One representation of the volatility of the Republican
presidential primary this year has been in the positioning of the
candidates on the debate stage. Television producers, perhaps
imagining the podiums as a football offensive line, place the
frontrunners in the middle, then fan out the rest of the candidates
in order of relevance. With the exception of perennial bookend Jon
Huntsman, just about every GOP contender enjoyed his or her time at
center stage.
Not long ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry stood in that coveted
middle, alongside current frontrunner Mitt Romney. But at last
week’s candidates’ forum in South Carolina, the deck was once again
reshuffled and Perry was (perhaps ironically) positioned on the
far-left side. And all this in the state that became the linchpin
of his post-Iowa campaign. How far the mighty had fallen.
About halfway through the debate, Mitt Romney and Rick
Santorum got in a dust-up over a bill that Santorum had supported
in Congress which would have given felons who exhausted their
sentences the right to vote. After several rounds of slings and
arrows between the two, Perry managed to interrupt. “And this is a
great example of the insiders that are having the conversation up
here. And the fact of the matter is this: Washington, DC needs to
leave the states alone and let the states decide these issues and
don’t do it from Washington, DC.” The line received wild applause.
Later on, Perry declared, in a sound bite that probably autopenned
a few Huffington Post headlines the next day, “South Carolina is at
war with this federal government and this
administration.
Perry received accolades for his debate performance from
many conservatives that night. But the damage had already been
done. Lassoed by stagnant poll numbers in the Palmetto State, he
dropped out of the race three days later.
During his brief ride across the presidential frontier,
Perry was often compared to George W. Bush. Both were Texas
governors. Both ran as credentialed conservatives. Both moved with
a pluck and a crackle in the air that seem native to the Lone Star
State. But this ham-handed metaphor obscured something worth
noticing: Perry’s ideas — states’ rights, interstate competition,
and the superiority of local governance — are unique; not just
unique among the current candidates, but representative of an
ideological strain in the Republican Party that seems to have gone
dormant over the past decade and may be awakening from its
slumber.
States-rights conservatism has historically been in the
Republican wheelhouse, embodied in its most unvarnished form by
Barry Goldwater back in 1964. In his seminal Conscience of a
Conservative, Goldwater wrote, “There is a reason for the
reservation of States’ Rights. Not only does it prevent the
accumulation of power in a central government that is remote from
the people and relatively immune from popular restraints; it also
recognizes the principle that essentially local problems are best
dealt with by the people most directly concerned.”
But somewhere along the way, the GOP’s taste for states’
rights was discarded as a nettlesome impediment to Republican
governance. The new fad was wielding the g-forces of government to
produce “conservative solutions.” Thus did the Heritage Foundation
dream up the individual mandate: rather than collectivize the
entire health care system, they would foist personal responsibility
on people by forcing them to purchase insurance. Then the free
market would sputter to life and all our health care woes would be
solved. (Though forcing citizens to buy a product seems to clash
with the whole “free market” idea just a smidge.) It was this
obsequious, technocratic swamp that produced ideas like the
federalization of education under No Child Left Behind and Medicare
Part D.
So when Rick Perry talks about federalism, he’s lobbing
stones not only at progressive Democrats who view the very term
“states’ rights” as cursive for racism, but also at many old-guard
Republicans.
But it’s curious that the idea of federalism should sound
so novel in the first place. Empowering the states and enforcing
the Tenth Amendment would necessarily neuter the federal
government. But it would also maintain a scaffolding of laws to
preserve order. Federalism means dividing and devolving power, not
eliminating it. “States’ rights” often gets tagged as a
“libertarian” ideal. But it lacks the flavor of libertarianism
desired by some doe-eyed Randian utopists who believe you can strip
away laws and Americans ultimately won’t drive through red lights
because the free market will kill them. Federalism is an ordered
liberty. What could be more conservative?
When Rick Perry drawls, “Let the states decide,” he’s
expressing a remarkably intricate and authentically American idea
that dates back to our founding documents and the writings of James
Madison. The Constitution was written as an elaborate labyrinth
teeming with trip wires and booby traps for any aristocrat or mob
energetically seeking power, keeping them at arm’s length so the
individual had room to prosper and thrive. Back then, the challenge
was painstakingly balancing the rights of the states while still
sculpting an effective national government. Today the seesaw has
lurched so far in the federal direction, restoring federalism means
bringing the states back to life. This should be a levelheaded goal
of conservatives everywhere.
Perry was the candidate who kept the Tenth Amendment
closest to his heart. This isn’t to say that he drew his theories
into practice flawlessly. Stacks of articles have been written
pointing out his inconsistencies. Perry also fell victim to
sporadic gimmickry, represented best by his tax plan that literally
had it both ways by allowing people to either subscribe to a flat
tax or remain under the current code. But as an insolent Texas
governor who indefatigably battled the Obama Administration on a
host of issues and preached about states’ rights at every turn, he
was the most potent embodiment of the federalist ideals that once
inspired Barry Goldwater.
One of the great whodunit cases of this election will be
why Perry, once advertised as the GOP’s next redeemer, never caught
on. It could have been the debate gaffes, or his claim that those
opposed to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants “don’t have a
heart,” or his ill-advised barn-coat ad attacking President Obama’s
“war on religion,” or the volatility of the Republican electorate,
or all of those things, or none of them. But Perry’s ideas, however
imperfectly they were practiced, hearken back to a buried
cornerstone of conservatism worth unearthing again in this age of
federal overreach. Perry won’t make it to the White House. But
let’s hope his torch is carried there by the eventual
nominee.
