Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Does conservatism have the blues?

I can’t recall the Right being this dispirited the last time there was an election without a Republican incumbent. Back in 1999-2000, the Right had a few misgivings about the true extent of George W. Bush’s conservatism, but the movement was reasonably confident about his chances for success (Rush Limbaugh famously predicted in October 2000 that Bush would defeat Al Gore as decisively as Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter twenty years earlier).

Now, depression has apparently overtaken the Right. The confidence and optimism conservatives had in 1999-2000 seems to have completely evaporated. The Right appears to be as pessimistic now as the left was for most of the 1980s.

So what happened? Where did the positive vibes go?

It appears that the GOP is still suffering from the after-effects of the 2006 Congressional election. The electorate’s decision to reject the GOP shocked the conscience of the Right; most conservatives figured that the media-manufactured controversy over certain Congressional scandals would be overshadowed by the electorate’s recognition that, of the two major parties, the Republican party remains the only one seriously committed to reducing the terrorist threat. Since voters were willing to give the GOP a thumbs-down in ’06 (despite the party’s War on Terror credentials), conservatives must now confront the unpleasant possibility that the electorate could once again say no to Republicans in 2008.

The fact that the GOP lost control of Congress in the first place is yet more proof of Paul Weyrich’s famous 1999 observation that, contrary to what some folks on the Right believe, the United States is not a fundamentally conservative country. If the electorate had fully accepted the premise that the Republicans are better at combating terror than the Democrats, the GOP would have retained the House and Senate last November. Weyrich’s view of the country’s fundamental lack of commitment to conservative principles not only explains 2006, it also possibly explains other recent election results.

If the country were truly fundamentally conservative, Bush would not have felt it necessary to bill himself as a “compassionate conservative” in 1999-2000. (Remember when he chided Congressional Republicans for allegedly trying to “balance the budget on the backs of the poor?”) If the country were truly fundamentally conservative, the 2000 election would have indeed unfolded the way Limbaugh predicted it would. In addition, John Kerry would not have come within three million votes of defeating Bush in 2004, and Bill Clinton would not have been elected in 1992.

A few weeks ago, a discussion about the upcoming election on FreeRepublic.com featured an interesting comment: one fellow argued that Reagan’s two Presidential wins had nothing to do with his conservatism and everything to do with the electorate’s contempt for Carter in 1980 and the voters’ inability to buy Walter Mondale as “Presidential material” in 1984. Considering the results of subsequent Presidential elections, there may be a grain of truth to this argument. (Even George H. W. Bush’s 1988 defeat of Michael Dukakis cannot be cited as proof that the United States is fundamentally conservative; after all, at one point in the race, Dukakis was ahead of Bush by seventeen points, something that never would have happened if the populace had been truly committed to the Right’s vision.)

Conservatives aren’t wrong to be a bit nervous as we head into 2008. It was easier to be confident about Bush’s chances for success in 2000; at that time, there was a clear sense that the American public was disgusted with the sleaziness of the Clinton White House, and would accept Bush’s argument that a change was necessary. Now, the Right has to be concerned, because a public not fully committed to the principles of conservatism is susceptible to being swayed by empty images and feel-good rhetoric—a strategy that worked for the Democrats in ’92, and a strategy they will not hesitate to renew.