Conservative Donnybrook

Shortly after the election, I wrote a post about Basic Truth About Politics #1. As I wrote then, a local radio talk show host blithely answered a caller who expressed his dismay at Obama’s victory asking how such a thing could have happened by saying that it is very simple: they liked him better. I was a little miffed at the simplistic answer, but on reflection I came to see the truth of the assertion. The simple truth is Americans elect presidents for the same reasons they elected Student Council Presidents in high school – they like him better.

Today, that same talk show host has posted the following on his blog (he also spoke about it briefly on the sow today and promised to spend more time on it tomorrow). What is interesting is that it seems he has abandoned the basic insight he once possessed. Now he argues that the Republican Party must adopt the Democrats’ campaign planks in order to retain any relevancy. His prescription? Jettison any principled stand in favor of the dignity of life. Jettison any principled stand in favor of the rule of law. The people, he argues, don’t want any of that. Just look at the past election. In other words, Obama won. Assimilate or die. Resistance is futile.

I would agree with Abdul to a certain extent. There are relatively few people who actually care about the issues. But those people are highly motivated and highly vocal. Look for instance at the Ron Paul phenomenon. Paul commanded a corps of true conservatives and also attracted the Ross Perot/Pat Buchanan black helicopter crowd. The mainstream GOP apologists, adopting a strategy close to Abdul’s reasoning, focused almost exclusively on the fringe element and tarred Ron Paul with his supporters’ excesses. They did the same to Perot and Buchanan. As a result, the GOP has been steadily moving to a more Statist position since the Reagan years as they strive to make the tent larger and larger. Ironically, the GOP’s relative share of the electorate has decreased leading one to question whether moving into the Statist Democratic position is favorable to the party, pace Abdul’s claims.

Ronald Reagan perfectly demonstrates why Abdul is wrong. For years after Watergate the mainstream media was declaring the GOP DOA. There was an existential struggle between the Goldwater/Reagan wing of the party and the Rockefeller Rupublicans. In 1976, the Rockefeller wing won and nominated Gerald Ford, the moderate candidate. Ford, of course, went on to be defeated by Jimmy Carter. Four years later, the conservative wing of the party was able to nominate its candidate and Ronald Reagan won 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49. The Party moved away from Statism and the people heartily endorsed that move.

The point is not that conservative values win elections. The point is that conservative positions do not lose elections. Ronald Reagan was far more likable than Carter. Reagan won. It is as simple as that. The lesson is that those of us who care about the issues need to develop candidates that the electorate can relate to, that they want to drink beers with. In short, a candidate who is charismatic will win the election even if he is a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist or even if he is a strict constitutionalist. It is the television era for better or worse.

As far as that goes, I wrote before that it was time to let the GOP go its merry way. But, if the conservative Ron Paul wing of the GOP can find a charismatic candidate (note to Paulites: not Ron Paul), the GOP can be saved. There is no reason the Party cannot turn again from Big Government Statism. There is nothing that locks that position in place. There is nothing to fear from nominating a true conservative as the candidate’s policies have very little to do with whether he will win an election. If image is everything, as appears to be the case, the key is to find a candidate who possesses both the image and who also carries the message.