ's list, you will deserve to lose.

Jeffrey Lord is the creator, co-founder, and CEO of QubeTV, an online conservative video site. A Reagan White House political director and author, he writes from Pennsylvania.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Health Care, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Social Security, Medicaid, Environment, Law, NATO, Conservatism, Immigration, Oil, Medicare