WENDELL WILLKIEISM? :

Rightward march? (MICHAEL BARONE, 7/1/02, US News)

Not so long ago, in 1999 and 2000, Bill Clinton was hosting conferences of "third way" center-left politicians, including the heads of government of the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy. Today only one, Tony Blair, is still securely in power; another, Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, is trailing in polls in the run-up to the September election; all the rest are out of office, replaced by parties of the right. The right has also recently ousted the center-left in Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, and Austria, and conservative governments were handsomely re-elected in Spain and Australia. At one moment, the "third way" seemed to be sweeping all before it with a Goldilocks formula of not too much government and not too much free market; now it seems to be losing everywhere. Are we seeing a worldwide trend to the right?

One thing that Mr. Barone doesn't discuss here is the real danger when one side of the political spectrum accepts the other's argument. The Third Way is very reminiscent of the Liberal Republicanism that dominated the GOP for much of the half century after FDR came to power. Just as Republicans at that time accepted the Democrats argument in favor of a massive Federal government, so now the Left has accepted the Right's argument in favor of free markets and smaller government. But they're running into the same problem that the GOP did then.

If even you say that the other guy's basically right and your argument is reduced to nothing more than we might be able to implement his ideas a little better, why shouldn't the voters choose the true believers instead of the Johnny-Come-Latelys? Sure, every once in awhile, particularly during an economic downturn, you can sneak through an Ike or a Clinton, but most of the time you end up trotting out a Wendell Willkie or a Tom Dewey to say "me too". Me-tooism is a singularly unappealing political; philosophy. It is the doctrine of a follower, not a leader.

Al Gore's nostalgic New Deal class warfare candidacy may have been based on policy that would have been disastrous for the nation, but it represented a genuine attempt to lead the country in a different direction than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had agreed on. This may well be one of the major reasons why he "won".

Today, the Left finds itself stuck not only accepting the free market argument but also, and more problematically, the cultural case that conservatism has made for two centuries. The spectacle of Democrats and European Socialists defending Western Civilization may be more than voters can bear, the dissonance too much for them to handle. It's one thing for Bill Clinton to say the era of big government is over, but one assumes that even he couldn't have gotten away with leading what amounts to a crusade on behalf of Judeo-Christendom. It remains to be seen whether a politician of the Left can enunciate such a conservative social program and be taken seriously. And considering the difficulty that Tony Blair is having keeping his Labour Party in line as he helps lead the crusade, one has to question whether such a candidate can appeal to his own party to a sufficient degree to win its nomination. How would Democrats feel, after all, if one of their own gave a speech as overtly religious in tone as the one President Bush gave at the National Prayer Service after 9-11, particularly since such an introduction of religion to the national conversation by a Democrat would tend to legitimize the more ambitious religiosity of Republicans?

The Left seems to be helping to erect a tightrope that it's not entirely clear anyone can safely walk. What Mr. Barone calls a "Goldilocks" approach on the economy is now necessary on geopolitics and social policy too. That's a lot of porridge to keep at just the right temperature.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 24, 2002 2:41 PM