Cato’s David Boaz argues that the real loser on Tuesday night was the big-government conservatism that has come to personify the Republican Party:
The big problem for John McCain and the rest of the Republicans last night was George W. Bush and his big-government conservatism. Bush had a 25 percent approval rating, and Congress’s was even lower. Republicans hoped up until election day that voters would notice that the unpopular Congress was run by Democrats. But after 8 years of Bush and 12 years of a Republican Congress, just recently ended, voters saw the Republicans as the incumbents who were responsible for the mess in Washington. Concerns about Obama were sufficient to allow McCain to run 20 points ahead of Bush’s approval rating in a time of economic crisis. But the hole was too deep.
Bush and the Republicans promised choice, freedom, reform, and a restrained federal government. They delivered massive overspending, the biggest expansion of entitlements in 40 years, centralization of education, a floundering war, an imperial presidency, civil liberties abuses, the intrusion of the federal government into social issues and personal freedoms, and finally a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that just kept on growing in the last month of the campaign. Voters who believed in limited government had every reason to reject that record.
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Big-government conservatism, a toxic combination of the religious right and the neoconservatives, lost badly on Tuesday. But the voters didn’t give a ringing endorsement to big-government liberalism. Fifty-nine percent of voters call themselves “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” and that’s a rich vein the Republican party is ignoring. If Obama governs as a centrist, he may make it very difficult for the Republicans to recover. But a candidate in either party who presented himself as a product of the social freedom of the Sixties and the economic freedom of the Eighties would be tapping into a market that both parties have yet to nail down.
Does such a candidate exist ? Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try to find him or her.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Dennis Kucinich should be mentioned as someone who stood up to speak truth to power. Kucinich is the valiant Congressman who tried harder than any other person in Congress to bring George W. Bush down with impeachment.
Thomas Tamm should be mentioned as someone who stood up to speak truth to power. Tamm is a star for ratting out Bush and exposing Bush’s illegal NSA spying program.
Al-Zaidi, who threw shoes at Bush, should be mentioned as someone who stood up to speak truth to power. Al-Zaidi’s bravery will be forever cherished.
Dr. Justin A. Frank, a renowned psychiatrist, should be mentioned as someone who stood up to speak truth to power. Dr. Frank gives the American people the best psychiatric evaluation of Bush that can possibly be attained intelligently and honestly. Dr. Frank tells the American people about Bush’s mental illnesses—without which Americans could not fully understand why Bush does the crazy things he does.
Lawrence Velvel, Dean of The Massachusetts School of Law, should be mentioned as someone who stood up to speak truth to power. Velvel has fervently advocated prosecution against Bush for war crimes. Velvel also diligently tells the American people a whole lot about Bush’s mental illnesses.
There are people of Britain who should be mentioned as people who stood up to speak truth to power: they ratted out Bush (Downing Street memo), exposing that Bush was going to attack Iraq no matter what and fabricate whatever information to get it done.
I am profoundly thankful for the people whom I mentioned above.
The American people salute the characters I mentioned above for their courage and integrity in challenging the existence of the worst president in U.S. history—George W. Bush.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993