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The Current Crisis
Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
WASHINGTON -- What a wonderful morn! Campaign '08 is a corpse. Step gently around it. Offer a gentle wave of the hand to those poor wretches over in the corner looking forlorn and lost. Those are the political junkies. They have awakened every day for almost two years eager for the electioneering fray: first the primaries, where Hillary was "inevitable" and Rudy the likely Republican candidate. Then they heaved and sweated for Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain. Now the election is over, and they are in withdrawal.
Yet, most of the rest of us have reason to be relieved and frankly a bit proud of our country. Yes, the campaign was a blare of competing rhetorical sophistications. It was rare that either candidate uttered an applause line that did not either begin with a deceit or end with one. Senator Obama's yawp about giving 95% of us a tax cut is a comely example -- after all some 40% of his targeted audience pay no income taxes. And Senator McCain's rant against Wall Street for the financial crisis is another. The crisis began with those subprime mortgages from Fannie and Freddie and was exacerbated by cheap money and recklessly low interest rates from the Department of the Treasury and from the Fed.
Most of the rest of us can be proud of how this election has concluded. The United States has elected an African American to the presidency two generations after Jim Crow. There was no violence and very little playing of the race card. Senator Obama ran a deft campaign and his Chicago advisors created a formidable machine -- pardon the term. He is from Chicago, and so am I. We know what a Chicago machine has been, and frankly I have not been reassured when I have heard him sing that he is running against "thirty years of broken politics in Washington." Does he mean he is bringing in "fixed politics"? We from Chicago know what "fixed politics" has meant in Chicago, and there the fix has been in for more than "thirty years."
Yet beyond my little play on words, I, a Reagan conservative through and through, join with so many of my fellow Americans in taking pride in this election. Old Europe has disdained this country for years as racially prejudiced, though for years some of our most beloved popular figures have been African Americans. At this point we have had black generals in our military, black members of our presidential cabinets, black Supreme Court justices, black political leaders throughout the states, and black CEOs all over the lot. No European nation has shown such tolerance to color, ethnic origins, or religious and political disagreement. Spare us your canards about racial prejudice in the Great Republic, and may I remind our European critics that 2009, the year in which Senator Obama will be inaugurated to the presidency, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.
Aside from the political junkies, there is another tiny coterie of gloomy souls this week, the Clintonistas. Doubtless the gloomiest among them is the downcast former Boy President. He is actually, according to my sources, quite angry. With the election of Senator Obama, Bill Clinton's days of White House revelry are finito. He has wanted to get back in the White House for years. Relatively unreported, but nonetheless true, he wanted his wife to run in 2004. We saw how passionately he campaigned for her in 2008. Yet a return of the Clintons was never to be. As I said as early as the spring of 2007 in The Clinton Crack-Up (and in an interview with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN), the "inevitable" Hillary was "going to have real problems getting the nomination." She faced a serious challenge from a younger generation of Democrats that found its candidate in the junior senator from Illinois.
As I also reported, her husband is a dreadful campaigner for anyone but himself. When she turned to him in the primaries she apparently knew nothing of his limitations. In 2004 of the 14 candidates he campaigned for 12 lost. In the closing days of this campaign when the former president campaigned for Senator Obama, we saw why he is so dreadful in campaigning for others. To Senator Obama's visible chagrin, Bill talked about himself first then his White House advisors. When he finally referred to the 2008 Democratic candidate sitting nearby, he only diminished him. Now Bill is a has-been and the historians are going to note his failed presidency.
In the months ahead. we are going to be hearing that the Reagan conservatives are has-beens too. Well, we shall see. Critics have been writing obituaries for the conservative movement since 1964. I recall their pessimistic reports with great clarity in 1987. That was when the Reagan Revolution was supposedly finished off by Iran-Contra and a stock market decline. In the years ahead, the principles of Reagan conservatism came to be adopted even by Democrats. The reason is clear. Those principles protect personal liberty, encourage prosperity, and protect American national security.
In the coming months, the conservative movement will regroup. It will refine its principles for the present needs of the nation: growth, personal liberty, and national security. It will find the next generation of conservative political leaders. If President Obama really makes good on his promise to return to the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s, a revitalized conservative movement will be back on top sooner than one might expect. Recall if you will that this happened two years after the Clintons brought "change" to Washington in 1992.
Bob Tyrrell is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. His books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; and The Clinton Crack-Up.
He makes frequent appearance on national television and is a nationally syndicated columnist, whose articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, National Review, Harper's, Commentary, The (London) Spectator, Le Figaro (Paris), and elsewhere.
Bob is also an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute and a contributing editor to the New York Sun.
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Craig Goodrich| 11.6.08 @ 6:22AM
It may be worth emphasizing here that the only accomplisment of the New Deal was to stretch a short, sharp, painful recession into a long decade of stagnation and suffering, leaving us with a legacy of entitlements and dependency which, like zombies in the horror movies, threaten to kill us while they themselves refuse to die.
It also may be worth recalling that FDR didn't run in '32 on a New Deal platform; he promised reduced Federal expenditures and a reduction in government size and intrusiveness. His immediate about-face from his promises may be what really makes FDR the first "modern" politician.
