If only Charlie had written this piece over at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute before the election, we might not be facing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (assuming, of course, Hillary Clinton lets him have that) and State Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson. Of course, it’s more likely he would have been written off as a doom-and-gloomer. The money quotes:
At a deeper level, it exposed the larger flaw of "Limbaughism": Conservatism is not the same as populism.
By its nature conservatism flies in the face of popular ideas and culture; because it has firm, occasionally hard-nosed principles, it battles the fierce headwinds of both fashion and history.
Arguing from economic principles is not always easy. Arguing facts and logics is not as popular as arguing from feelings and emotions. Traditional morality is a far less easy sell than the culture of "whatever."
In education, "most people," may not choose higher standards or rigorous accountability measures over gold stars and happy faces. It is harder to explain why free markets create wealth than it is to pander to workers displaced by
global competition. It is an uphill fight to persuade workers that the minimum wage is not in their interest.Those arguments, of course, can be won, and Ronald Reagan and others showed that they could be embraced by electoral majorities. But the case was made by conservatives who understood the odds against them.
It goes very well with what Ronald Reagan said after the 1974 debacle.
