Governing is a lot different from grousing
by Le Evans
A funny thing happened on the way to the revolution. Apparently, President Bush and the Republican Congress got lost.
Conservative purists, those that claim to put principle above politics, got a lesson in the reality of governing when Republicans in Congress, backed by President Bush, approved the largest expansion of an entitlement program in at least a generation. In December, the Republican Congress approved a new $400 billion prescription drug benefit added to Medicare beginning in 2006.
I can only imagine Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative zealot, biting down hard as the vote tallies were read in the House and Senate. The conservative intellectuals at the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute must have winced. After all, conservatives don't expand government; they contract it.
So what happened? Political reality ruined the revolution. Conservatives have been on the march since Barry Goldwater, and they have built an impressive political infrastructure: Think tanks to generate the ideologically pure policies; talk radio to sell those ideologically pure policies to the public; and disciplined, ideologically pure politicians to enact those proposals. The key to their success has been the lock-step discipline and intellectual purity cultivated during decades of political irrelevance in Congress.
But, as we all know, things have changed. As conservatives delight in pointing out, the shoe is now on the other foot. Indeed, it is. And while Democrats wander in the wilderness, just as conservatives did for so long, Republicans are discovering that governing is a lot different in real life than it is on paper. The ideological purity that was so critical to its rise to power doesn't work as well when actually exercising and maintaining power. And despite the effort at indoctrination, the public remains closely divided between the parties—meaning that moderates with a certain intellectual pragmatism win close national elections.
Consider President Bush's assurances in 2000 that he was a "compassionate conservative." Moderates and independents breathed a sigh of relief when they heard that. Conservatives grinned at the clever turn of phrase.
Of course, conservatives have had significant victories during President Bush's administration. And President Bush is certainly a conservative. But he is also a politician preparing to run for re-election, which means that conservatives are also suffering key defeats on fiscal policy. Those defeats reveal a growing fissure in the Republican governing coalition and an opportunity for Democrats in 2004.
It seems that politics is interfering with principle. Just consider this: During Ronald Reagan's administration, government spending decreased by more than 10 percent. He's a conservative messiah. During Bill Clinton's administration, government spending dropped one percent. He is a conservative pariah. During the first three years of the Bush administration, government spending has risen 21 percent—one of the sharpest increases since World War II, when a liberal messiah named Roosevelt ruled the roost.
So what do conservatives say about Bush? Until the $400 billion expansion of Medicare, they said little; but that is beginning to change. Conservative commentator George Will, perhaps the canary in the cave of growing conservative angst, criticized the congressional spending spree as fiscally irresponsible government on the cheap—taxpayers pay 75 cents on the dollar, while their children pick up the other 25 cents.
Interestingly, that is exactly what President Bush promised to avoid when, in his State of the Union last year, he pledged, "we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and to other generations." It sounded good at the time, but again, ideological purity and political reality are sometimes at odds.
So where will all those ideologically pure conservatives go on Election Day in 2004? Democrats hope they stay home and watch Fox. They hope that all those conservatives in President Bush's base sit this one out just like liberals did during the 2002 congressional elections. Therein lies the Democrats' opportunity.
On the march toward power, conservatives recognized that they could level the field by driving a wedge between Democratic politicians and liberal purists in the party's base. The longer Democratic politicians governed, the more often they had to make decisions driven by political reality instead of ideological purity. Conservatives exploited this with success, as illustrated by the angst in the Democratic presidential field.
John Edwards' surprisingly strong finish in Iowa may foreshadow the Democrats' answer to conservatives' divisiveness. While avoiding attacks and ideological extremes, Edwards tapped into Democrats' desire not only to win the election but also to re-claim the moral high ground. Edwards' politics of hope should worry conservatives because he is healing Democrats' divisions. As a relentless optimist and moderate, his candidacy also creates a rather uncomfortable question for conservatives: Would you rather have ideological purity or political power?
I imagine they'll choose power. After all, it is an election year.
Le Evans is a UT law student and an inveterate commentator.
January 29, 2003 * Vol. 14, No. 5
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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