I started using the term "checklist conservatism" during the
candidacy of Mitt Romney, who ran a presidential campaign geared
toward methodically checking off the favored conservative
position on any given issue, without regard to his record or
prior positions. I'm reminded about the phenomenon when reading
about this
absurd proposed resolution to institute a "purity test" that
would require the RNC to only send contributions to
candidates who agree with eight out of 10 items. Practically,
many of the principles are too subjective. For instance, one
principle is "Legal immigration and assimilation into
American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants" and
another one is "Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly
effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat." How
would either of these be judged? Even most Democrats would say
they oppose amnesty, but the devil is in the details. Some people
would say that making illegal immigrants legal is not amnesty if
there are enough fines and hoops to jump through to become
legalized, while others believe that anything short of
deportation is amnesty. Same thing on nuclear weapons. Even
liberals say they want to contain Iran and North Korea, but the
debate is what constitutes "effective action."
But beyond the practical aspect, this sort of thing is exactly
the wrong message for conservatives to send to possible
candidates. Candidates who merely regurgitate a set of
pre-selected ideas to conform with the diktats of the national
party will not do anything to advance conservatism. What
conservatism needs is more thoughtful candidates who have a
grounding in policy, are competent, have genuine accomplishments,
and are able to persuade undecided voters that conservative
ideas are superior. The RNC doesn't need to support more trained
seals who can talk a big game to conservative audiences and check
all the right boxes, without having the ability to deliver the
goods even if they managed to get elected.
