My latest from the Guelph Mercury
__________
It’s become the lead question for morning show and political talk shows all over the United States — what must the Republican party do to get competitive again?
Barack Obama’s thumping of John McCain in November was merely a ratification of a much deeper trend in American political life. The conservative movement has been tumbling out of control since very soon after George W. Bush’s second inauguration, and not even McCain’s “straight talk express” could tug it back up the hill.
Like the economy, the Republicans have pretty well hit rock bottom. Pick your preferred method of measurement: state houses, Senate, House of Representatives, White House . . . the Democrats are on the rise.
Like the smart investor though, it’s all about buying low. Now is the time for American conservatives to begin building a coherent and saleable alternative to the very liberal agenda sponsored by the Obama administration and fawningly affirmed by the powder blue congress.
At the heart of this much-needed process of rebuilding lies one central question: should the new and improved Republicans be based in ideology or sensibility?
Prior to the radicalization of the Republican party, which began in the 1950s and triple-peaked under Ronald Reagan, 1990s Republican house speaker Newt Gingrich and, finally, the newly retired Bush the Younger, the Republican party was the party of sensibility. It was your dad’s party. It was the party of polished shoes, balanced budgets, well-regulated financial markets, and a foreign policy rooted in realism and an appreciation for the limits of military power.
But after the 1960s — we’re generalizing here, but not unfairly — American conservatism ceased to be an exercise in prudently maintaining and incrementally improving the status quo. The status quo was perceived by American conservatives to have been destroyed by anti-work, anti-family, anti-religion Democratic policies which required an all-out counterattack.
And that’s been the narrative ever since. The Republican party has been the party of an idealized past — or of timeless moral and philosophical principles, depending on taste — anchored in a mentality of static values.
And so the economic downturn couldn’t have come at a better time for a Republican party needing to reinvent itself. It is a problem so deep and existential that it could have several plausible solutions, and both ideology and sensibility could conceivably work.
Economic management as an ideological issue would mean selling tax cuts, spending cuts and fiscal restraint to voters. It would mean abandoning Bush’s big-government conservatism, and puritanically pursuing an economic agenda designed to shrink government.
If bad government regulation and too much government spending are to blame for the current recession, a small-government sales pitch could resonate with voters tired of political solutions to economic problems.
Alternatively, the Republican party could return to its roots at the sensible centre of the political spectrum. Republicans could focus on the need to improve the regulation of financial markets, because corruption and incompetence are insufferable.
They could focus on fuel-economy standards and alternative-energy production as part of a long-term vision of balanced budgets, greener meadows, and healthier children.
They could lay out a vision for an America whose relationship with the world is one defined by not only power, but also by laws and norms.
And they could challenge Americans with policies, initiatives and bully pulpits — especially wealthy and middle class Americans — to serve their country in the military, the peace corps, and in multitudinous existing and would-be service organizations designed to revitalize America’s civic culture: the key to what Alexis de Tocqueville believed made Americans not only great, but good.
For now, though, it’s a waiting game. Obama will continue governing absent a meaningful opposition. Republican heavyweights (and Sarah Palin) will continue testing the presidential waters for the next time round. And American voters, mercifully, will eventually cease to view the choice between Republican and Democrat as the choice between an irrationally despised Bush and an idealized and untested Obama.
But until some equilibrium is restored to the American political spectrum, voters and pundits would do well to remember that the Republican party isn’t dead — it’s just sleeping.
And if they play their cards right their nightmare will soon be over.
