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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 :::
In the current "Best of the Web", Taranto responds to a characterization of Howard Dean (hereinafter, again to avoid confusion with my brother, "Francesca") as this cycle's Barry Goldwater:
Let us suggest one problem with this analogy, as well as one additional reason why it may be pertinent. The problem is that unlike Goldwater, it's hard to say that [Francesca] has any coherent philosophy of government. There's no 'Conscience of a Liberal' by Howard Dean; indeed, [Francesca] insists he's actually a 'centrist'--an epithet it's hard to imagine Goldwater applying to himself.
But here's the similarity: [Francesca], like Goldwater, has no answer for the greatest issue of the day. In Goldwater's case it was civil rights; and although he was no segregationist himself, his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made him the de facto segregationist candidate. Along with his home state of Arizona, he won five other states, all in the Deep South--'the wrong ones for the wrong reason,' as The Wall Street Journal's Vermont Royster observed in a postelection column.
Similarly, [Francesca] (and to a lesser extent all of his Democratic opponents, with the possible exception of Joe Lieberman) has no strategy for dealing with the great issue of our day, the battle against Islamist terrorism. [Francesca]'s foreign policy seems to consist entirely of denouncing the president for liberating Iraq. Though he grudgingly concedes that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power, what really seems to spark his passion is the various procedural objections to a 'unilateral' or 'pre-emptive' war.
Goldwater was in many ways a man ahead of his time; certainly he helped lay the groundwork for the GOP's revitalization as a conservative party. On the other hand, it seems fair to say he had an ideological blind spot in that he failed to grasp that the enormity of segregation was such that it justified an exercise of federal power that would otherwise have been an anathema. Similarly for [Francesca], who views the liberation of 24 million Iraqis as a trivial matter in comparison to the lack of an 18th U.N. resolution.
An interesting suggestion, and mostly right, I think, though perhaps too dismissive of "ideological blind spots." As a great man once said, the cheif ideal of the American people is idealism. When push comes to shove, most Americans are pragmatic, but we like to think of ourselves as idealists, and if a candidate can convince voters that he's basically competent, the next thing the voters will want is to be sold a vision. People want both a vision to believe in and actual practical results. In Goldwater's case, the vision was one of federalism and small government, but the only practical results a lot of people saw was continued discrimination in the South. Reagan did better at presenting an ideal with effects that appealed to people.
Incidentally, people on the left have underestimated our current President's ability to sell us a vision of national greatness and security. But I worry that Karl Rove underestimates Howard Dean's ability to sell a vision of Europe in America.
::: posted by Steven at 2:04 AM
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