2008: Referendum on Conservatism
The 2008 presidential election is destined to be dominated by one issue: Iraq. Today a majority of Americans and most of the Democratic party deem Iraq a foreign policy failure and want our involvement there to end. Expect more Democrats to recant their original 2002 authorization votes and clearly pick the winning side. That will leave George Bush and his followers to defend themselves. And that is what I would like to talk about today. If 2008 is about Iraq, then won't the defenders of the policy--hawks like McCain--essentially hitching the conservative movement's fortunes to failure? Think about it a moment. This is going to be the great Republican gamble of 2008. They are betting that the election will be a referendum on Bush and Iraq and that they are going to win that election because the people are on their side. In other words, 2008 will transcend being a referendum on Bush and Iraq and neatly merge into a referendum on conservatism itself.
And if that is the case, then I can start celebrating early.
I've mentioned here before that the conservative movement fundamentally believes two things: that it is morally, intellectually and philosophically superior; that the majority of Americans believe in conservative principles. It is easy to see how the second belief has been reinforced over the past quarter century. The famous Reagan Democrats helped elect a smooth conservative to office, ushering in a "revolution." (Nevermind that the Carter administration was a disaster and he would have lost to pretty much anyone the Republicans put up against him.) The Reagan myth was only reinforced after his landside 1984 reelection that left no doubt in political analyst's minds that they had just witnessed an electoral realignment in the style of Roosevelt's 1932/36 victories. The circumstances of Clinton's 1992 win did not deter the conservative belief that the people were on their side: not only had Perot siphoned away votes but George Bush Sr. was not a true conservative. He had raised taxes. He hadn't finished the job in Iraq. He was an insider, not ideologically committed to conservatism's cause. Thus in 1994 the Republican takeover of Congress redeemed the movement: the people had spoken and had rejected Clintonian liberalism, or any liberalism for that matter. The mythology of conservative populism spread as demagogic talk radio proliferated, grassroots organizations formed and Gingrich provided the intellectual gravitas for a new era of conservative government. Which is why, of course, Dole failed in 1996. Like Bush, he had not been a true conservative. He was part of the old Republican party, who wanted consensus with liberals. He was essentially the reincarnation of Lyndon Johnson: all political, no ideals.
What has happened in the last six years deserves closer scrutiny. George W. Bush is clearly the greatest incarnation of the conservative populist since Reagan and Goldwater. But upon closer examination, Bush hasn't been principled at all. In 2000 he ran in the context of a Clinton administration that was fading into the sunset while Gore's start rose. This is why it seems so strange today to consider the "compassionate conservative," "uniter, not a divider" campaign Bush ran. Do today's conservatives believe in compassion? Not since the war on terror. Compassion is weakness, and weakness is a liberal characteristic. Yet in 2000 Bush was trying to win against a lackluster Vice President who nevertheless had an edge in most key demographics. And when Bush won, he did so without the popular vote, and under constitutionally dubious, court-ordered circumstances. Surely this should have challenged the notion that conservatives were a majority in the public: they had won, but with a light conservative and with the help of the Supreme Court. The Bush of 2000 never would have been reelected in 2004. But due to the course of events set in motion by 9/11, the uniter became a divider and the Republicans took over the Senate in 2002 by questioning the patriotism of their opponents. America was no longer united against terrorism, it was divided between people who fight and those who aid the terrorists. The only quesion was which had the greatest popular support, and the Republicans got their answer in 2004.
I have averred that the 2004 election was the apogee of the conservative movement. Here is why: it will be the last time Republicans win the majority in a national election. I'm not predicting that it will the last time ever, just that it will be the last time conservatives win the popular vote in their current configuration. The era from Goldwater to Bush ends with Bush. This is why 2008 ultimately becomes a referendum on conservatism. Bush will likely be remembered as the most conservative of modern US presidents but rarely is it asked what makes him so conservative. On virtually all social issues he has sided with the religious right. On all foreign policy decisions he has sided with the neoconservatives. And on all matters concerning the presidency, he has sided with Nixon. This is where the true Bush lurks. His social policy positions have come from kowtowing to a specific and powerful constituency and his foreign policy positions from a previously exiled ex-liberal intellectual cadre. But when it comes to presidential power, he has had a unique inspiration. Bush has claimed extraordinary inherent constitutional powers. His Vice President has been at the forefront of defending the "imperial presidency" which originated in Cheney's years in the Ford administration. Charlie Savage's article in the Boston Globe last month illuminated this quite clearly: "Cheney has made this a matter of principle," Shane said. "For that reason, you are likely to hear the words 'executive privilege' over and over again during the next two years" (emphasis mine).
Executive privilege is not something one sees in classical conservative thinking. It is entirely the product of Nixon-era national security fear of crisis. 9/11 recreated the sense that our national security was always at risk and thus required an unrestricted executive to defend the country. This is now considered a conservative position. Why else would Newt Gingrich suggest we reexamine the First Amendment in light of the threat posed by terrorism? Gingrich is providing the philosophical justifications for Bush-style foreign policy; that is, he is defending Bush-style conservatism, which reduces, through Cheney's defense of the imperial presidency, to Richard Nixon. If this persists, conservatives in 2008 will essentially be running on the platform of, "When the President does it, that means that it it is not illegal."
This is why, I predict, they will fail in 2008. The American people have been wagged by conservatism's dog for so long that Bill Clinton remarked before the midterm election, memorably, "They've trotted that dog out for the last three elections - and it's got mange all over it." Clinton, of course, was right. Republicans lost hugely by being associated with Bush and Iraq. If Gingrich and McCain--who I have repeatedly predicted to be the Republican candidates for 2008--don't distance themselves from the 2006 election strategy--which it doesn't appear they are--they will lose the presidency and more seats in Congress in 2008. And by hitching conservatism to Bush, they will also destroy the mythology of a conservative majority in the American public.