September 22, 2006
HAD ENOUGH?:
'Republicans Will Make History' (KEN MEHLMAN, September 22, 2006, Wall Street Journal)
Here at home, we are also working to reform government. We live in a global economy, one in which it is just as easy to create jobs in India as it is in Indiana. Republicans understand this, which is why we are committed to lower taxes, less regulation and fewer lawsuits. Republicans have cut taxes every year since George W. Bush was elected president. We have streamlined regulations, reformed bankruptcy laws, offered choice to Medicare recipients, and limited class-action lawsuits. The Democrats opposed every single one of those reforms -- and they are pledging to stand in our way as we move forward.Republicans want to eliminate the death tax once and for all. Democrats want to bring it back. Republicans want to explore new sources of energy to bring gas and heating prices down. Democrats want to block domestic exploration. Republicans want small businesses to be able to band together to provide health care to their employees at a reasonable price. Democrats don't believe entrepreneurs should have that freedom. Republicans want all parents to have the choice of where they send their kids to school. Democrats would limit that choice to the rich and powerful. The list goes on and on.
It would be foolish not to acknowledge the challenges Republicans face this election cycle. We are up against history. It has been close to a century since Republicans have held the White House and the House of Representatives for eight straight years. Winning four elections in a row doesn't happen that often.
You can understand that Democrats oppose all these things. What's harder to explain is why National Review types do. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2006 12:33 PM
NR types have the inside-the-beltway disease, too much cocktail
Posted by: sam at September 22, 2006 12:53 PMI think the criticism that they are 'afraid of governance' (as I believe Orrin put it) is too accurate.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 22, 2006 2:41 PMNational Review types: 2 reasons: 1. some of them were selling their books, and need their mugs on TV. Criticizing Bush and the Republicans is their fastest way to the MSM heaven. 2. Like the left, they believe Bush is dumb. They condescend to "support" Bush who, they believe, was doing their biddings. But "that SOB doesn't stay bought (dumb)", the dummy dares think for itself. That is outrageous.
Posted by: ic at September 22, 2006 2:43 PMOn the other hand, sometimes the "National Review" screechers get it exactly right:
Why does the Dems' current euphoria remind me so much of Red Sox fans in August?"
(Or at least pass along a great line.)
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at September 22, 2006 6:45 PMI concur that the "fear of governance" has a lot to do with it. The voter coalition which has brought the conservative movement to victory after victory consists of sub-movements some of the NR people would jettison, now that the bill is coming due. Now some of them resemble nothing so much as Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, as he waits to be carried off to Hell:
Ah Faustus, Now hast thou but one
bare hour to live, and then thou must be
damned perpetually. Stand still, you
ever-moving spheres of Heaven, that time
may cease, and midnight never come. . ..
To turn on the right to life or even the RKBA now would shatter the coalition, probably forever. To merely throw a midterm election, however, permits the worldly and elitist CINO's (conservatives in name only) keep the death machine in place without exposing their treachery. "Too bad." they will tell us, "We can't get you more Scalia and Thomas justices now--the babies will just have to keep going into the dumpster."
Posted by: Lou Gots at September 22, 2006 9:16 PM
It's a coalition dominated by conservative Christians, with whom the neocons, Darwinists and libertarians are a poor fit.
Posted by: oj at September 22, 2006 9:49 PMIf the coalition is dominated by any one component, it cannot work. That is the Marxist model, in which one vanguard sets the party line for the entire united front.
The way in which the conservative voter coalition functions is that each element "dominates" its area of concern. Religions conservatives get live babies and family values, RKBA people get gun rights, neocons get vigorous foreign policy, econocons get their tax cuts, libertarians their ownership society, and everyone defers to his shipmates with respect to one another's domains.
That's what the matter with Kansas: live babies are worth repealing the death tax. Ideologues don't get this, but conservatism is the absence of ideology.
Posted by: Lou Gots at September 23, 2006 6:32 AMYes, conservatism isn't naturally about coalition, but about ideas. That's why over the next few years the core will be joined by like-minded black and Hispanic Christians, orthodox Jews, Muslims, etc. and the libertarians will switch to the party of permissiveness. The paleos are just out of luck.
Posted by: oj at September 23, 2006 8:31 AMAre the paleos the guys sitting in the corner over at NRO?
Posted by: erp at September 23, 2006 10:07 AMDerbyshire and the other Right Darwinists.
Thanks. I thought so, but I haven't clicked over there in years. When I hear Kristol's voice on TV (my husband's watching, not me), the whining sneer sounds like nails scraping on the blackboard.
Posted by: erp at September 23, 2006 11:52 AM