Pubdate: Sat, 02 Sep 2006
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2006 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: John Tierney, Op-Ed Columnist
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

CAN THIS PARTY BE SAVED?

Republicans in Washington did not abandon their principles lightly. 
When they embraced "compassionate conservatism," when they started 
spending like Democrats, most of them didn't claim to suddenly love 
big government.

No, they were just being practical. The party's strategists explained 
that the small-government mantra didn't cut it with voters anymore. 
Forget eliminating the Department of Education -- double its budget 
and expand its power. Stop complaining about middle-class 
entitlements -- create a new one for prescription drugs. Instead of 
obsessing about government waste, bring home the bacon.

But as long as we're being practical, what do Republicans have to 
show for their largess? Passing the drug benefit and the No Child 
Left Behind Act gave them a slight boost in the polls on those 
issues, but not for long. When voters this year were asked in a New 
York Times/CBS News Poll which party they trusted to handle education 
and prescription drugs, the Republicans scored even worse than they 
did before those bills had been passed.

Meanwhile, they've developed a new problem: holding the party 
together. As Ryan Sager argues in his new book, "The Elephant in the 
Room," the G.O.P. is sacrificing its future by breaking up the 
coalition that brought it to power.

A half-century ago, during the Republicans' days in the wilderness, a 
National Review columnist named Frank Meyer championed a strategy 
that came to be known as fusionism. He appealed to traditionalist 
conservatives to work with libertarians. It wasn't an easy sell. The 
traditionalists wanted to rescue America from decadence, while the 
libertarians just wanted be left alone to pursue their own happiness 
- -- which often sounded to the traditionalists like decadence.

Meyer acknowledged the fears that libertarianism could lead to 
"anarchy and nihilism," but he also saw the dangers of 
traditionalists' schemes for moral regeneration.

"If the state is endowed with the power to enforce virtue," he wrote, 
"the men who hold that power will enforce their own concepts as 
virtuous." The path to both freedom and virtue was the fusionist 
compromise: smaller government.

The coalition started with Barry Goldwater but persevered to elect 
Ronald Reagan and take over Congress. But then Republicans' faith in 
small government waned, partly because they discovered the perks of 
incumbency, and partly because they were outmaneuvered by Bill 
Clinton, who took their ideas (welfare reform, a balanced budget) and 
embarrassed them during the government shutdown of 1995.

The shutdown didn't permanently traumatize the public. In poll after 
poll since then, respondents have preferred smaller government and 
fewer services. But the experience scared Republicans so much that 
they became big-government conservatives.

Soccer moms were promised social programs; the religious right got 
moral rhetoric and cash for faith-based initiatives. Meyer's warnings 
about enforcing virtue were forgotten, along with the traditional 
Republican preference for states' rights. It became a federal 
responsibility to preach sexual abstinence to teenagers and stop 
states from legalizing euthanasia, medical marijuana and, worst of 
all, gay marriage.

Big-government conservatism has helped bring some votes to the 
G.O.P., particularly in the South. But as Sager writes: "It's not as 
if the Republican Party could do much better in the South at this 
point; it's not really the ideal region to which to pander."

The practical panderer should look West -- not to the Coast, which is 
reliably blue, but to the purple states in the interior. Sager notes 
that a swing of just 70,000 votes in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico 
would have cost Bush the last election, and that he lost ground in 
the Southwest between 2000 and 2004.

The interior West is growing quickly, thanks to refugees from 
California seeking affordable housing. These Westerners have been 
voting Republican in presidential elections, but have also gone for 
Democratic governors. They tend to be economic conservatives and 
cultural liberals. They've legalized medical marijuana in Nevada, 
Colorado and Montana. They're more tolerant of homosexuality than 
Southerners are, and less likely to be religious.

They're suspicious of moralists and of any command from Washington, 
whether it's a gun-control law or an educational mandate. In Colorado 
and Utah, they've exempted themselves from No Child Left Behind.

They're small-government conservatives who would have felt at home in 
the old fusionist G.O.P. But now they're up for grabs, just like the 
party's principles. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake