No Runny Eggs

(Cross-posted from the TownHall version of NRE)

I’ve promised this for, what, 2 1/2 weeks? Every time I had something started, I’ve run into something that caused me to drop it. Not this time; not even a glitch that rejected my attempt to publish over there yesterday morning. Heck, I’m glad that I was delayed because some things happened that caused me to rethink my answer (at least my national answer; things just got even worse in Wisconsin). Now, on with the post….

If one were to simply look at what the Republican Party has put out there lately, from the anmesty bill to the three purported front-runners for the 2008 Presidential nomination, from the focus of tax cuts as not cutting the flow of money to and thus the size of government to the massive expansion of the federal government in areas that it has no business being, one could say that conservatism was not only out of gas, but dead and in the casket waiting to be buried. Indeed, in its push for the amnesty bill, the White House attempted to bury conservatives who opposed amnesty by using tired liberal name-calling. Those few announced candidates who can accurately be described as conservative aren’t getting any traction, at least according to the opinion polls.

However, we’re not quite dead yet. Sites like TownHall, Free Republic, Hot Air, Boots and Sabers, and even my little hole in the wall are thriving. Conservative talk radio is still so successful, the Democrats are scheming ways to shut it down. We’ve just defeated amnesty despite the wors…er, best efforts of the leadership of both parties. Even if they’re flaming liberals, Republicans still at least attempt to speak our language at election time. Heck, even the Democrats are so insecure in their liberalism that they’re once again trying to run to the right (from The Wall Street Journal).

On the Presidential nomination front, the two most-liberal of those three front-runners are skipping the historically-important Iowa straw poll in August, likely because their internal polls are showing something that the public opinion polls aren’t. We have the 6’5″ gorilla of a (more-or-less) conservative forming an exploratory committee in the wake of the third less-than-inspiring debate.

So, we’re not necessarily out of gas. Rather, we’re at a crossroads trying to decide which way to go while a tornado of bad liberal ideas is almost on top of us, indeed, so close that some of those bad ideas are raining down like so much debris. We need to find conservatives to run against the bipartisan members of the liberal Party-In-Government. We need to hold everybody’s feet to the fire. Now, I am not an expert, so I can’t tell you who to run against who; you’ll have to do your homework and figure that one yourselves. However, I do know that we have to get that done now or we will get swept up and spit out.

I promised that I would put that over at TownHall, and after some hemming (on my part) and hawing (on Townhall’s part; they’ve glitched up lately), that’s up. It’s a lot more positive than my Wisconsin-specific take.

Note; I wrote most of this yesterday afternoon/evening; I’m rushing this out while hung over because the inevitable has happened.

Back in April, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute asked some of Wisconsin’s best and brightest right-of-center minds to answer the question, “Is Conservatism Out Of Gas?” (easier-to-follow archives than what they provide here for week 1 and here for weeks 2-4). I threw in my two cents on both Wisconsin and the national scene, and given the events of the Republican Presidential primary/caucus season, it’s high time to revisit this.

As the title says, this revisit will focus on the national scene, but I would be remiss if I didn’t briefly mention the Wisconsin one. While the situation hasn’t changed since I last visited the question, there is some progress on the judicial front. We did find a judicially-conservative judge, Mike Gabelman, to take on Doyle appointee Justice Louis Butler for the Supreme Court. Depending on what happens in that race, I may revisit that portion.

There are four basic legs of the conservative coalition, three of which are essentially unique to American conservatism and two of which are shared by libertarians. The first one I’ll deal with is governmental conservatism, shared with libertarians. At the federal level, it is a basic respect for the Constitution, and for federalism, which precludes using the federal government as an “overlord” to either push a particular philosophy or to buy votes. The three candidates who espoused this, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul, all were summarily rejected. In no state did the three of them even amount to a quarter of the vote. Mitt Romney attempted some outreach in this regard after a governorship spent growing the public-private partnership in Massachusetts; however, his only success in a state where he faced competition was after once again dipping into the bigger government well.

Why did this die? Simple; decades upon decades of government cultivating a dependence of the populace on it has, as surely as nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, or caffeine, created a dependence on government that is exceptionally hard to break, even as the country plunges into an economic mess caused by the creation and expansion of that dependence. One could say that it died when the 104th Congress lost the government shutdown battle in 1995, and he or she would have a valid point. One could also say it died when George W. Bush ran as a “compassionate ‘conservative'”, and again he or she would have a valid point. It just hasn’t been recognized until now.

