Evaluating The Republican Field

In company with many Tea Party conservatives, I am not particularly sanguine about the current field of Republican candidates.  But my choice at this point is not a difficult one to make.  Simple elimination leaves me supporting only Rick Santorum.  A year ago I would not have thought it possible, but things change.  The candidates currently in the early lead are not, in my view, core conservatives.  If either makes the nomination cut, I will vote for him in the general election.  With all the enthusiasm I felt for John McCain; maybe a tad more...

The big talking-point issue with establishment Republicans in general (and other wobbly conservatives) is "electability".  A combination of hubris and elitism causes too many to think it is a knowable trait.  Makes them confident they know what the electorate will decide in November.  A conceit of known and would-be pundits everywhere.  I think more in terms of principle than what is believed to be the most likely outcome.  Let me explain.



First, I believe that, for Gingrich and Romney, conservatism is largely a flag of convenience.  Both men hold views -- as best I can perceive -- that coincide broadly with conservative principles, and that is a good thing.  But in the matter of core, gut-level principles (think of, say, Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio, Allen West) they are wanting.  Their frequent gaffes suggest that they have not thought through conservative ideas and internalized them.  As to these two candidates, I think, conservatism is a second language  (CSL).  They speak it well enough, but their command of idiom is dicey -- it slows them down, keeps getting in their way.  Santorum, on the other hand, has the natural ease and spontaneity of a native speaker.

Or, there is the possibility that Gingrich and Romney have deeply held constitutional ideas that Jefferson would applaud.  In that case things get worse; then they seem willing to balance principle with political expediency.  They are not committed.

Of course, Gingrich or Romney would be far better than the current president; damning with faint praise.  The same could probably said for New York mayor Bloomberg.  That bar is set disgracefully low.  Still, I have to say that the leading candidates are, by most standards exceptional men, distinguished by many fine accomplishments, and I think either would likely be a better president than we have seen since Ronald Reagan.  So why, one might ask, would you favor Santorum?  Are you so ideologically pure that you favor a man thought to be less likely  to win the general election?  That you would risk the possibility of returning the current president to office?  And my answer would be -- yes!

What I see in Gingrich and Romney is a natural affinity for the ruling class and an unconscious elitist alignment with the Institutional Left; a desire for media -- and by flawed extension -- America's approval.  Given the power of our permanent government, media complicity and the rotted fruit of K12 and university indoctrination, I believe the time for half-measures is behind us.  I think moderate conservatism will only prolong the agony.  If Obama loses to a cautious, uncommitted candidate the game is over, as certainly as if he is re-elected. 

I have not mentioned Ron Paul.  His ideas articulate our founding principles more consistently than any other candidate.  The Tea Party has been informed to good effect by libertarian ideals, but not Libertarian ones.  Libertarians (big L) share, in my opinion, a great defect; though correct in matters of liberty, small government and fiscal responsibility, they are utopians.  They fail to bridge the gap between prescriptive politics and human nature.  A failure not countenanced by the Founders.  I leave it to readers to sort out this assertion.

Finally, I turn to my preferred candidate, Rick Santorum.  Like all men, he is not without blemish.  My original reservations about him remain; I think he is more strongly wedded to social issues than serves the best interests of conservatives.  Social conservatism, like social liberalism, is inherently divisive. [*] To gain power in the political arena, broad agreement (the defining strength of the Tea Party) on fundamental matters of liberty, low tax, small government and a free-market economy is essential.  Matters on which independents and many liberals can find common ground.  Though the Founders understood that virtue was essential to the maintenance of the republic, it was civic virtue they had in mind.  To be sure, civic and moral virtue overlap, but in the honor culture of the Founders, one's private life was acknowledged to be imperfect and, thus kept in the private sphere  If civic virtue can be restored in America, I believe moral virtue, to the extent that it is possible to the human condition, will follow.

Rick Santorum seems to have had few lapses in his principled conservatism that need to be "walked back".  He strikes me as a man unwilling to apologize for his closely held constitutional views -- who holds principle above politics.  Who is less a technocrat in the Hoover tradition than his competitors.  And this brings me to the heart of the matter: principle endures -- is vindicated and gains popular currency -- only when it is articulated with clarity and vigorously and consistently asserted.  Unadulterated by extraneous considerations.

I have no idea how the Republican nomination process will fall out, let alone the general election.  I retain some regard the wisdom of the American people, but, in view of the last presidential election, it is now more a matter of hope than article of faith.  I fear that the Marxist ideas of the Institutional Left have permeated the national psyche to an extent that is already well-nigh irreversible.  If there was ever a time, since the American Revolution, that a bright-line contrast between the founding principles of liberty and the encroaching tyranny of big government must be drawn, it is now.

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*  Abortion is, perhaps, the best example.  The moral difficulties of abortion will, in my view, never be resolved in the theater of national politics.  Indeed, it doesn't belong there; it is a polarizing issue that drains energy from more essential matters of governance.  I don't mean to say that abortion is unworthy of debate, that is not a serious matter.  Rather that, to the extent resolution is possible, it should argued at the state -- or better -- at the community level.  What ought to be addressed at the national level is government funding as a constitutional overreach.