Monday, March 10, 2008
The Republican nomination for president was decided last Tuesday, too early to be swayed by Friday's Wall Street Journal opinion page. A former presidential candidate wrote an opinion piece that rang of individualism and freedom, which made a clear call for trusting average Americans with their own liberty. The article was more conservative than many campaign pronouncements from this year's Republican candidates. In the fight for the mantle of Ronald Reagan, the winner was definitely the writer of Friday's article: George McGovern.
Yes, the George McGovern who back in 1968 was too crazy of a liberal for most of the Democratic Party, who managed to win the party's nomination in 1972 and lead them to a beating so vicious even rented mules couldn't watch without cringing. He probably won the vote of every one of today's aging hippie KU professors and virtually no votes beyond that. It turns out he is a more principled conservative than any member of the Republican congressional leadership. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
McGovern wrote last week of “economic paternalism,” specifically in terms of proposed subprime mortgage legislation, health insurance requirements and payday lending restrictions. All of these proposals have support from various Republicans. McGovern, meanwhile, seems to have seen the light. “I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.” When George McGovern is on your political right, you've got to start worrying about falling off the left-hand edge of the world.
How could the man who was categorized as being for “amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot” by his own vice-presidential nominee out-Reagan the Party of Reagan?
The truth is that Republicans don't worry about the size of government anymore. In 1998 when Trent Lott gave the Republican response to Bill Clinton's State of the Union address, he said Clinton's proposed $1.7 trillion budget was evidence that government had become too fat. Eight years later in defense of a proposed $2.8 trillion budget, Lott said there was no more fat left to cut.
The trend has accelerated. Faced with devastating hordes of retiring old people, President Bush has made no change to Social Security and has created a massive prescription drug entitlement. Faced with free-speaking and bribe-offering citizens, John McCain spearheaded campaign speech restrictions to the envy of third world dictators everywhere.
Republicans used to think government should allow citizens to be responsible for themselves. And that might be fine for a theoretical government, but when you've got to get votes, the highways and community centers you brought to your district win more votes than the highways and community centers you turned down.
Voters may pay lip service to personal responsibility, but when the government is giving out vouchers for television converter boxes, voters are going to make sure they get ten vouchers each.
Now it's fallen to George McGovern to call Republicans to their senses? Pundits wonder if the Republican base will abandon John McCain in November, but the fact is the Republican Party has already abandoned its base. Left with nowhere to go for principled conservatism, Republicans are finding McCain to be the less-palatable of the remaining options. The plotting moderatism of Hillary Clinton, or even the principled liberalism of Barack Obama, is easier to stomach than the plate of dog crap the Republican Party is offering under the billing “Your Favorite Meal.”
Minster is a Lawrence senior in economics.
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