The second portion that is at best on life support, almost as a direct result of the death of the first, is economic conservatism, also shared by libertarians. The few tax cuts that aren’t specifically targeted at a small subset of the few taxpayers left are sold not as actually reducing the amount of money the federal government receives. Indeed, it is hard, if not impossible, to use government as a way to buy votes without a complete lack of fiscal restraint.

There is a little bit of hope in this regard; John McCain does recognize the need to not have earmarks; however, the fight against earmarks is but a small part of economic conservatism, and that’s the only part that McCain recognizes. Morever, the fallout from the method of his primary win, including the likelyhood of humiliation in November, makes even that moot.

The third leg, a victim of suicide, is social conservatism. Rather than embrace candidates that also espouse the remainder of the conservative coalition, the voters listened to the RNC’s thinly-veiled call to push out those that believe in small government and fiscal restraint and pushed a candidate who, franky, is a big-government socialist, Mike Huckabee. The remainder of the conservative coalition pushed back, and after a surprise win in Iowa, Huckabee didn’t have a single win until today with a “stop-Romney” parliamentary move in West Virginia, with follow-on wins in his home state of Arkansas and heavily-Southern Baptist Arkansas.

That leaves the last leg, foreign policy. It is the one that is not, at least historically, uniquely-American. I will note that Paul is the outlier here; as a libertarian, he espouses weakness in the face of attacks, and that has been roundly rejected by the Republicans. The remainder of the candidates, both surviving and withdrawn, do recognize that to retreat in the face of attacks is only a recipe for the ultimate defeat of America. However, that is not, on its own, enough to carry the day. By focusing solely on this to the mutual exclusion of the other three legs, the RNC has planted the seeds of its humiliation in November. There are many conservatives, both influential and bloggers, who have vowed not to vote for John McCain.

I briefly considered tossing this, or at least postponing it again, after a rather lengthy discussion with Brian Fraley over beers. However, I’ve put it off too long. I hope the RNC is happy with the separation of the Republican Party from the conservatives and the resulting death spiral last experienced by the Whig Party. I also hope the rank-and-file is happy with being a national minority party for the remainder of its marked time as it is poised to nominate a candidate who would rather be a member of the other party. Lastly, I hope the “conservatives” who participated in the systematic destruction of every candidate who came forth to carry the broad-based conservative banner by voting for or supporting somebody else because of some perceived slight are happy about being shoved into the dustbin of history, because neither McCain nor the Democrats will let conservatives back into the political game if they can help it.

Revisions/extensions (1:06 am 2/6/2008) – There is a lot of good discussion over at Michelle’s place, as she notes there is an actual CPAC topic called, “Is the GOP lost?”.

I don’t know whether I will be revising and extending my remarks back in May and June on the question of whether conservativism is out of gas, but Jim Geraghty makes a pretty strong case for it being in the process of cracking up.

I’m still trying to formulate my thoughts, and I’m hoping that January doesn’t make me reconsider those remarks.

It’s either this or reflection on the end of the Packer season, and this happened first (besides, I’m more-apt to put the latter over at TheWisconsinSportsBar, and my fellow bartenders pretty much already summed it up complete with expletives). First, let me state for the record that I’m nowhere near a professional political operative (the rambling nature of this post ought to be a dead giveaway), and that while the anticipated pronouncement that the boat is below the waves is tomorrow, it isn’t official yet.

A lot of people are saying and are going to say that Fred Thompson got into the race too late. If by late, you mean he got in later by an “absolute” calendar standard than successful candidates got in previous cycles, no. If by late, you mean he got in after everybody else did, yes. The “buzz” in politics, specifically press coverage and fundraising, is much like the time near the end of a race at Darlington, with only one green-flag pit stop left to go (I’ll ignore that Darlington tends not to have a lot of long green-flag runs). For those of you not familiar with NASCAR or Darlington Raceway, the surface at Darlington is very abrasive, and cars with a fresh set of tires turn laps that tend to be at least 2 seconds faster than cars that are at the end of their runs.

Yet, that was not nearly the fatal blow. Thompson did get a lot of buzz, especially in the conservative blogosphere, and more than enough cash to compete with at least John McCain and Mike Huckabee once he got in the race. Morever, all of the states had significant moves in support well after Thompson got into the race, so the “late” argument doesn’t exactly hold a lot of water for me.

