Is the Right Wrong?

Ten years ago, Daniel Finkelstein was an advisor to the doomed Conservative government of British Prime Minister John Major.  He knew that the Conservatives were going to lose, and that the Conservatives had to change.  “Then what are you waiting for?” said an American friend.

Now FInkelstein wants to return the compliment.

What do the Republicans do if they lose? They have to change, and change profoundly. They will have to move towards voters. And are they going to lose? It is extremely likely that they will. So what are they waiting for?

But this is to confuse tactics and strategy.

In the present US election cycle after Iowa and New Hampshire it is clear that the Reagan-Bush coalition is hurting.  One after another, Republican primary voters seem to be trying out the non-Reagan-Bush candidates.  First Mike Huckabee won in Iowa.  You could call him a social-only conservative.  Then John McCain won.  You could call him and national-security-only conservative.  The voters seem to be dancing nervously around Mitt Romney, the official candidate of the full-spectrum conservative right that includes the full menu of social conservatism, economic conservatism, and national conservatism.

But will it matter?  Chances are that the American people will choose “change,” either the meat-and-potatoes change of Hillary Clinton or the change-as-hope change of Barack Obama.

That’s what happened to the British Conservatives in 1997.  The voters were tired of the Conservatives and enamored of change.  So they voted for the charismatic Tony Blair.  It was Wordsworth time:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!

They didn’t want Conservatives.  Anything but that.  And they loved Tony Blair.  “Education, education, education,” he said.  “Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime.”

Now we are ten years later.  The British people have had ten years of tax increases and ineffective government.  Education is in the toilet.  Crime is on the rise.  Welfare is in the toilet.

In response, the Conservative Party is coming out with a radical conservative program.  They just announced a radical welfare reform program and the media asked them why it wasn’t stronger.  They have a radical education reform program coming up that will feature choice.

What has happened is that the voters are fed up, and they are now willing to listen to the Conservative Party.  That’s the way the political system works.

Republicans have been in power on and off for 25 years.  They have made a lot of changes, and a lot of people are tired of it all.  They think it is Time for a Change.  They are right.

Of course, tactically, Republicans should keep in touch with the voters.  But strategically they should be planning for the next round of reform.  That will probably not come until Social Security and Medicare and the public schools “hit the buffers,” but that is the way the political system works.