Bill said what?!
It must be nice to be William Kristol, to be able to live in a world of delusion and denial without repercussion and to build a celebrity career on a fantastic self-perception of perfection. Get it people: Kristol is infallible.
His column in the New York Times yesterday, on first skim, seems reasonable enough. The Republican Party is in trouble. Its economic message in mired in historical failure (Hoover’s mismanagement of depression economics), and the very loud constituency that defends the sanctity of free-market and supply-side economics is not helping matters. If the Republicans are going to regain power, something must be done about the Party’s economic platform.
Fair enough, but note this little pearl:
A hawkish foreign policy, social conservatism and middle-American populism aren’t the problems. Those elements, as embodied on the Republican ticket by John McCain and Sarah Palin, produced a respectable 46 percent of the national vote …
Essentially, social conservatism and neocon foreign policy, the latter being Kristol’s birthright, are the only factors keeping the Republican Party afloat. It’s the supply siders who ruined everything! With the stroke of the keyboard, Kristol easily absolves himself of any responsibility, as a leading conservative intellectual, for the failure of his party. His pronouncement reflects an easy presumptuousness akin to Sarah Palin’s in declaring herself innocent before release of the Branchflower Report.
Reality check: The problem with the Republican Party is bigger than the sum of Kristol’s “big three” components: supply siders, neocons, and social conservatives. The bigger whole is a deep-seated rigidity and self-righteousness that prevent quick adaptation and reasoned, inclusive debate within the party. I have long marveled at the Republican Party’s ability to circle the wagons to great success in national elections, but the 2008 election showed some serious weaknesses in this favorite Republican strategy. The Party had failed to coalesce voices of dissent in framing its platform, but it remained ever-rigid and ever convinced of its own mandate to protect the “real America.” It was a hollow sell, and showed the Party’s inability to handle very real crises.
The denial and delusion borne out of such self-righteousness is front and center in Kristol’s column: It’s not me; it’s everyone else! But what does Kristol care? As he told John Stewart on October 30: “If you’re a liberal, you should be for Obama; if you are a conservative, you should be for McCain. It’s not a psychodrama. It’s just an election” (4:50).
Stumble It!
16 responses so far ↓
1 Mike (PC) // Nov 18, 2008 at 4:18 pm
In terms of this election, Kristol is right. 2004 was a referendum on neo-con foreign policy. 2008 was a referendum on conservative economic policy. The perception among the electorate was that Obama could better handle the economic downturn that McCain and that was that.
The bigger whole is a deep-seated rigidity and self-righteousness that prevent quick adaptation….
‘Quick adaptation’ could also be called ‘acting first and thinking later’. The deepest flaw of liberalism is a tendency to be reactionary and to move too quickly on issues. Just look at the bailout plan. It has been conservatives who have ratcheted back liberal ambitions and the American people largely support a slow. measured approach. Obama was quick to call for a $50 billion auto industry bailout, which a poll released today shows the American people reject.
Yes, the flip side is true which is that conservatives can be obstructionist and resistant to change to a fault, but the strength of our system is a balance.
2 Ames // Nov 18, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I’ll agree with the argument that liberals and conservatives balance each other in reaction times, but I think it’s the conservative tendency to view Tradition as a good in and of itself that is the bigger problem. We’ve had this discussion before, no doubt.
But Didionsmommy’s estimation of the problem in the Republican ranks is right on. McCain’s inner campaign struggles noted better than anything else could just how little social conservatives share with small-government conservatives, and Palin’s favorability numbers proved that social conservatives can’t carry the vote alone (22%! Woo hoo!). Kristol should keep in mind that McCain only managed to get 46% of the vote against an opponent who - while he ran a good campaign - had deep flaws and under-polled Generic Democrat Joe. Palin’s performance, and the plunge in McCain’s respectability after his rightward turn, indicate that social conservatism is fast becoming a vestigial tail. Good riddance.
3 Mike (PC) // Nov 18, 2008 at 9:31 pm
And you think social liberalism is surging? Tell that to gays in california.
4 Ames // Nov 19, 2008 at 2:51 am
I don’t think it’s surging. I think it’s doing better than social conservatism though :).
5 didionsmommy // Nov 19, 2008 at 7:57 am
2004 a referendum on neocon foreign policy? um, p.c., were you in this country in 2004?
bush’s approval ratings hovered just below 50%. americans’ approval of the iraq war was below 50% through the summer and into the election.
