Conservatives: In search of a leader

last updated 8 January 2015

Quick, which of the current field of Republican presidential candidates is a true conservative? asked Jonah Goldberg in The Washington Post. Don’t worry, nobody else knows either. Former preacher Mike Huckabee is the most socially conservative, but as Arkansas governor, his positions on health care and education resembled those of a big-government liberal. The conservative establishment now favors Mitt Romney—only he’s a formerly pro-choice, pro-gay-rights ex-governor of Massachusetts. Sen. John McCain has the strongest pro-military credentials, but he has earned “the enmity of the Republican Party’s conservative base” by siding with Democrats on issues from immigration to campaign-finance reform. As a slate, this group “has everything a conservative designer could want”—business acumen, foreign policy muscle, traditional values. Unfortunately, it’s “all so poorly distributed.”

In other words, none of them is “another Ronald Reagan,” said William Kristol in The Weekly Standard. Reagan, of course, was a unique historical figure who forged the conservative movement and transformed a nation. But to my fellow conservatives, I say, get over it. The GOP front-runners are worthy men who should be judged by their accomplishments and values, not by whether they meet an impossible standard of Reaganesque purity. Which was a myth anyway, said Robert Caldwell in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Reagan may have been a “conservative icon,” but as governor of California, he raised taxes and signed a liberal abortion law. As president, he often compromised with Democrats on taxes and spending. “Those busily nitpicking Republican presidential contenders for deviations from conservative orthodoxy” might want to ponder whether Reagan himself would have met their standards.

Actually, many conservatives are quite happy to challenge that orthodoxy, said David Brooks in The New York Times. It’s true that leading conservative institutions and interest groups have become so entrenched in their “oppositional mentality” that they recoil at the slightest sign of moderation. “Yet a funny thing has happened this primary season:” Conservative voters have not been blindly following the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Christian leader James Dobson; instead many are casting their votes for the economic populist Huckabee and even that supposed sellout McCain. In short, conservatives are showing that they “don’t seem to mind independent thinking.” As a result, the Republican Party is looking more diverse, and more mainstream, than it otherwise might. Right now, Republicans seem tangled up in chaos. But if the “conservative masses” keep pushing for a more “inclusive conservatism,” the Republicans “may actually have a shot at winning this year.”