At least the media are consistent.
When Republicans win, the media urge the GOP to "reach out" to
the left to bring the country together. When Republicans lose, the
media admonish the GOP to move to the left or face extinction.
The post-election advice is always the same: Abandon your
conservative base, and come follow us.
These folks seek a system where both parties answer to their
whistle. With the Democrats already in their pocket, they want the
GOP to climb in. Then, the media can serve as tutors to the nation.
What they resent most is a party that ignores them and follows its
own drummer.
So why are Republicans listening to this biennial claptrap?
Richard Nixon, after all, ignored the advice and won 49 states in
1972, as did Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Indeed, Republicans have won in recent decades by conducting
campaigns and raising issues that set the media's teeth on edge.
Even George Bush -- down 17 points before taking Lee Atwater's
advice and savaging Michael Dukakis as a "card-carrying member
of the ACLU" who had furloughed Willie Horton -- won the White
House with a campaign the press abhorred.
Now consider the respective returns of recent off-year elections.
In 1994, the GOP went on the attack against Bill Clinton for putting
homosexuals in the military, for the social rants of Surgeon General
Joycelyn Elders, for raising taxes and for Hillary's attempt to take over
America's health-care system. Triumph ensued. For the first time in 40
years, Republicans took control of Congress.
In 1998, however, the GOP opted for compromise. Social
conservatives got the wet mitten in the face. The middle-class tax
cut was deep-sixed. Republicans caved on the budget and broke
the spending caps. Our surplus is now being used to pay down
Brazil's deficit.
The party's reward: Clinton turned loose the War Room. The GOP
was charged with trying to sacrifice Social Security and intimidate
African Americans to keep them from voting, as well as with being
morally culpable for the murders of Matthew Shepard and Barnett
Slepian and being "extremists" on abortion.
That the Democratic campaign was far more deeply rooted in
falsehoods and demagoguery than any Willie Horton ad did not
make it ineffective. The politics of confrontation worked for the
Democrats in 1998, and the politics of compromise failed the GOP.
So what is the media's counsel now for the Republicans? More
timidity and more compromise: The party must drop impeachment
and abandon life. The press is saying that any future GOP
prosperity is contingent on the betrayal of its most devoted
followers.
And what does the press offer in return? On this, we get silence.
After all, every four years, the press votes 80 percent to 90 percent
Democratic.
In this media-saturated city, it is difficult for Republicans to keep
their bearings. Those who stand their ground on conservative principles
are baited and bashed; those who sell out are rewarded with puff pieces.
With rare exceptions, the longer Republicans stay in this capital, the
more accommodating they become to the orthodox liberalism that is the
defined dogma of our established church.
In 1998, Republicans forgot a lesson learned on the long rise to
power after 1964. Straight-ticket Republicans and Democrats may
vote their interests and beliefs, but swing voters are motivated more by
what they fear than what they favor.
LBJ was a sure winner in 1964, but he would not have gotten 60
percent had Barry Goldwater not been painted as a radical right-
wing extremist. Nixon would have won handily in 1972 but not with
that margin had George McGovern not been portrayed as he was.
Reagan's victory of 1980 was more due to a national wish to be rid
of Jimmy Carter, the hostage crisis and 21 percent interest rates
than it was a vote for tax cuts. And Republicans who think their
1994 win was a vote for the Contract With America have imbibed
too freely of their own propaganda.
In 2000, Republicans will need to attract Democratic votes. On
that, all agree. But the key question is: Which Democrats are
likely to vote for the GOP? Is it not those who voted for Nixon,
Reagan or Bush in 1988? And to bring these Democrats back,
would the GOP not do better by dumping racial preferences, the
North American Free Trade Agreement, the International Monetary
Fund and foreign aid than by deserting the unborn?
Nothing has changed; you go hunting where the ducks are.