That “late” argument does not explain why Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, both of whom ran credibly on what was supposedly the number one conservative issue in 2007 (opposition to illegal immigration) and both of whom entered the race at the same time as everybody else, never gained more than token support and ultimately dropped out. It also does not explain why Mitt Romney, who poured a lot of money and time into every pre-Florida state and who ran to the right of Rudy McCabee for much of the pre-primaries/caucii portion of the campaign, essentially collapsed in every state contested by any third of that three-headed monster. I know, Romney did take a contested Michigan; however, there are a pair of mitigating circumstances. First, the Romney name is still remembered fondly in the state across the lake. Second, Romney went away from his previous broad-based conservatism message, especially in the economic department.

I’m left asking the same question the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute asked last April in “Wisconsin Interest” (Volume 16, Number 2), “Is conservatism out of gas?” I’m now leaning more toward my very-pessimistic Wisconsin-specific answer than my somewhat-more-optimistic national one, with the further revision that there are no gains to be had by focusing solely on social conservatism. Indeed, I’m almost ready to ask the follow-on question of whether conservatism is dead.

I’m also just about ready to ask and answer the question on whether the right-of-center part of the blogosphere has any actual influence. That really deserves its own missive, but I’ll give the upshot now; whatever influence we have is with the politicians themselves, not with the masses.

Ultimately, it was a combination of the cumulative effects of 70 years of almost-unchecked liberalism and complete chaos that was the Thompson campaign that doomed Thompson to the scrap heap of political history.

The Alphabet Soup has long ago declared it for the team of John McCain, Mexico, and DhimmiRATs. With 64% of the precincts reporting, McCain’s up by just over 61,000 votes out of approximately 1.5 million. I’m too tired to unleash the required number of expletives, so instead, I’ll take the overnight to toss over just how I want to write American conservatism’s epitaph. I really could and should have done that the moment Fred Thompson was bounced from the race, but with the inevitability of spit-in-the-eye-of-conservatives McCain and the flop back to liberalist populism by Mitt Romney in his last gasp, it’s now well past time to start writing.

Revisions/extensions (07:36 5/16/2007) – Just so you’re not confused about the “DING”s, that’s the bell that Fox News used to let everybody know one of these jokers passed their time limit, not me agreeing with any particular thing that one of these jokers said.

After proving that they’re braver than the Dems by debating on The Main Enemy’s Network (in the Pubbies’ case, MSNBC), Fox News proudly presents Round 2 among the 10 announced Pubbie candidates from South Carolina tonight at 8 Central. Burning questions:

– Will Rudy Giuliani further alienate himself among conservatives?
– How will John McCain mark the passing of Jerry Falwell?
– How many times will Tommy Thompson have a “hearing aid failure”?
– Do ANY of these jokers have a chance against Fred Thompson when he finally announces?

Joining in the live-blogging – Sister Toldjah, who deserves the break after suffering through MSNBC, and Free Republic, and Hot Air (added at 19:37), and Ace of Spades, who’s hosting the drinking games (added 19:58)

19:27 (I don’t feel like typing “p.m.”; deal with it) – Sean Hackbarth has a few more questions. My favorite, especially since I don’t recall any South Carolina sports heroes – “What local sports hero will Sen. Sam Brownback slight?”

19:32 – Somebody slap some sense into Ted Olson. Ted, you’re a great guy, but Rudy is a liberal.

19:48 – Katon Dawson (SC GOP Chair) advocates pandering. Also, it seems the Fox clock is a bit fast.

19:51 – The candidates are up on the stage for pre-debate photo ops, and Alan Colmes is wondering who will run the furthest away from President Bush (my money’s on Ron Paul).

20:00 – We go live to Brit Hume.

20:01 – Ground rules – 1 minute to answer, 30 seconds to rebut at the discretion of Hume, and we’ve got the bell instead of the buzzer. No react on Falwell because there’s been enough.

20:05 – Chris Wallace – McCain, why should Americans continue to die if Iraqis aren’t stepping up? If we fail in Iraq, we will see Iraq become a haven for Al Qaeda and they will follow us home. The surge is a good strategy. Says war has been mishandled, Maliki government needs to step up.

20:06 – Wallace – Tommy, explain your plan to force the Iraqi government to vote on our presence and split the oil revenues. If the 18 provinces elected their government like we elected governors, blah, blah, blah.

20:07 – Wallace – Romney, would you pull out without victory? No, brings up the Caliphate.

20:08 – Wallace – Brownback, should we as a country pull together? Yes, blasts the DhimmiRATs for pushing for defeat. Pushes a weak federal/strong 3-state solution. DING DING DING!

