Streetcar Line
Learning from the Brownout
Conservative optimism is a virtue.
So many lessons arise from Tuesday’s Massachusetts Miracle that it’s almost foolhardy to concentrate on just one. Almost, but not quite. In truth, one lesson should cut through the tactical clutter of whether health care or national security was more important, or whether an old truck or Fenway Park or likeability made a difference, or whether one particular slice of the electorate (Reagan Democrats, soccer moms, Bobos in Paradise…whatever) holds the key to future electoral success. All of that clutter is just data, not a lesson; information, not wisdom.
Instead, the one most important lesson is this: Political elites are often blind to political possibilities.
Too many professional pols and pollsters, consultants and consiglieres, allow their assessment of political potential to be hamstrung by conventional wisdom and by past results. Especially on the right of center, the political class in Washington consistently underestimates what can be achieved by solid principles well communicated. Washington Republicans especially act too often as if they expect to lose and are resigned to losing, just a little more slowly.
They act as if they really can’t win by cutting government — even though they did win again after cutting government in 1995 and 1996. And after cutting government (yes, Ronald Reagan really did make budgetary progress) in 1981-1984.
They act as if standing strong for conservative judges, or for traditionalist positions on social issues, is an occasional bone to toss to a snarling “base,” rather than the majority-backed positions that they are. Never mind that almost every time Republicans campaign on judges, they win (see 2002 and 2004). Never mind that, as long as the tone isn’t harsh, traditionalism attracts more voters than it repels. (See 2004, and see Bob McDonnell’s victory for governor in Virginia last year.)
And they act far too often as if certain constituencies, districts, or whole regions are out of electoral reach, or at least out of reach without violating core principles or otherwise pandering shamelessly to perceived local biases. (In truth, voters can smell a violation of principle, and a pander, from miles away, and usually punish the panderers accordingly.)
The list of “can’t be won” races that good candidates actually won is a long one. A Republican couldn’t win in black-supermajority New Orleans — until Joseph Cao did. A Republican couldn’t win a Senate seat in Massachusetts — until Scott Brown did. No conservative Republican could possibly win in Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Doug Walgren’s district in 1990 — until Rick Santorum did, despite being utterly ignored by the national Republican committees. Nor could Santorum, conservative as he was, possibly win statewide for the Senate in Pennsylvania — until he did in both 1994 and 2000. Marco Rubio can’t win in Florida over Charlie Crist. James Buckley couldn’t become a U.S. Senator from New York. Newt Gingrich was crazy in 1987, in the wake of Iran-Contra, to think Republicans could ever take a House majority. Nobody from a tiny-population state like Wyoming, or Hawaii, or Delaware, or Alaska, could win on a national ticket or even come close. And, lest we forget, there was no way on God’s green Earth that a conservative like Ronald Reagan could ever become president.
Moving away from political races: Israel couldn’t possibly survive as an independent state in 1948. The American budget couldn’t possibly be balanced without old ladies starving in the street. It was impossible to have low inflation and low unemployment at the same time. The Soviet Union could only be co-existed with, not transcended. (Its hockey team was invincible, too.) One missile could never knock another missile from the sky. Saddam Hussein could not be ousted without a loss of life that would make Vietnam pale in comparison. Sandra Day O’Connor could never be replaced by a male justice, especially not a proven judicial conservative. And, lest we forget, there was no way on God’s green Earth, as of last spring, that Obamacare could ever be stopped.
This whole conglomeration of stuff and nonsense came courtesy of a narrow, defeatist, timorous worldview that has always seen conservatism as a fading dream, no matter how many victories it achieves or how much good its policies create for this nation and its extraordinary people.
The worldview is badly misguided. The United States really is a center-right nation. The public really does prefer a less intrusive government to a nanny state. People really do care about freedom. Americans hate being told what to do. We are a people skeptical of centralized authority. We are a people of faith and family — and even most of those who aren’t “culturally conservative” still object when a government is not just neutral, but actively hostile, to the faith and families our friendly neighbors hold dear.
We like our elected officials to listen to us, thank you very much. We like them to admit and learn from their mistakes. We are not deeply ideological, so we are willing to try new directions — but only with care, and rarely too fast, and never when an untested change looks like it would be irreversible. And our default position is a “can do,” leave-us-alone, get-out-of-our-way spirit that is both conservative and classically liberal in the original meaning of that word.
The lesson from Scott Brown’s victory is the lesson of the Old College Try, and it is the lesson, for us modern political conservatives, from Ronald Reagan’s first Inaugural Address, which is impossible to quote too often:
“The crisis we are facing today…,” Reagan said, “does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And, after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.”
