Where We Are
by Paul M. Weyrich
 If one looks back over the last thirty or forty years, it is clear the Left
won the culture war while we conservatives won politically. Republicans now
control the White House and both Houses of Congress, something we could not
have even dreamed about forty years ago. But to assess where conservatives
are in politics today, we have to look beyond just winning elections.
The question is, do we have power? Not power for ourselves but power for the
common good. I would venture that while we have influence, we often lack
power. And as my old colleague Howard Phillips used to teach there is a
profound difference.
I have been here while the Democrats controlled the White House and both
Houses of Congress (Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton). I have
also seen Republicans in the White House but Democrats controlling the
Congress. (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. In his case the
Democrats controlled the Senate for a year and a half.) and I have seen a
Democrat in the White House with Republicans controlling the Congress
(Clinton) and now for the past several years Republicans controlled not only
the White House but the Congress.
We should be in political heaven with this development. The first time this
has happened in more than 50 years. If we really had power, then, our ideas
and programs would be front and center. We should be well into a period of
having adopted them and now we should be concerned with their
implementation. The fact is most of our programs and ideas are dead on
arrival. In some cases the President has proposed good ideas only to see
them sink in the Congressional cesspool. In other cases, the President won't
buy into our ideas. We plead them in the Congress but we often don't get
very far.
Yes, we have influence. In some cases the White House worries about
offending their base. The same with Congress. So often we are able to stop
bad ideas.
Why is this the case? The fact is we have no horse. To the extent our ideas
advanced in the past it was because we first had Senator Barry Goldwater.
Granted, Goldwater later turned out to be something other than a
conservative on a lot of issues. But his initial "Conscience of a
Conservative" advanced our ideas and made our views legitimate. The
Goldwater campaign involved then actor Ronald Reagan. His speech on national
television again advanced our views. Then he ran and was elected Governor of
California. After he served two terms, during which he continued to advance
our views, he ran for President. Although he failed to defeat President
Gerald Ford in 1976, that run set him up to be the heir apparent in 1980.
Reagan's election, and with him a Republican Senate and enough Republicans
to form a conservative coalition in the House, advanced our ideas. Tax cuts
worked. So did the President's objective of bringing down the Soviet Union.
Most conservatives never believed that was possible. While the Reagan
Administration did not see all of our ideas enacted into law, still he made
issues such as vouchers popular and these issues have lived far beyond his
Administration. He also made legitimate our view that federal courts have to
be reigned in.
While George Herbert Walker Bush continued some ideas advanced by President
Reagan, his advocacy of the largest tax increase in US history, after he had
pledged "Read my lips. No new taxes." ruined his Presidency. Now Bush '41
has been more open to some of our ideas, but his unwillingness to veto
spending bills, the immigration issue which he has not tackled and for some
the war in Iraq has meant that he is not the standard bearer of the
conservative movement.
We have a number of able Senators, at least a couple of whom could become
the standard bearer of the conservative movement. Right now, however they
have not stood out among their colleagues. For the most part they have not
exercised leadership. We do have a couple of promising Governors. Again,
while they have done well in their states, they have not exercised national
leadership.
I used to believe that the movement could advance on the basis of ideas
alone. We were the first to come up with cultural conservatism. We pushed
the idea that political correctness was ruining the nation. Yes, these ideas
did catch on in the conservative movement. But we failed to go beyond the
movement because we have no standard bearer who openly advances our ideas.
Our movement in some ways is much stronger now than it was even in 1980. At
least the social issues part of our movement is much larger than it was when
Ronald Reagan became President. The economic part of our movement, however,
is not as strong. And the defense/foreign policy part of our movement all
but disappeared after the end of the Cold War. It is being reinvigorated now
as conservatives realize the threat from the radical Muslims. While ideas
are powerful and sometimes they generate action, there is no chance of
actually advancing our agenda absent a national figure who will get a
following and who can eventually be nominated for President and elected to
that office.
For the first time in 2008 we do not have a logical heir to our movement.
There are plenty of candidates who plan to run but so far none has caught
fire. We run the danger of splitting our support between candidates and thus
permitting a liberal to win. If we expect to have power to advance our ideas
then we need to get behind a single candidate provided that candidate
promises in blood that our people will be appointed by him. Otherwise we
will just continue to have influence, but most likely not enough influence
to actually see our ideas become law. Can we find a suitable standard bearer
for 2008? It will prove difficult but if we don't this movement may find
itself completely on the outside looking in.
Paul M. Weyrich is the Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
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