Ideas? Who Needs Ideas?
Riffing on a post from Megan McArdle about whether conservatives are out of ideas, protein widsom’s Karl makes a very, very good observation.
To the extent the Democrats win this fall (as they likely will in Congress, and perhaps the presidency also), it will be because voters see the economy as weak, the Iraq mission as a mistake and gasoline as too costly, and the Democrats are promising something different. If McCain beats Obama, it will be mostly because voters see him as too untested and too unserious in a time of war, and too eager to reach into their pockets in the midst of a weak economy. If the GOP can hold onto enough seats in Congress to slow or block Democrats, it will be mostly because voters see the unchecked desire to raise taxes and control your healthcare as too risky (much as the 1994 GOP landslide was a reaction against the unchecked liberal impulses that imploded with Hillarycare). Policy — at least in the sense that wonks and blog readers think of it — will have next to nothing to do with it. In that sense, the question of whether conservatives or progressives are out of ideas is the wrong one.
Neither primary has been very much about principles at all. John McCain isn’t the Republican nominee because his principles are strong, or even because he presented them at all. Indeed, McCain hardly said a word about his principles before he waltzed to the nomination. he simply outlasted people who did voice their principles and were deemed unelectable for reasons other than their principles. On the Democratic side, well, come on. No one’s talking principles over there. They’re far too busy hashing out old grudges and playing the “my minority’s more oppressed then your minority” game.
In the end, this election is going to turn on the issued Karl outlines and not because of a set of principles any candidate holds. As it stands, we may well waltz into November mostly ignorant about what the candidates really believe about anything important to their jobs or what they’ve done (or not done) in the past. This far, John McCain is being touted as a conservative when he has shown himself anything but. Barack Obama is being touted as the agent of change even though he’s spent his entire career doing business as usual from inside one of the oldest political machines in the United States. Hillary Clinton’s past has hardly come up at all. In such an atmosphere, how could the novelty of ideas matter even a little?
Other Posts of Interest:
- More Committees! More Staffers! More Embarrassing Republican Losses!
- Reviving Conservatism, Part I: What Happened?
- Let’s Hunt Us Some RINOs! And John Boehner, too.
Category: The 2008 Horse Race
