GOP search for the real conservative
Conservatives should not out source the teaching of morals to the government. That is the job of families and their church. The tragedy of the break up of the black family unit and the consequences of that demonstrate how pernicious government good intentions can be.Ask Republicans how they intend to vote in the upcoming primaries and you often hear, "There are two or three candidates I'd consider voting for...." Press the question, and "I don't know" is the surprisingly common reply.
The uncertainty, felt even by some who've endorsed a candidate, stems from many factors. The primary elections come earlier and thicker than ever this year, intruding on the holidays and the holiday spirit especially of the vanguard voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, but disquieting any American who would like to deliberate about this fateful choice a little longer. There are a lot of Republican contenders to choose from, too, and most are plausible as president.
But the main cause of the perplexity is something else, I think. Republicans lack a clear criterion by which to make up their mind. Not so long ago, that standard would have included a definition of conservatism--ragged at the edges, but still serviceable. But American conservatism's meaning, even in its heyday never uncontroversial, is less clear today. And the implications of that meaning--where conservatism should go from here--are more up in the air than at any time since the movement's founding in the 1950s.
Conservatism helped to win the Cold War and to discredit socialism, fulfilling two of the modern Right's defining objectives. After such sweeping success, it may seem ungrateful to ask about conservatism's second act. But by its own lights the movement has left vital goals unfulfilled--ending or rolling back or "conservatizing" big government, and restoring America to moral and cultural health. Unlike the defeat of Communism and socialism, goals shared by all conservatives and functioning as the movement's great amalgam and inspiration, shrinking the state and rehabilitating American morals are the favorite causes of different, and to some degree differing, parts of the Right.
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As a result, Republican presidential candidates are tempted, indeed almost compelled, to reinvent conservatism for our times. George W. Bush tried this with "compassionate conservatism." Mike Huckabee has his own blend of faith-based social nostrums and ambitious economic reforms. In fact, he combines the two in a Hail-Mary proposal to replace the income and payroll taxes with a national sales tax. He has less to say about foreign policy or small government. Indeed, he suggests, somewhat in the manner of a European Christian Democrat, that government should apply Christian charity in its programs as a way of correcting the excesses of capitalism and individualism.
Rudy Giuliani seeks to recast conservatism as the concern for limited government (shown notably in his proposals for health care reform) together with a fierce willingness to wage war on terrorism. By almost explicitly excluding religious and moral conservatism from his definition, he comes close to pointing the American Right in the direction of a robust form of libertarianism or old-style European liberalism. But count on his own spirited concern for public morals, prominently displayed when he was mayor of New York, for many detours from such a path.
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The Giuliani prescription hits on what government can do well and directs it toward conservative objectives. He may still make the case for public morals even as he falls short in his own life, but the stance is one of good taste. Being against the desecration of religious symbols shouldn't require courage, but unfortunately in New York it did. Cleaning up Times Square should not have been controversial, but in New York it was. However, Giuliani's real legacy was what he did with traditional government programs such as welfare reform and cutting taxes to spur the growth in the economy.
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