Let's Get It Together
A moment of historic drama is unfolding in American politics. Its roots stretch back over 40 years, to when Lyndon Johnson buried Barry Goldwater in a landslide in 1964, and liberals thought conservatives were finished, their ideas bankrupt, their politics decrepit. But with bright lights like Bill Buckley and Milton Friedman leading the way, conservatives began a long, laborious trek out of the wilderness. It was one of the most amazing comebacks of any political movement in our history.
Over the next two decades, southern whites-alienated by LBJ's civil rights bills-joined the conservative ranks, followed by urban Roman Catholics and other ethnics, and then evangelical Christians. They became popularly known as the foot soldiers, composing an army of volunteers for campaigns. Conservative intellectuals, supported by burgeoning think tanks, also went on the offensive and created a host of innovative ideas that political leaders like Ronald Reagan could ride to power. Democrats seemed dazed and brain-dead. But as popular as Reagan was, he never completed the "Reagan Revolution": Republicans actually lost seats in Congress while he was president. Bill Clinton tried to create a counterrevolution, but as popular as he was, he too saw his party lose seats while he was president. As the century ended, our politics were deadlocked-we were a fifty-fifty nation.
The great political enterprise that George W. Bush and Karl Rove brought to Washington was to break out of the deadlock and create a durable Republican majority that would dominate the country for 30 more years. That was mostly what William McKinley did as president, and by golly, so could Bush. Bush and his team, as it has turned out, are often horrendous at policymaking, but in politics they are formidable. Consider that only two Republicans in a hundred years have served out two consecutive terms in the White House, both legends: Eisenhower and Reagan. Bush is about to become No. 3. More to the point, Republicans have actually gained seats in every election since Bush was elected in November 2000, totaling 11 in the House and six in the Senate. No president has had such success since FDR, the champion party builder.
So, hopes have been growing among conservatives. Rising phoenixlike from the ashes of Goldwater, conservative Republicans now control all three branches of the federal government, a feat not seen for three quarters of a century. Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by 2 to 1, and conservative voices often smother liberals on the airwaves. Heading toward the end of the Bush era, conservatives have had reason to hope that the tide would continue running in their direction and that they would soon have enough power to carry out the rest of their agenda, transforming America-and perhaps the world.
Moment of truth. Come now the midterm elections, just a few weeks away. And BOOM! The conservative movement may have hit the wall. The incredible string of mistakes in Iraq has caught up with politics; so has the unevenness of economic growth, which has created comfort at the top but left many working families struggling to pay bigger bills. President Bush skillfully generated some GOP momentum just after Labor Day, but that has been reversed with the double whammy of Bob Woodward's book and the Mark Foley scandal. Chances are now growing that, absent a new, intervening event, Democrats will recapture the House and possibly the Senate.
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