They'd Rather Be Right - The New York Review of Books: David Frum, the conservative analyst who formerly wrote speeches for Bush, proposes something along these lines (although he prefers calling it conservatism updated for the twenty-first century rather than centrism) in Comeback. To help the GOP recover from its present shabby state, for example, Frum preaches a "Green Conservatism" in which the GOP fights the Democrats for the allegiance of environmentally minded voters, going so far as to endorse a carbon tax. He also advocates a conservatism for the middle class that actually wants to do something about the problem of uninsured middle-class Americans. He even calls for a conservatism that respects the rights of prisoners, including "conjugal visits" and "enjoyable food." He combines these with newfangled defenses of traditional conservative positions—for example, a softer opposition to abortion that emphasizes "education and persuasion rather than coercion, changes in attitudes and beliefs rather than changes in law and public policy." More than once while reading Comeback, I nodded, thinking that the GOP could do worse than to listen to him. In urging a new course, he joins other conservative writers like Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, who argued in The Weekly Standard in 2005 for a "Sam's Club Conservatism" that makes economic appeals to working-class voters.
Whatever Frum may hope for, however, we have to deal with actually existing Republicanism, as it is being played out in the current race. And that Republicanism is quite the opposite: on nearly every issue, the major candidates have run hard to the right, exceptions (John McCain on immigration) being vastly outnumbered by the rule. All of the major candidates agree, among other things, on policy toward Iraq and Iran, on judicial appointments, and on low taxes for the well-off.
Conventional wisdom would assert that they have done so simply to pander to Republican primary voters, and that the nominee will move toward the center for the general election.... But the important question is not how the nominee will position himself next fall. Think, after all, about Bush's talk of "compassionate conservatism" in 2000 and about how the national press fell for it. The important question is how he will govern should he win.... Despite Bush's failures and the discrediting of conservative governance, there is every chance that the next Republican president, should the party's nominee prevail next year, will be just as conservative as Bush has been—perhaps even more so.
How could this be? The explanation is fairly simple. It has little to do with the out-of-touch politicians and conservative voters Ponnuru and Lowry cite and reflects instead the central hard truth about the components of the Republican Party today... neoconservatives; theo-conservatives... and radical anti-taxers.... Each of these groups dominates party policy in its area of interest-—the neocons in foreign policy, the theocons in social policy, and the anti-taxers on fiscal and regulatory issues. Each has led the Bush administration to undertake a high-profile failure: the theocons orchestrated the disastrous Terri Schiavo crusade, which put off many moderate Americans; the radical anti-taxers pushed for the failed Social Security privatization initiative; and the neocons, of course, wanted to invade Iraq. Three failures, and there are more like them. And yet, so far as the internal dynamics of the Republican Party are concerned, they have been failures without serious consequence, because there are no strong countervailing Republican forces to present an opposite view or argue a different set of policies and principles....
(We may lately add a fourth offshoot, the nativist anti-immigrant tendency, which embarrassed Bush last spring when it blocked the reasonable and comprehensive immigration bill the President supported.) Those branches, which of course overlap, are not sharply at odds with one another over fundamental questions.... There are a handful of vestigial Republican moderates; but they have no national power at all.... The disarray following a loss next year might well embolden the moderate forces to stage a comeback. But suppose the Republican nominee wins next November.... [T]here is no credible reason to believe that the neocons, theocons, and anti-taxers will hold any less power in the new administration than they have in Bush's....
The extent to which the major Republican candidates, with the partial exception of Mike Huckabee, have backed the neocon worldview is striking.... [T]he theoconservatives are thought to be on the defensive this election cycle.... [But the] candidates' pledges about judges highlight an important point. Lack of enthusiasm is not the same thing as lack of power, and the religious right still has power.... The third leg of the conservative movement is in many ways the most important and comprehensive: all conservatives agree on less government, lower taxes, and less regulation. And all the candidates have pledged to support these goals. Frum reminds us that in the real world, the salience of tax-cutting as an issue has been steadily eroding in recent years:
When Republicans speak of "tax cuts," they mean "income tax cuts." Yet after almost three decades of income-tax cutting, most Americans no longer pay very much income tax. In fact, four out of five taxpayers now pay more in payroll taxes than federal income taxes. Some 29 million income-earning American households pay no income tax at all. By contrast, the notorious top 1 percent of taxpayers pay well over one-third of all U.S. income taxes. The top 1 percent may make a disproportionate amount of money. But they still cast only 1 percent of the votes.
One can quibble that Frum's math is probably slightly off since higher-income citizens are more likely to vote than poor people. But he is correct that for most Americans there simply isn't much more income tax to cut, and that poll respondents repeatedly prefer either deficit reduction or particular types of public investment, such as health care. But the major Republican candidates give no sign that it may be time to shift to a different set of priorities. They all emphasize tax-cutting and deregulation as the centerpieces of their economic policies....
The Republican nominee, once he is named next spring, will undoubtedly tack toward the center during the general election campaign. But again, the important question is how he would govern. Presidents respond to the constituencies that put them in office, and a Republican president elected in 2008 will have been put in office by the factions that control his party. There is no reason to expect that he will defy those factions. Let us hope that in the long run, the Republicans outside them will decide to challenge their power.
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