2004 was more about the fear of gay marriage and the inability of kerry to overcome image problems.
here are some articles re: approval ratings …
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/14/bush.kerry/index.html
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/campaign2004/l/bl_approval_2004.htm
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~stoll/bushpop/
the last article is a summary of research performed by tufts and … (drumroll, ames) … rice universities.
note this excerpt from the tufts/rice paper …
the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi government in July had no upward impact on Bush’s ratings (it was not, for the public, a truly dramatic event).
(um, isn’t proactively making the world safe for democracy the main crux of neocon f.p.?)
***
i don’t think there needs to be a “surge” in order to establish social liberalism is the trend … reference the umich cartograms …
http://www.acandidworld.net/2008/11/15/no-its-not-a-rorschach-its-your-country/
***
and p.c., i have to admit, every time i see you use “reactionary,” i have to pause and remember you use it to mean “any reaction” when the historical and academic connotation is specific to rightist reaction to liberal change.
if house republicans had voted for the first bailout bill, it would have been a lot cheaper. house republicans didn’t get on board until after sweeteners were added in the senate. whether there is direct cause/effect is immaterial. the bill didn’t pass the house until after it was amended in the senate.
also, please remember it was a REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION that asked for the bailout in the first place.
6 Mike (PC) // Nov 19, 2008 at 9:21 am
DM, gay marriage being the key issue in 2004 is the fictional narrative that liberals told themselves for the last four years so they felt beter about losing. The war on terror was the primary concern in 2004 with Iraq coming in second and things like the economy and gay marriage much further down the pike.
I’d like to thank you for pointing me towards that Rice study. I’d also like to point out that while the line you quoted does seem to make your point, a more thorough reading of the whole section renders a completely different conclusion.
The revised estimates through October, 2004 do not change these conclusions. The economy has had no appreciable influence on the President’s approval rating,and the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi government in July had no upward impact on Bush’s ratings (it was not, for the public, a truly dramatic event).
Thus, our original conclusion continues to hold. The Iraq war has rendered this election more competitive than it would otherwise be.
…
The Republican convention culminated on September 1, 2004 with a concentrated effort to focus the country’s attention on the “war against terror” and to equate the war in Iraq with the war against terror.Public opinion surveys suggest that the President succeeded. During September, the “war against terror” increased slightly as the most important electoral issue (ABC/Washington Post),and the Iraq war declined slightly (these trends are especially prominent among women, as described here). As the salience of the terrorism issue increased, so did the President’s approval rating (51 percent in September), his Iraq approval rating, and his standing in the horserace polls against Kerry.
7 Ian // Nov 19, 2008 at 11:46 am
I think the situation is more nuanced than you imply. One could say that gay marriage initiatives in states helped the Republicans get out the vote in 2004, part of Rove’s micro-targeting strategies (that the Dems used in 2008). While it wasn’t the central issue nationwide, it was a significant issue for key voters in key swing states.
8 Mike (PC) // Nov 19, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Sure, it worked in targeted areas with targeted demographics….but as for the overall election, it’s clear that the war on terror and the war in Iraq were the two dominate issues of the 2004 election.
9 Ian // Nov 19, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Although who knows what would have happened had it not been an issue in Ohio…
10 didionsmommy // Nov 19, 2008 at 4:35 pm
p.c. … the rice paper’s point is that when media language focused on “war on terror”, bush did better than when the media focused on the casualties of the iraq war … and that although there was the anticipated convention bump in september, bush couldn’t overcome the effect increasing casualty counts had on his approval ratings.
he should have been way ahead in the polls, but the increasing perception that the war had been mismanaged “rendered this election more competitive than it would otherwise be.”
***
ian — you are correct … the gay-marriage issue was specifically targeted in swing states and through the bible belt to motivate base turnout.
11 Mike (PC) // Nov 19, 2008 at 5:02 pm
DM - That still doesn’t confirm your contention that 2004 was more about gay mariage than war.
12 didionsmommy // Nov 19, 2008 at 5:14 pm
p.c. … your first comment says this:
2004 was a referendum on neo-con foreign policy.
i took this to mean that voters in 2004 reelected bush as a show of support, a validation of neocon f.p. — that neocon thinking had a mandate.
i disagree. bush won by only 3M votes … the race was extremely tight in several states. bush squeaked by in states like ohio and iowa because the republican party worked assiduously tying a democratic victory to legalized gay marriage and the subsequent takeover of the world by the homosexual cabal.
in that sense, the election was certainly not a referendum supporting bush and his neocon friends. if anything, the opposite is true. bush won 2004 because of the threat of gay marriage.
