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Jewish World Review July 29, 2005 / 22 Tammuz, 5765 Where GOPers fear to tread By Tony Snow
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
There he goes again. Newt Gingrich has been
shaking up Capitol Hill Republicans with a presentation claiming to show
that America's worst performing stock is ... the Republican Party.
That view flies in the face of recent election returns, but it
has considerable merit. Gingrich argues that Republicans ought to be doing
much, much better — dominating American politics, rather than struggling to
keep even. He says a "natural majority" of the electorate favors
conservative approaches to the hottest issues of the age.
The issues include 1) preventing terrorists from acquiring
nuclear or biological weapons, 2) stalling the effort to drive G-d out of
public life, 3) restoring and developing the patriotic view of America as a
unique civilization, 4) addressing the security and economic challenges
posed by the rapidly growing and increasingly robust economies of China and
India, and 5) pursuing dramatic and visionary reforms in every major
governmental social program — especially Social Security and Medicare.
To bolster his point, the former House speaker cites
public-opinion data showing that the American left — the carrier of what
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., calls "mainstream values" — is out to lunch.
Consider some numbers.
On national security, Americans believe by a nearly three-to-one
margin that the United States ought to lead the way in world affairs, even
if it disagrees with the United Nations. So much for John Kerry's worshipful
attitude toward the Parliament of Man.
On religion, 92 percent of the public believes in G-d; 91
percent wants to keep G-d in the Pledge of Allegiance; 78 percent supports
prayer on school grounds; and 63 percent wants a Supreme Court justice who
will permit the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. In
contrast, the "Schumer mainstream" view wins approval from a pathetic 8
percent to 14 percent of the public.
Huge majorities (80 percent or more of respondents) also
advocate longstanding American values, such as the view that immigrants
should learn English, able-bodied men and women should work, and violent
felons ought to spend time in jail. More than 70 percent supports
faith-based charities, opposes racial preferences and believes the
Constitution defends freedom of religion rather than freedom from religion.
Equally vast majorities like conservative approaches to economic
competitiveness: tax cuts, deregulation, an end to compulsory union
deduction of members' dues, tougher educational standards and limits on
trial-lawyer awards.
As a capper, Gingrich cites growing (and majority) support for
such things as individual savings accounts and individual medical
accounts — both of which create market incentives to provide health and
retirement security.
These figures shouldn't come as a surprise. The positions make
sense. And yet, Republicans on Capitol Hill are afraid to promote them. They
positively blanche at the mention Social Security reform and run headlong
from the challenge of liberating the medical profession from the double
clutches of Uncle Sam and the ambulance-chasing tort lawyers. Apparently,
the Party of Lincoln doesn't know a good thing when it sees it.
Part of the problem is generational. Older Republicans entered
public life when John F. Kennedy epitomized Democrats and Richard Nixon bore
the GOP standard. In those days, Democrats were cool and Republicans were
dorks. Left-wing opinion dispensers, such as The New York Times, served as
powerful manufactories of conventional wisdom, while conservative redoubts
were seen as clownish, bigoted and backward. The continued assault by the
once-powerful media leads older Republicans to harbor secret suspicions that
in their hearts, they know they're wrong.
To give a recent example: When left-wingers began treating
membership in the Federalist Society as a crime, no one at 1600 Pennsylvania
bothered to defend the organization, the nation's pre-eminent conservative
legal organization. Instead, they curled in the fetal position and tried to
hide.
This leads to a tantalizing and interesting possibility: Even
though Republicans have won the war of ideas, Democrats in the short run
could win the big political races: the House, the Senate and even the White
House. That's because Hillary Rodham Clinton and her fellow Democrats are
willing to fight with every weapon at their disposal, while Republicans
still act as if they fear rather than cherish their incredible potential
strength.
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Comment on JWR contributor, and syndicated talk show host, Tony Snow's column by clicking here. © 2005, Creators Syndicate, Inc |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