American underdogs can win. Especially if they are cheerfully right of center and know that the right is, yes, right. Which, indeed, we are.
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom. Follow him on Twitter @QuinHillyer.
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CB| 1.21.10 @ 6:57AM
Excellent!!
Thank you.
Alan Brooks| 1.21.10 @ 12:11PM
Burgeoning 21st century dystopia is reason to be pessimistic.
Skools today are torture chambers.
'Culture' is pigslop.
And we need a Toffer devotee such as Newt Gingrich to waste our time with the Third Wave, or the Fourth Wave, or The Fifth Dimension?
What was mildly interesting in 1995 is rancid today.
Alan Brooks| 1.21.10 @ 8:06PM
BTW, optimism is not exactly virtuous. Virtue is virtue, optimism is is not quite... virtue.
Toffler, Kahn, Drucker, are/were challenging, but not saintly or Churchillian.
ggoblue-george horn| 1.21.10 @ 7:14AM
thank you very much....
Pingback| 1.21.10 @ 7:15AM
Give Conservatism a Chance « Let us go then, you and I links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
gearjammer| 1.21.10 @ 8:35AM
Republicans have one major problem and it is wealth and income distribution. One need not be a commie to wonder if the mega money some people make truly is the free market speaking. It is not just money made by certain CEO's as democrats always scream about. Indeed, it seems democrats more than republicans are among the wildly overpaid-Hollywood, trial lawyers, the mega paid television people. How much did Conan walk away with ? For what ? Is all of this really the free market, are these industries really Adam Smith models of capitalism ? Entertainers never in history made such money compared to other people.If anything they may have been undervalued. In their gut most people will tell you a great nurse is " worth" more than Oprah, or Rush, or Brad, or Angelina, or Larry David. This is a weak point for a party and an ideology that is desiring to serve the middle class. Thus, middle class wages become an issue. We are on the right side of not taxing middle class income unduly, but what about raising them ? This issue is still one club they , the left, can wield against us.
Pingback| 1.21.10 @ 8:45AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Learning from the Brownout [spectato links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Ignats75| 1.21.10 @ 9:23AM
Samuel Gompers once said that the biggest sin management can make is to not turn a profit. He recognized that in order for the working man to make money, the entrepeneur needed to make money first. Otherwise its a house of cards.
Now, collective bargaining in the sports world and entertainment world is making the athletes, and artists mega-millionaires while sports teams and movie studios are struggling to survive.
That's not the whole answer. But its certainly a part of it that cannot be laid at the conservative's feet.
Ryan| 1.21.10 @ 10:43AM
That's what the owners of the movie studios and pro teams would like you to think. You picked two bad examples.
Hollywood is NOTORIOUS for finagling books to make it look like the studios don't make money - Peter Jackson has a particular fight over the Lord of the Rings trilogy and why he wouldn't make the Hobbit for so long.
Multi-millionaires don't clamor over big sports teams because they're unprofitable. Actually, I think that the sports system works well for many of its employees in the high-income range, and the cooperation currently between the NFL players' union and its management has worked VERY well over the past decade.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.21.10 @ 9:50AM
Hi gearjammer,
I appreciate your thoughts above, but I want to share with you something I have discovered over the years. There are two very distinct groups, heh at least...in the so-called middle class, but two groups I want to identify in your thinking.
Group one:
Are folks who are quite content with their acheived life-styles/choices, or at least content enough NOT to go out and work their butts/minds off or take great risks.
Group two: These folks either for great learned skills and/or gifts and/or courage, (and /or stupidity, heh), or perhaps with a great idea or opportunity and the desire to punch through the middle class or lower they often grew up in.
In both groups, I've learned, the folks sorta' like the idea...the idea...that in this complex and vibrant American economy, there are a number of paths to the "top", financially, if they want to grab that tiger.
For instance,
I know a great electrician who earns many fold what a great college prof earns. Also, that electrician could double and re-double his income if he wanted to carry the admin load.
Higher "wages" are inevitably accompanied by longer hours and a lot more "headaches" and responsibilities.
So,
I don't like the idea of "raising wages" for no more productivity or responsibility.
