Nostalgia for Reagan is not the Problem

With the current Republican field beating each other up over who is the "real" Conservative in the primaries, there is a huge battle going on as to whether or not the Conservative movement is dead. Rush Limbaugh got into it with NY Times columnist David Brooks and over at National Review Online Mona Charen sings the praises of a new book by David Frum where he says, among other things, to "drop Reagan" and advocates a carbon tax. Now, over at The Weekly Standard Bill Kristol is picking up the mantra of drop Reagan and make a new conservatism.

Mr. Kristol begins by listing off the top Republicans and their good points and then tells Conservatives to overlook their other trangressions. He begins with John McCain and his "lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 82.3." McCain's lifetime ACU rating is fine, but let's look at recent history shall we? McCain's support for Campaign Finance Reform, amnesty for illegals, voting twice against President Bush's tax cuts, joining Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman in wanting to fight man-made global warming are all signs that McCain cannot be trusted to govern even as a quasi-conservative. McCain's ACU rating would be well into the 90's had it not been for his support of these items. But above all, McCain's biggest fault is his insistance that the people down at Guantanamo Bay are sadists and torture the detainees there. There can be nothing more distrubing than for some one claiming to support the troops to call some of them sadists.

Next on Kristol's list is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Kristol says that the Huckster is staunchly pro-life and pro-gun--which is great--but then goes on to make a major mistake in saying that Huckabee "is consistently supported by the most conservative primary voters." Huckabee has not been getting tremendous support from Conservative voters in the primaries; he's been getting his support from Evangelicals that are also identified as Conservatives. According to the exit polls from CNN's "Politics" page, Huckabee received 35 percent of the Conservative vote in South Carolina. The combined Conservative vote of McCain, Romney and Thompson swamp Huckabee's total. Just the combonation of Romney and Thompson alone are enough to tie Huck's total. In the Iowa caucuses, those who identified themselves as "somewhat to very" Conservative, again Huckabee got 34 and 35 percent respectively. Once again not enough to total the Conservative vote that went to Romney and Thompson, 45 and 36 percent. In New Hampshire Huckabee gets demolished by Romney among Conservatives, 18 to 38 respectively. Romney won Wyoming handily and there can be no question that the majority of voters there are Conservatives. In Michigan, Romney won that state as well with the support of 41 percent of the Conservative vote, while Huckabee received just 20 percent. And finally in Nevada, which Romney won the entire primary with 51 percent, Conservatives voted for Romney with 56 percent support. Huckabee garnered only 8 percent. It looks as though Mr. Kristol needs to go look at the exit polls and revise his comments about the Conservative support of Huckabee.

Now, I am singling out McCain and Huckabee because these are the two candidates that Conservatives are having a hard time voting for. If you listen to Limbaugh or go over to RedState.com, you will find out real quick that Conservatives have a hard time getting behind McCain or Huckabee. And yet, in leading off his column telling us to drop Reagan, Kristol goes with McCain and Huckabee. It should be known that Kristol is a huge John McCain fan and he knows the troubles that McCain has in getting Conservative support. It would seem that Kristol is urging, not so much a dropping of Reaganism, but a redifinition of it to suit his chosen candidate's recent political stance. And that is where I, Rush and a whole host of Conservatives have a problem with the current wave of inside-the-Beltway wisdom. Why should we have to redefine Conservatism in order to win elections? Conservatism is being narrowly defined by people wanting to redefine it so as to make the case that it needs to be "modernized." They tell us that taxes are low, the Soviet Union is gone, crime is low and welfare has been reformed, so why do we need to hold on to Reagan's strand of Conservatism? The answer is quite simple: Reagan wasn't about specific issues, he was about leading a movement that happened to solve those specific issues.

Yeah, taxes are low today compared to when Reagan first took the oath of office, but they are creeping back up. When you combine all the taxes paid by the top income earners, you will see that they are paying nearly 45 percent on their income. Thanks to "man made global warming" regulations on the private sector are coming back and in worse ways than before. The energy bill that was signed last November by President Bush contained a little passage in it that outlaws the use of regular old light bulbs by 2012. Sure, welfare has been reformed, but we are no closer to downsizing the Federal government and that is because Conservatives haven't won the battle on dependency. It is a striking scene when you tell the American people that their Social Security will not be solvent by 2025 and give them a solution to fix it and then have them tell you no, leave it how it is. The amount of dependency in this country is striking and Conservatives are not going to turn the tide by "modernizing" the ideology.

What Conservatism needs is leadership from the elected side of the house. Conservatives have leaders such as Rush and National Review, but we need some one running for office to lead the movement and show us that it wins. We need some one to get into office and show us that Conservative principles work when implemented. There is no elected leadership in the Conservative movement. That's what ails us, not a clinging nostalgia for another Ronald Reagan.