Obama was elected by the mass media. They will keep him in office and popular as he finishes the destruction of the country. Conservatives have been saying, "Wake up, America" for a long time now without notable success, 1994 to the contrary notwithstanding. I hope your optimism is vindicated, but I'm not holding my breath...
bluecollarbytes| 11.6.08 @ 8:35AM
CG, yes, PopMedia will still be in Obama's pocket.
And I happen to think Obama the activist isn't going to slow down so Republicans can catch up. The Party needs new blood. But unless Obama overreaches in his immediate goals, it looks to be a long haul. Optimism is always a better motivator than pessimism {and much easier to live with}.
Vern Crisler| 11.6.08 @ 9:46AM
I think all this talk about being proud that a black man was elected to the presidency is misguided. Who cares what the color of a man's skin is? In fact, obsession with skin color shows just how little we've progressed in some respects since Jim Crow.
Nigel Assam| 11.6.08 @ 9:56AM
As for the race card, Obama's campaign, and for his media enablers, this was all about race.
J.A. Davis| 11.6.08 @ 10:24AM
As always, RET is spot on. While I voted for Mac, like RET, I can acknowledge the historical importance and wish the President elect well. In addition, I will never throw John McCain under the bus. Curious what little Tracy McCain has done for this Republic beyond his little throw away missives tossed off in the dead of the night? Stay in front of your computer "little" McCain. Others will be in the arena.
Mrs. Jackson| 11.6.08 @ 1:33PM
Any word on whether the oceans have begun to rise?
Raymond| 11.6.08 @ 3:27PM
No, RET, unfortunately,the historians are NOT going to note a failed Clinton presidency. The histories will be (and many already have been) written by the Left and, in their twisted telling, the 1990s shine like an Augustan Age. Like all fantasies of the Left, reality stands on its head and turns into its opposite. Everything they accuse the Right of doing and being are exactly what they do and are. The Boy President will come out smelling like a rose even though the rest of us will be holding our noses.
Skip| 11.6.08 @ 4:25PM
The major problems with the Republican party since Reagan, have been its inability to cultivate and promote strong, next-generation leaders as successors to a sitting president; its unwillingness to identify the old, weak and morally repugnant in its ranks and cut them off and its inability to stand up to the media by getting out in front of stories and selling to the media.
Reagan cultivated HW who was younger, a strong leader, a war hero with a CIA background and a solid VP. HW succeeded Reagan but then what happened? In order to carry Ohio, the unknown, untested, un-sold Dan Quayle was seemingly pulled out of a hat and thrust upon HW. He was JFK'd by Benson in the VP debate and then failed a spelling bee. Quayle should have been replaced by HW as the VP pick for a second term by a charismatic hero like Norman Shwartzkopf or a state governor that should have been groomed right after the Murphy Brown debacle. As much as I respect and admire Dick Cheney, he should have moved out for W's second run at the White House, citing health reasons and been replaced by Colin Powell, Tommy Franks, Condolezza Rice or a strong state governor like Mike Huckabee. The GOP should have annointed the successor to W.
And lastly, teh GOP must get rid of the morally repugnant trash like Stevens, Craig and Foley before they bribe, tap their shoes or eamil in the wrong places. Everyone in Washington knew Stevens' moose lodge was paid for; they all knew Craig was a closet/stall homosexual and everyone knew Foley was a pedophile! Cut bait and have a stand-up guy or gal in the wings ready to do the job!
With these and other controversies the GOP must get out in front of the story and sell the solution to the media. Send the SOF into Syria, locate and destroy all of the WMD Saddam moved there and sell it to the media. A federal indictment laid in the lap of Frank Rich, for devulging national secrets would have gotten the President and the GOP out in front of the NSC "wire-tapping" issue.
The GOP has got to develop and promote new leaders; get rid of the rotten wood and sell, sell, sell to the media. (BTW, the GOP started selling to the media in a first class way but sadly Tony Snow is no longer with us).
Marc Jeric| 11.6.08 @ 5:40PM
Every time a heard McCain address us as "my friends" I flinched in embarassment. He also believed in globaloney warming. Good riddance! Let us wait for the destruction brought by Abu Hussein (Arab street is dancing again) in economy, terrorism, appointment of judges, nationalization of industries, etc., and there will again be a new Reagan to save us.
Michele San Pietro| 11.6.08 @ 5:46PM
I am an Italian Americanologist who has always preferred Republicans to Democrats. However, I recognize that Obama is a serious person, definitely better than Clinton. At the same time, I don't see why his skin color should be so important: of course, slavery and racism were terrible things, but the fact there are now blacks at all important posts is best proof that blacks are no longer discriminated against. Obama isn't certainly the opponent of a totalitarian regime who spent years in jail, nor did he ever go through any discrimination.
Bill Pearce| 11.6.08 @ 6:50PM
Has Anyone in the conservative movement considered the implications of the Democratic Party controlling
all the bastions of governmental power. The Democratic Party now controls not just the House, Senate, and
Presidential positions, but the Federal bureaucracy , most of the media and almost all of the legal system down to the lowest clerk, reporter or policeman. The Democratic Party can now do almost anything it wants to do.
