Posted on 09/21/2010 10:01:09 AM PDT by neverdem
With the primary season complete, the terms of battle are set — for the general election and for the next era in American politics.
Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was said to constitute the next great wave of progressivism after FDR and LBJ. But a massive electoral backlash is brewing against his policies, all his stimuli have manifestly failed, and his party is increasingly in intellectual and political disarray (witness its agony on extending the Bush tax cuts). Obama may only have set the table for the third wave of conservative reform, the first instituted by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and the second (and less consequential) by Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s.
Who gets their next wave, and makes it endure, is the stakes in this election and beyond. In this monumental contest, a revitalized limited-government conservatism that says — that insists — “enough” is arrayed against a progressivism that says, in the title of William Voegeli’s compelling book on the ever-voracious welfare state, “never enough.”
Obama Democrats have created facts on the ground over the last two years that will take long work to reverse, most significantly the health-care law. But everything that has happened since its passage has served to make its repeal more likely rather than less — it has remained unpopular; practically every week has brought news of another unintended consequence or noxious, previously un-noticed provision; and Democrats are running from it, in a favorite phrase of Haley Barbour’s, “like scalded dogs.”
More important, the Republican party has remained resolute in opposition and will be even more so after November. A great purifying fire raced through the Republican party during the primaries. While conservatives might disagree with one another over this or that tactical judgment–notably the one involved in last week’s Delaware primary–all of us should cheer this season’s renewed vigor. In different context, Andrew Mellon famously spoke of “purging the rottenness.” That’s what the primaries have done, exposing and expunging those Republicans who have no greater commitment than to their (rather undistinguished) careers.
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, now waging a write-in campaign, is the latest example. She began her Senate career on the strength of an unseemly act of nepotism (appointed by dear old dad) and will end it in an unseemly act of unprincipled desperation. Trading Murkowski, Arlen Specter, and Charlie Crist — all of whom lacked a minimal loyalty to party — for Joe Miller, Pat Toomey, and Marco Rubio will be a vast upgrade in talent, idealism, and persuasive power for Senate Republicans.
For years, conservatives have plaintively remarked, “if only we had another Reagan#…#.” It was nostalgia as an excuse for not grappling with contemporary political circumstances. Not anymore. Conservatives have literally taken to the streets in a tea-party movement that doesn’t just reflect the political moment but largely defines it. If Democrats were foolhardy to take the 2008 election as a mandate for everything their hearts have ever desired, they were near-suicidal to persist in their course in the face of the tea-party protests of August 2009.
We can’t be sure exactly what the political landscape will look like after November, except that it will have shifted to the right. The stage will then be set for the fight for the presidency in 2012, which will be enormously consequential. In 2013, either President Obama consolidates his progressive achievements and builds on them in a way that irrevocably changes the country, or a conservative begins to return the country to its foundations. We are not even at the end of the beginning of this monumental contest, but win it, we must.
I see the NRO eiditors can not help themselves by jabbing at DE Repulican primary for the Senate seat.
IF Mike Castle HAD WON the nomination, there will be no such gigantic wave for the TEA party movement.
At best, the previous Tuesday primary results will be a mix bag, so the political punditry can continue their ‘wisdom’ dispensing and continue to pull conservatives’ legs.
Well, O’Donnell’s win in the primary stopped that. There is NO QUESTION about the anti-establishment sentiment. Hence we are forced to witness the Rove et al. performance, Murkowski’s write-in, etc.
Amen.
IF Mike Castle HAD WON the nomination, there will be no such gigantic wave for the TEA party movement.
At best, the previous Tuesday primary results will be a mix bag, so the political punditry can continue their ‘wisdom’ dispensing and continue to pull conservatives’ legs.
Well, O’Donnell’s win in the primary stopped that. There is NO QUESTION about the anti-establishment sentiment. Hence we are forced to witness the Rove et al. performance, Murkowski’s write-in, etc.
Maybe you should read these two paragraphs again. I had a different impression.
"A great purifying fire raced through the Republican party during the primaries. While conservatives might disagree with one another over this or that tactical judgment–notably the one involved in last week’s Delaware primary–all of us should cheer this season’s renewed vigor. In different context, Andrew Mellon famously spoke of “purging the rottenness.” That’s what the primaries have done, exposing and expunging those Republicans who have no greater commitment than to their (rather undistinguished) careers.
"Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, now waging a write-in campaign, is the latest example. She began her Senate career on the strength of an unseemly act of nepotism (appointed by dear old dad) and will end it in an unseemly act of unprincipled desperation. Trading Murkowski, Arlen Specter, and Charlie Crist — all of whom lacked a minimal loyalty to party — for Joe Miller, Pat Toomey, and Marco Rubio will be a vast upgrade in talent, idealism, and persuasive power for Senate Republicans."
I did read the paragraphs as indicated again. My emphasis is on their continued disagreement on the outcome of Castle vs. O’Donnell.
I stand by my statement.
The Counter-Revolution Has Begun
It's a Long Way Back to the Constitution
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, < b>FReepmail< /b> me if you want on or off my list.
About the best that can be expected from an establishment elite neocon organ like NRO.
Their assignments of the epocs of reform are a bit contorted, at best.
The first important step came from an unlikely, and unnamed source: JFK, who initiated the conservative movements with his tax cuts, and his thrust for real money.
I agree with the choice of Reagan as another important step, but I have to disagree with including Newt Grinchrich in the list. He certainly had the opportunity presented to him by the frustrated electorate in ‘94, but the reality is that he punted on first down every time he got the ball.
This time around we dare not just trust the old guard to carry the ball. We have to demand that the incoming congressmen have a strong say in setting the agenda.
Stay on message. Use your years studying the underlying principles of true “conservatism” as the foundation for what you say—
- that individual liberty is a gift from the Creator, not a grant from government;
- that the United States Constitution is the document by which “We, the People” limit the power which we grant to our elected representatives;
- that you stand for limited government and individual liberty; and,
- that America’s founding principles made the country a place of opportunity for the oppressed, prosperous, a beacon for liberty in the world.
If you stick to principles, and don’t allow your enemies (opponents) to define the campaign as one on “issues,” you will win. The opposition, both Dems and RINO’s don’t understand and can’t begin to compete with those principles.
During the Democrats’ push for the tyrannical power move which they labeled “health care reform,” Sen. Baucus said proudly: “It is a shift, a leveling . . . .”
America’s liberty and prosperity for over 200 years was based on another idea. They protected the earnings of hardworking citizens from the coercive hand of government by a written Constitution which did not allow the Baucuses, Obamas, Pelosis and Reids of the world such “taking” power. Hear Samuel Adams:
“Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams
And:
“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.”,/i> - Samuel Adams
Americans finally are seeing that progressive policies are ruining the American dream, and they will respond to positive statements of fundamental principles, because, as in 1776 and 1787, those principles are “self-evident.”
Those guys clearly did not trust government to any man, men, or party.
Excellent reminder.
“I have to disagree with including Newt Grinchrich in the list. He certainly had the opportunity presented to him by the frustrated electorate in ‘94, but the reality is that he punted on first down every time he got the ball.”
Excellent analogy. Bravo.
Thanks for the ping!
Just suppose all these rosy Predictions dont Materialize for the Republicans?
Then we will really be in for it Folks,what a Nightmare
Add to Samuel Adams words the actual experience of the early colonists and the written record of the Jamestown settlers' experiment with redistributionist ideas, and we know that the Constitution was devised to keep government from discouraging private enterprise by "taking" from some to "redistribute" to others. The following excerpts are from an essay in "Our Ageless Constitution."
"Most of our history books don’t tell us that, in the beginning, the pilgrims established a communal economic system. Each was to produce according to his ability and contribute his production to a common storehouse from which each was to draw according to his need.
"The assurance that they would be fed from the common store, regardless of their contribution to it, had a peculiarly disabling effect on the colonists. Taking property away from some and giving it to others bred discontent and retarded employment. Human nature was the same then as now, and before long, there were more consumers than there were producers, and the pilgrims were near starvation. Governor Bradford, his advisors, and the colonists agreed that in order to increase their crops, each family would be allowed to do as it pleased with whatever it produced. In other words, a free market system was established. In Governor Bradford’s own words:
“This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means ye Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into ye field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene though great tiranie and oppression. . . . By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed. . . . and some of ye abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since this day . . . .” (Wm. Bradford, “Of Plimoth Plantation,” original manuscript, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1901)
"Those who, today, favor central government planning, common ownership and redistribution of the earnings of others are advocating a system that Americans tried and rejected over 350 years ago. Their wisdom gave birth to the great American miracle!" (This message originally published in the mid-1980’s by Stedman Corporation’s Government Affairs & Free Enterprise Education Program – a former NC textile firm. For more essays in this series, visit www.ouragelessconstitution.com)
bump.
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