20:10 – Wallace – Rudi, is your commitment to win open-ended unlike the Senate “Pubbies” who want us out in September if there’s no progress? Brings up the Fort Dix 6

20:12 – Wallace – Tancredo, are you giving the Islamokazis a timetable? Trying to retreat from a retreat-and-defeat. DING DING! Wallace – Paul, “Are you running for the nomination of the wrong party?” – Quagmire! Brings up Reagan’s retreat from Beirut. DING DING!

20:14 – Hunter – As we get the Iraqi Army up, we’re going to get the heavy troops out.

20:15 – Huckabee – You better get the best advice you can.

20:16 – Question from Harry in Boston – “Would you do a pre-emptive strike against Iran?” Gilmore – Continue the EU3 approach.

20:18 – Golner taking over – Whacks “Flip Flop Mitt” on the tax issue. Romney claims he didn’t raise taxes (must’ve went to the Craps School of Tax Issues). Add Michelle Malkin to the liveblogging brigade.

20:20 – McShame defending his opposition to the Bush tax cuts by saying nobody cut spending.

20:21 – Line of the night from Huckabee – Congress “has spent money like John Edwards in a beauty shop”, as he pushes the “Fair”Tax.

20:22 – Golner whacking Rudi on his free-spending ways in NYC.

20:23 – Brownback pushing corn-a-hole, biodiesel, drilling, conservation (in that order) as the answer to high gas prices. Be “energy-secure in North America in 15 years.”

20:24 – Brian from Ft Wayne – “What would you do to control pork spending?”. Tommy not telling the whole truth about Wisconsin (he merely spent like McCain’s drunken sailor instead of the Rat Legislature’s planned passed-out sailor). Would eliminate the CDC stockpile program, couldn’t list 2 others.

20:26-20:28 – Paul would kill Energy, Education, Homeland Security. DING DING!

20:29 – Third Rail of Social Security is out there for Gilmore. Pushes caps, culture change to self-sufficiency, tax cuts. All-but-calls out Rudi and McShame.

20:30 – Hunter on trade – Enforce the trade laws with Red China, zero out the manufacturing taxes. “Arsenal of Democracy is leaving our shores.”

20:31 – Tancredo – Pubbies lost the mantle of fiscal responsibility. Takes whacks at No Child Left Behind, MediScare Part D. DING DING!

20:32 – BREAK!!!

20:36 – Wallace is back. Gilmore asked about the shots taken at the opposition. Breaks out the abortion record of Rudi, the tax-hiking of Huckabee and gubmint health care plan of Romney by name.

20:37 – Rudi, are pro-abortion/pro-gun-grab/pro-DhimmiRAT stands true conservatism? – “I don’t think Rudy McRomney would make a bad ticket.” BOOO!!!!! Starts taking shots at Hitlery’s outright Communism. Didn’t answer in 1 minute, then goes back to Club for Growth.

20:40 – McShame, are tax hikes, amnesty and speech silencing true conservatism? – It’s bipartisanship, baby. Whacking Islamofascism uber alles.

20:41 – Huckabee, are tax hikes true conservatism? – I don’t apologize for raising taxes and government spending.

20:43 – Romney, are gun-grabbing, gay rights (back in 1994, Romney was proud to be more pro-homosex than The Swimmer), and pro-abortion true conservatism? – I’m as conservative as Taxachusetts can stand.

20:44 – Brownback, is amnesty true conservatism? – Yes, just as it was in 1986. DING DING!

20:45 – Back to Wendell asking The Other Thompson about stem cells – There’s enough stem cells, embryonic and otherwise, to not destroy any more embryos.

20:47 – Rudi – slavery bad, abortion good.

20:48 – Huckabee – Life begins at conception. Amen.

20:49 – Wendell trying to goad Brownback into allowing abortion on demand for rape victims. No dice, as it IS a child.

20:50 – Wendell trying to goad Romney into going back to his pro-abort state. Romney’s “Road to Damascus” moment was looking at rows of embryos destined to be destroyed for research.

20:52 – Finally back to Wallace asking Tancredo about immigration. Line of the night part two – “I believe those conversions when they happen on the Road to Damascus and not the Road to De Moines”.

20:53 – McShame proud of the pending Amnesty Lite.

20:56 – Romney wants those here illegally to first go home then apply legally. McShame-Swimmer will do to immigration what McShame-Slimeroad did to campaign finance.

20:57 – Rebuttal from McShame – I’m proud of the McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protetion Act.

20:58 – Rudi pressed on his old line of wanting illegals in NYC. Pushes biometrics and a national ID. DING DING!

20:59 – Scott from Colorado Springs – “How would you prevent illegals from using social services?”. Hunter – I built the San Diego border fence. Rips Bush for a “case of the slows” on the border fence. Removal of the revolving door would help.

21:00 – Wendell back – Paul, since you’re an isolationist, are you running for the wrong nomination? – Paul ignores recent history to spew ancient history. DING DING! Wendell whacks back by asking whether 9/11 changed anything – Paul still wants to go back to Fortress America.

21:03 – Rudi whacks Paul for saying that Iraq was the reason for 9/11. Make that WHACK.

21:04 – Royce from Philly – “Should SC fly the Confederate flag from state buildings?”. McCain – It shouldn’t have been a state issue (follow-up, whose issue is it then?), and I’m glad it’s no longer on top of the state Capitol.

21:06 – Huckabee asked about some guy who got paroled while he was governor who committed a heinous crime. Started blaming the parole board and the previous governor, said he denied clemency but fessed up to not having perfect foresight when it came out he said the con met the conditions for a parole hearing.

21:07 – Wendell brings up Gorebal Warming. Tancredo – I don’t quite buy it, but I want to cut petroleum products for security reasons. Oh, and Paul, you’re an ass.

21:10 – BREAK!

21:13 – Brit large and in charge. Premise – We’ve been hit by suicide bombers 3 times at shopping centers and a 4th attack was averted when we caught them and sent them to Club Gitmo. We think they have info on more planned attacks. McCain, how far would you go? It’s on my head, and I still oppose torture.

21:15 – Rudi, should waterboarding be used? – If we knew the terrorists had the info, use every means necessary.

21:16 – Romney, same question. – The key’s prevention. I’d be glad that they’re at Club Gitmo away from the lawyers. “We should double Guantamino.” “Enanced interrogation”, not torture.

21:17 – Brit adds to this – we’ve found out they trained in West Africa in a country that is hostile to us. Tommy, what would you do? – Trust, but verify, then kick ass.

21:18 – Brownback, would you go to the UN? HELL NO! American lives matter more than international opinion. Shoot first, apologize later.

21:19 – Hunter, same questions – Let’s kick ass quickly.

21:20 – McShame, are “enhanced interrogation” techniques torture? – Yes (I hope you don’t watch “24”, McShame).

21:21 – Gilmore, what would you do to protect the economy in this attack? – I have the experience because the Pentagon is in Virginia. I would tell the UN we’re kicking ass, and if you want in, come on in, and if you don’t, stay out of our way. Pushes info sharing. DING DING!

21:22 – Huckabee, what economic policies would you change? – It was good for President Bush to urge us back onto planes and into malls, but it will never be business as usual. Sacrifice as in WWII.

21:23 – Paul, same question (pointing out tax cuts helped) – Cut taxes, cut spending. Dances around the torture issue, and adopts the DhimmiRAT line on Afghanistan.

21:25 – Tancredo – “I’m looking for Jack Bauer.” I don’t recall Brit saying these were nukes.

21:26 – Finishing with Wallace – What does it say that there’s no woman or minority in the Gang of 10? Gilmore – Brought up the church burnings. Wallace pushes for an answer. They haven’t stood up yet.

21:29 – Romney, what flip-flops did you do that made you less popular with Pubbies? – No Child Left Behind, because I supported killing Dept. of Ed. back in 1994.

21:30 – Wendell – Hunter, is the ChiComs holding boku Treasury bonds a security threat? – Yes, and their arming is also a a threat.

21:30 – OVER AND OUT!

So, who won? I think the easier answer is, “Who lost?” Let’s start with Truther Ron Paul. He’s a 19th-century Fortress America guy in a 21st-century world. John McCain definitely is a one-note pony, and he’s not even all that strong on that one note. The Other Thompson is way out of his league, and considering that this league doesn’t have any stars, that’s saying a lot. Mitt Romney once again has proven that he’s the Republican John Kerry. Rudy Giuliani, while incredibly strong on his one note of national security, is anything but conservative. The rest of the field didn’t get much face time.

Bring on Fred!

One last update (22:32) – Allow me to explain The Other Thompson’s “1,900 veto” claim. Wisconsin has the broadest partial veto in the nation, and Tommy took it to such an extreme, the state Supreme Court said he could no longer strike individual characters (funny how they went to the tall grass when Jim “Craps” Doyle rewrote entire pages via the partial-veto pen). The 1,900 number is the number of times he struck letters/numbers/words from the budget.