If a person truly wants to "raise"...then forget "wages". Wages are paid and decided by a "boss". In our society, one rises by breaking the "wage slave mentality". It truly is that simple, unless they are profoundly mentally or emotionally handicapped.
gearjammer| 1.21.10 @ 9:57AM
Right Ignats, but how does the money roll in. Is the basic business model of these industries really free enterprise. Certainly the pay structure set up for trial lawyers in the " Big Tobacco " lawsuit was a dubious arrangement. How can just 3 per cent of the settle go to smoker cessation ? The box office alone does not support Hollywood the ever rising cost of cable is an involuntary revenue payment to shows and people I care not to watch. I do not have the choice to pick and choose what i want for channels thus I pay for MTV even though I hate it and the people behind it and how it damages my nation. A vile MMoore movie plays in reruns on a TNT or USA and I still pay even though I despise him. It may just be pennies, but 5 cents a month with 100 million or so customers is 5 million a month. Enough to amortize the most hateful propaganda and sewage and bring riches to the "stars ". And, do corporations really have yo pay so much for an ad most people zoom past with the remote ? What is that all about. How many of these CEOs are part of this dazzling world themselves and have " creative" children who work in tv. We spent a fortune investigating Libby. This is the stuff to look into. And, conservatives and republicans once did look into pick and choose cable. But, newt kinda killed it. Saw a few hearings on CSPAN back then. They were getting to it but it faded. Campaign slogan-cut cable bills by 40 percent by cutting the stars income by 30 percent. Let's stick it in the Ahole liberals face with a little demonizing of our own, a little class warfare. Run the add-DEM
gearjammer| 1.21.10 @ 10:05AM
Ken I am talking about an over paid Plutocracy that is not earning it fair and square. Some industries are a rigged game. And, I believe we involuntarily pay for. The people who get rich from modern day media are the owners of the company store. The regulation that makes tv what it is is staggering. Yup. I smell a whole bunch of rats. Fat ones.
Thomas| 1.21.10 @ 10:33AM
I'm not too sure how this drifted into the arena of laizze faire capitalism v forced wealth distribution, but let me weigh in.
First of all, a persons earnings are directly tied to both his value to a business and the success of that business. CEOs, sports stars and entertainers make large sums of money because those that they work for feel that their presence brings in enough money to justify paying them a large salary. When they no longer generate the revenue expected of them, they are released. I will grant that some people making very large salaries are not worth what they are making. But, in private enterprise, that is a matter strictly between the employee and his, or her, employer. And, if ownership or management becomes oppressive or overly controlling with their workforce, that workforce has options to redress an imbalance. That is how unions are born.
With forced distribution of wealth, or even government wage controls, is that they tend to stifle advancement. Why accept more responsibility without a corresponding increase in remuneration? Why gamble with your future by accepting the top job of a billion dollar company where you stand a good chance of being fired or replaced due to your company's failure to meet investor expectations for a few dollars more than a shift foreman is making? If a highly paid CEO fails to perform, then he loses his job. And he may well find himself unable to get another CEO position, especially at the salary he was making.
See, the only people who worry about what a CEO is making are socialists, politicians and investors in a company when their investment declines. Then remuneration is adjusted. Interestingly, this does not happen in government, either the political end or the bureaucratic end. No matter what the economy, politicians salaries and benefits keep right on increasing and bureaucrats who can't cut it are usually promoted. And it is virtually impossible to get rid of a sitting politician, no matter how badly they perform, until the end of their term of office.
The nice thing about a largely unfettered capitalist society is that almost anyone who wishes can make a large amount of money through hard work and talent.
Anthony| 1.21.10 @ 10:49AM
Quin; to put a finish on your point about the political elites, we conservatives have got to stop listening to the self annointed "intellectual class" in the Republican Party.
Curious as to what David Brooks, David Frum, Colin Powell and Newt have to say today? Newt was planning a speech a few weeks ago on climate change, it didn't occur. I'm tired of pols who tack with the winds of change, which is why Ronald Reagan was a man for the ages. His compass was true.
gearjammer| 1.21.10 @ 10:54AM
IS IT PRIVATE ENTERPRISE THOMAS ? Is the structure and revenue mechanisms of Hollywood and TV really private enterprise ? Is MSNBC making any money ? Yet I pay for it to a few cable stations I want. The company store is owned by a few and no other stores are allowed to compete. I am not diding CEOS who fave competition from every corner.Are you telling me the world of TV news is not a tight plutocracy of overpaid jack asses with zero free market accountability ? I recall some kind of free marker test when I was taking my few economics tests. Do these vulgar and greedy industries really meet it. This is how we can knock out the worst of the worst-cut the real enemeys of the people down to size. And, I don't mean most athletes. They have a short shelf life we gotta figure what they earn otherwise.
wankel| 1.21.10 @ 12:10PM
Now if Brown can just keep his distance from the Washington chapter of the Perennial RINO Club. Dud Bud McCain said that he was looking forward to showing Brown around. Let's just hope it's a nickel tour...