13 Mike (PC) // Nov 19, 2008 at 7:45 pm
So according to your scenario there were a whole bunch of voters that couldn’t figure out if Kerry or Bush was a better wartime leader so they used gay marriage as their tie breaker? You really believe that?
14 didionsmommy // Nov 19, 2008 at 10:03 pm
considering the number of people among evangelical-bloc voters in 2008 who choose to believe obama is a: muslim, terrorist, tyrant-planning-to-raise-a-militia, etc. … yes. i do believe gay-marriage (and a fear of social liberalism in general … a fear of the unknown/unfamiliar) was a factor influencing voting behavior in 2004.
the fact that YOU, p.c., do NOT believe same is incredible to me. there are republican strategists who, on record, confirm that dirty tricks like what republicans did in ohio WORK, that if they didn’t work, the party wouldn’t use them.
but go ahead and craft your revisionist history.
in the meantime, might i suggest to people who are interested in reality …
here’s an excerpt from a nyt article quoting a conservative christian leader …
Conservative Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, were first in line to stake their claims, citing polls showing that a plurality of Bush supporters named “moral values” as the most important issue and arguing that a drive to ban same-sex marriage boosted turnout in Ohio.
“Make no mistake - conservative Christians and ‘values voters’ won this election for George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress,” Mr. Viguerie wrote in a memorandum sent to other prominent conservatives. “It’s crucial that the Republican leadership not forget this - as much as some will try,” he said, underlining the final clause.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04conserve.html
here are some more articles on same …
Bush matched his 2000 performance in Ohio’s urban areas, but his campaign more decisively brought out waves of voters in his rural base. Compared with 2000, his vote totals and margins of victory soared all across Ohio’s Appalachian southeast and its southern and western farm belt. He even won over Ohio’s Amish, capturing Holmes County in the heart of Amish country with 76 percent of the total.
….
Campaign operatives and analysts point to the same motivating factor: Bush’s conservative positions on social issues, particularly his opposition to abortion and his advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The president developed a national strategy based on those issues during a year when many voters put morality-based themes at the top of their own agendas, exit polling showed.
It all came together perfectly in Ohio where Issue 1, a proposal to amend the state constitution to define marriage as only the union of a man and a woman, passed overwhelmingly on Tuesday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23754-2004Nov3.html
(btw, the amish don’t care about war.)
Exit polls indicated that voters who identified moral values as their top issue overwhelmingly supported Bush.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20041104-9999-1n4faith.html
point made?
15 Mike (PC) // Nov 19, 2008 at 10:15 pm
DM, you cited a study which says clearly that the war on terror was the most important issue of the election. That means coast to coast, the war was what was influencing most voting. Just because gay marriage may have swayed one or two states into Bush’s column does not mean that “…2004 was more about the fear of gay marriage and the inability of kerry to overcome image problems.”
While gay marriage may have secured a couple of states, the war secured a whole bunch more.
16 Gotchaye // Nov 19, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Mike, it’s not really about individuals deciding that gay marriage is a sort of tie breaker between candidates. This becomes clear if we look at the psychology of voting. Obviously, not every person (or even registered voter) votes, and motivation matters. All else being equal, someone is much more likely to vote if he feels that it’s very important that he help elect a candidate or pass a referendum. This means that he has to care about the issue and that he has to really ‘feel’ it.
The fact of the matter is that a great many people really don’t care about foreign policy. There are lots of people who do (and they tend to be reliable voters, I imagine), but most only care insofar as it touches their day-to-day lives (such as when they feared for their safety following 9/11). On the other hand, people care a great deal about social issues. Social issues touch on everyday issues and on everyday ideas. Gay marriage and abortion, in particular, are religiously charged. More people care about their own government’s endorsement of sinful acts than about whether some abstract number of tax dollars goes to support a military venture in a faraway country that hasn’t affected daily life in the slightest (it seems).
That last also implies that people who care about gay marriage are more likely to act. Foreign policy is understood on a much more intellectual level than are social issues. One can intellectually agree with a foreign policy platform, and one can pay attention to the news from Iraq, etc, without feeling a visceral need to vote for the guy who will handle it best. On the other hand, social issues are understood more emotionally, and it’s hard to have a position on a social issue while not believing that it’s worth working to make sure your side wins.
I was rambling. The gist of the above is that the conflict between foreign policy and social issues doesn’t exist in the mind of a representative voter. Gay marriage wasn’t a tie breaker for individuals, but for the electorate. Many voters just didn’t care that much about foreign policy.
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