SOMETHING TO OFFER
By
Rudy Takala
June 10, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
The Republican establishment has spent many of its recent days bemoaning the idealistic rhetoric of Barack Obama, complaining that it is neither realistic nor substantive. They say that navigating the dark sea of politics requires a harsh captain who has had any unrealistic sense of optimism bludgeoned out of him, and who idealizes nothing greater than his own survival.
Though it may be the case that such people are better at winning elections, they do not help their parties. To use the anecdote of what is motivating me, I can see one good quality to both John McCain and Barack Obama. McCain’s quality is that if he’s elected president, he will wear down and die within four years. Obama’s quality is that, according to Hillary, he will be shot before his second term. Within this context, I expect to have a more pleasant election day.
But it speaks to a basic problem, which is that for the Republican Party, John McCain is not going to grow its base. Even if he is elected president, he is only going to perpetuate the Republican tradition of failure through victory. Republicans have won seven of the ten past presidential elections, yet they have presided over nothing but increases in spending and growth in government. Liberals have lost elections, but they have not lost the battles.
That distinction has been apparent for decades. In his 1952 campaign, Dwight Eisenhower promised to balance the budget and reduce federal expenditures to $60 billion by 1955. By 1957, he was submitting a record peacetime budget of $71 billion.
The result was John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960.
In that year, 22,000 people contributed $9.7 million to Kennedy’s campaign, while 44,000 contributed $10 million to Richard Nixon’s. Kennedy attracted corporate interests; Nixon attracted a handful of people from the middle-class.
But in 1964, over one million people contributed to Barry Goldwater’s campaign. Why? “In the final analysis,” wrote Robert Novak the year after, “Rockefeller and Scranton lost [the Republican nomination] because they had nothing to offer the people but themselves. Goldwater had a moral philosophy that stirred enough people to the heights of enthusiasm so that the nomination was his.”
Last year’s Republican field saw a similar fundraising trend. Ron Paul was the only Republican to increase his fundraising in every quarter. In the year’s last three months, he raised $19.95 million—more than any other candidate in his party.
Candidates who hold sincere “moral philosophies” motivate people who are unused to seeing politicians fight for the things they believe in. Those candidates have a harder time making it through elections, because morals often offend voters. But in perpetuating the feeling that a belief is worth fighting for, these candidates ignite something that lasts for years after they have departed from the limelight.
By refusing to compromise their principles, Democrats have been able to sustain an energetic base that has maintained a laser-like focus on their goals. Republicans, on the other hand, have not attracted principled leaders, because theirs has not been a party of principle.
What Republicans have instead is an agglomeration of the emotionally-damaged, people who want nothing more than the security of being in an organization. They need the sense of approval that comes with winning. They are parasites who live a symbiotic relationship with “The Party.” Few things would be more devastating to them than losing the approval of others. That approval, of course, comes from winning elections.
So they say that electoral success requires our acceptance of a tradition characterized by compromise, of playing it safe, and doing what it takes to get elected.
Meanwhile Obama, ranked by the National Journal as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, has virtually steamrolled his way through half a presidential election. “Idealists can’t win,” indeed.
Unfortunately for Republicans, this country is not a ship, and we are not slaves chained to the oars. Time will tell if voters can get past the brittle pessimism of our party long enough to vote for its presidential candidate. But time has already told what the consequences will be for conservatism. If we want to see our principles endure, perhaps we should begin looking for candidates who have more to offer than themselves.
© 2008 Rudy Takala - All Rights Reserved