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.21.10 @ 12:22PM
Doggone it, gearjammer.....is ANYTHING in this world perfect?
Hell no!
Is everything totally fair?
Hell no!
What we have though is so hugely better than anything yet invented by a country in history. Please... get off your hobby horse here. You are a very bright articulate guy.
If you are struggling financially/career stuck, and sorta' frustrated ...please e-mail me and I can help.
kbjudgeroybean06@gmail.com
(No charge by the way except a hundred dollars out of your first million.)
Oldefarte| 1.21.10 @ 12:55PM
Quin, as usual, excellent article! In addition to your thoughts, the problem is one of APATHY from hard-working, tax-paying Americans, whose lives are filled with needed things to be done, and with little time to read about, get involved with things political. Correspondingly, the indigent, government supported Americans that Democrats appeal to for their votes [in return for their bestowed upon government benefits] have all the time in the world to get involved [since they have nothing else to do with their time]. If, and when the former group of Americans [who support and fund our government through their tax dollars paid], get truly angry enough [due to same] to begin to get thoroughly involved [as exibited by the NJ, Vaginia and Massachusetts elections recently]; then you will begin to see real CHANGE for the betterment of this country!!!!!
gearjammer| 1.21.10 @ 2:35PM
How can you be so blase Ken. If these jerks just filled their swimming pools with diamonds and pearls I could care less. But first they are stealing from me and I don't like it. Two they do big damage. They are corrupting our land and culture and it is maddening. They are rewriting history indeed they had a president in Clinton who applauded them as being the ones to write America. They use their immense wealth to fund anti American NGO's. They are buying up much of our land and take control and stop regular folks from traditional use. They are the force or a major force on the climate change front. They are ga ga over the UN and think Europe is so os so advanced over us. And you Ken are so blase. Or else you are a big fan of the movies and can't stand a person dissing your cinematic heroes. I'm not talking about John Wayne or Charlton heston Hollywood here.I just want ta real free market in Hollywood and Television I believe it would benefit all us but the overpaid destructive maniacs who dominate the industry now. Knock out the vast wealth they use to abuse us and our nation, cut then down to size and we are on the way to a stronger America.
David| 1.21.10 @ 2:40PM
Good article Quinn.
Old Texican hit the nail on the head. Many people are content with their financial situation. They have no desire to work longer hours or to assume more responsibility to earn more money.
Why should they? Many of them feel content because they not only pay ZERO federal income taxes, but they also receive a nice fat check every year because of the Earned Income Tax Credit. For those who don't what that is, check the 1040 Form, and take a look at the EITC schedule. It sickens me that the 60% of us who do pay fed income taxes, have our money sent to those who have no desire to improve their financial situations. Many of the 40% who pay ZERO fed income taxes receive a check every year at tax time in amounts averaging $1,000 to $4,000 depending on their income and how many children they have.
That IS outright theft. That IS blatant redistribution of income. And to think Bam Bam and the dems want to do even more of it. The Earned Income Tax Credit needs to be repealed.
I believe this at the same time that I have two divorced daughters with two children each who qualify to receive the EITC. It needs to be repealed - period.
blackwatch| 1.21.10 @ 11:41PM
You can't cut or repeal a low income tax credit--you'll get scalped by the press. What you can do is marginalize it. Stop adjusting the benefit amount for inflation. Freeze it in 2010. Make it more difficult to qualify for it by raising the income threshold to qualify for it by $1200 a year--every year. Cap the benefit at one child after a suitable three year "transition period." Cap the EIC "benefit" at a "lifetime of five years." Like we do for the other transfer payment we call "welfare." So no one collects the EIC more than five years. To counter the "you're screwing the poor" rhetoric from the socialististas there must be an emphasis on true wealth creation for the underclass. We need to grow the economic pie for all. We won't help the lazy or the drug users--they are not worth the effort. But the truly poor who need to be taught the joy of days hard work can be apprenticed into the trades. Where are all of the next generations of plumbers, carpenters, masons, electricians, etc going to come from anyway?? We have too many south or central american laborers here illegally already. Let's put our men back to work damn it!
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Christopher Holland| 1.21.10 @ 8:03PM
Scott Brown was the forth choice to run as the Senate candidate in MA - three others declined the offer before he accepted. Do those three get a Loser of the Year award or our thanks for being smart enough to stand aside for the one guy who knew what the hell he was doing?
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Black watch, David
Thank you both. Gee, I learn neat stuff every day here.
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