Yesterday I received an e-mail from longtime FR friend Jeff Greene. Jeff and I are both alumni of Young Americans for Freedom (the conservative youth organization founded by William F. Buckley, Jr. that played an instrumental role in the development of the modern conservative movement) — in fact we each served as Chairman of California YAF at one point in our lives. I had the honor of voting for Jeff in the Republican primary for Governor in 1990 — though most people didn’t realize there was a primary, since Jeff didn’t get too many votes compared to his primary opponent, incumbent U.S. Senator Pete Wilson! (You have to love the moxie of YAFers!).
Anyways, I digress. The e-mail that Jeff sent was in response to this article by Carla Marinucci that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend, in which the Governor, again, makes the case that if Republicans want to win in California, we need to "cross over the center" (his words) — and I guess be more like Democrats… I suggest you click through and read the article before continuing to Jeff’s response.
Without any further intro — here’s what Jeff penned (reprinted with his permission):
I agree with our esteemed Governor and many other critics both right and left that the GOP is a rudderless disaster and out of touch with the general voting public (especially in CA), or at least incapable of expressing themselves in a way that is both heard and understood by the great unwashed masses. But while he gives a lot of examples of where we are "wrong", he has no examples whatsoever of where we are right. No examples whatsoever of how we can successfully distinguish ourselves from the Dems and become a winning party.
Assuming we listen to the standard voices for "reform" in the GOP, and specifically the Governor, and abandon the pro-family groups, embrace an environmentalist regulatory regime, be more flexible about taxes and gun control, support some form of universal health care, back off on immigration enforcement, and pull out of the Mideast, what exactly is left?
The only semi-reliable veto from him has been on some of the more radical labor issues, when both large and small California businesses have been united against them, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t expect us to become the anti-labor party, either, since they were the ones who kicked his ass in the special election he called, and I haven’t heard him really go after them publicly since then.
So what the hell does becoming the party of the center mean? We would pull troops out 6 months later than the Dems? We would phase in universal health care over 3 years instead of doing it tomorrow? We only support gay marriage if they’re not flamboyant? Abortion is okay as long as you don’t enjoy it? We accept illegal immigration as long as we don’t have to pay them minimum wage to mow our lawns?
Is rebranding the party solely as the one that would spend 5% less than the Dems really something that will grab the imagination of California or America? Is there any other distinction he or the other reformists would make between our party and theirs? I haven’t heard him express one in ages, and I ask this in all sincerity. What is his envisioned winning majority based on? I guess we’re still the party of being tougher on sex offenders and gang members, but is that enough? That certainly didn’t work for Dan Lungren versus Gray Davis.
So what’s my prescription? I’m not a particularly perfect Republican myself. I’m not a big interventionist anymore, I frequently prefer civil liberties to expanded police powers, and I confess that fighting with the gays and the pro-choicers has fallen pretty far down my priority list. But I do still believe in economic freedom and the free market, and property rights and personal responsibility and family values and standards of right and wrong and punishing those who harm others, but otherwise being free to do what you want as long as you don’t harm anyone else.
The Democrat Party doesn’t come anywhere close to embracing any of those things anymore. They used to be seen as the party of personal freedom, but with taxes on tobacco, beer, porn, boats, property, income, and music downloads, among others, and continued regulation of how we drive, live, eat, drink, hire and fire, it’s clear that to them, freedom consists entirely of gay marriage, abortion, medicinal marijuana, and freeing felons from behind bars. They’ve long ago given up the right to be the party of freedom and fun.
The Libertarian Party is a disaster, full of libertines, pacifists, and conspiracy theorists, and not really worth considering as a serious political movement.
That leaves me stuck with the Republicans. While we’re still seen as the party of big business and the rich and the no-fun party, I really believe the GOP is the party best positioned to become the party of freedom, and if we’re serious about becoming a majority party and moving beyond being the party of stuffy old white guys, this may be the way to do it. While there is no doubt that there is a significant portion of the younger generations and the minority groups that have embraced environmental extremism, the entitlement culture and expect the government to do everything for them, I get the sense that the rest of them are at least susceptible to an appeal to being left the hell alone.
Those who want to be coddled and ruled by an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, all-spending government already have a party. If we aren’t the alternative to that, we have nothing at all. I used to think that this Governor could be the one who could lead this sort of movement, back when he used to quote Ludwig Von Mises and I thought his beliefs were more libertarian than liberal, but clearly if he was ever that guy, he’s given up on this battle a long time ago.
Becoming the party of freedom also creates a coherent marketable message around what little remains of our alleged core beliefs of lower taxes, reduced regulations, and personal responsibility. We’re the party that wants you to make lots of money and spend lots of money hiring people and expanding your business and having fun without having to give most of it to the government or ask their permission first. They’re the party of taxes and rules and regulations and "mother may I" nanny statism.
And that doesn’t mean that we have to abandon traditional conservatism, either. Believing that people have a God-given right to life, liberty, and property without government interference certainly is inherently consistent with a belief in the right to life, and neither does opposition to unnecessary rules and regulations require we overturn millenniums-old definitions of marriage. At a minimum, a belief that you should be able to worship, raise, and educate your children as you wish and not by the dictates of Washington and Sacramento is 100% consistent with conservatism and my particular brand of libertarianism alike.
(It now occurs to me now that this all appears frightfully similar to what Grover Norquist apparently calls for in his book "Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives", which I haven’t read yet, but since I’ve been saying this since way before March of this year, I neither apologize for nor defend any similarities or differences between his argument or mine. I may have to read it now, though…)
But getting back to the original point, I would love to hear the Governor’s roadmap to becoming a majority party. Because a party based on famous figureheads is not a party at all. And being the party of "moderation" (especially when you are completely unwilling to identify the other party’s extremism for fear of hurting their feelings) doesn’t rally the troops particularly well, either.
I could reference the biblical references to being neither hot nor cold, or the cliches about the middle of the road being the most dangerous place to stand, but for me, it calls to mind the old light beer advertising slogan: "Everything you always wanted in a party–and less." That might sell light beer, but I hate light beer. And it makes an especially crappy slogan for a political party.
Jeff
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