1st , The Pelosi strategy of hyper-partisanship is a electoral success and the McCain bi-partisanship strategy
a utter failure. The Republican Party "center of the road" strategy is now electoral road kill. This does not mean the Republican leadership will change its current strategy of bullheaded stupidity. Why should it. Bi-partisanship serves the leaderships interests very well.
2nd , The Republican party has been relieved of all duties and control of any part of the Federal government.
The Republican Party is now free and that is the problem. The Republican party now has very little to give anyone and fewer powers to use.
3rd , To achieve anything it wants the Republican Party must attach itself as a appendage to the Democratic Party. The best the Republican Party can hope for is a Remora like existence to the Democratic shark.
At worse the Republican Party will be the stooge and henchmen for the worst of Democratic politics.
4th , The Republican Party now can offer the conservative movement nothing but betrayal.
To trade for favors from the Democrats the Republican must give up the conservative dreams to Democrat whims.
Governor Palin was the first and will not be the last. The Democrats have a long hit list. They have a longer wish list.
5th Social conservatives and Evangelicals are a majority in the Republican Party, but for how long.
The northeast republicans are almost extinct. The west-coast republicans were submerged by the failure to bring
in the Hispanics into the Republican Party. The great lake states republicans were devastated by the Republican Party unwillingness to stop job migration overseas. The west is being lost due to the migration of liberals fleeing
the high costs of the west coast and the hispanic tide. Only the deep south remains stable for now. But for how long.
The republican elite will not stand up for any southern republican under fire from the democrats. Ask Trent Lott. Why should the conservatives stay with the Republicans. The republican elite seems determined to "blow off " any issue of concern to the yeomen of the party.
6th The Democrats have always treated the conservatives as a disreputable interest group from the other party.
The Republican elite treats the conservatives like management treats the political aspirations of its employees.
Both don’t care about conservative concerns.
The question is not if the conservatives will leave the Republican Party. They are going now. It is not even the rate of loss that is the question. The above points demonstrate the republican leadership will not try to stem the loss. In fact the leadership may even encourage it. Why should they be concerned about the common people when real power and wealth flows from the Democrat Party. The conservatives were just rural rubes and a embarrassment to the republican leadership in the eyes of the Democrat Party. The main question is where the conservatives will land. Right now there is no home for them. The Republican Party is looking more like the Whig Party with every passing day.
Bill Pearce
2211 Chestnut Road
Vestavia Hills, Alabama 35216
(205)-482-6133
Jim Paine| 11.6.08 @ 10:45PM
If the GOP is now as you describe it, Mr. Pearce, they can include me out. Frankly, their eagerness to trample the Contract With America in the rush to get a snout into the trough was enough for me. This election I voted anti-Socialism, not pro-GOP. Next election, I believe the GOP can get along without my vote.
Crusader| 11.7.08 @ 1:34PM
Is this article satire? Farce?
Proud? Are you kidding me?
I know the line about "very little playing of the race card" was farce, right? Or the one about we should be proud because "Old Europe" disdained us so we showed them by electing a black man? That was definitely satire, right?
I mean ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????
James Carville and numerous others calling white people racists if they vote against Obama. Alluding to riots if Obama lost. Obama telling supporters "they'll tell you I have a funny anme and don't look like the guys on the dollar bills..."
Nah, no race card.
Did "Old Europe" disdain us when American blood was spilt twice to bail her sorry a$$ out of two world wars? Do they disdain us now that American troops for all intents and purposes serve as Germany's and Italy's and Poland's and France's and England's military? Tell me for what national security reason do we have bases in Europe if not the sole purpose of protecting "Old Europe" because she is too fat, dumb, and lazy (I guess unhappy too) to send her own sons in harms way for her own protection?
I've served in Europe with the so-called "military" of our so-called "allies." A squad of Eagle Scouts could take out a batallion of Italian infantry.
This is a conservative "leader???" Proud? Proud that millions of Americans were easily led like lemmings off the cliff by the media? Proud that "Americans" were outside our President's residence on election night jeering him? (Maybe that was before the democratic call for unity?). Proud that obamalamadingdong's supporters were waving the flag of the USSR? All this makes you proud?
Wow.
Dick Simmons| 11.7.08 @ 2:03PM
All the angst and sturm un drang must cease. The main effort now must be directed in organizing The Resistance. This gang is not going to leave you alone. They will not stop until they have crushed all opponents. Joe the Plumber was just an example of what they will do to anyone who questions them.
Darcy2| 11.7.08 @ 9:43PM
To Dick:
Corporal Darcy2 reporting for duty.
Miles Gloriosus| 11.8.08 @ 4:06PM
FTA: "In the months ahead. we are going to be hearing that the Reagan conservatives are has-beens too. Well, we shall see. Critics have been writing obituaries for the conservative movement since 1964. "
To the contrary, Bushonomics is dead. Time to send GWB back to the clubhouse to spend out his days drinking hiballs and playing bridge.