Gop Not Dead Yet

THIS WEEKEND Matthew Parris is wishing for British Conservative leader David Cameron to win, but not too soon. New Labour, he writes, needs a few more years to crash and burn completely before Cameron should face the people in a decisive election. Just like in the US, where the forward foreign policy of

neoconservatism [has] to be given its head, and crash, and burn, before a new president could persuade the nation to turn its back on the idea.

Of course this is equating the folly of government-monopoly provision of health care, education, and social services with an aggressive foreign policy to attack the “gang of ruthless men” wherever they may be found. Voters are not quite the experts on foreign policy that they are on education and health care.

But still, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg have done some polling and have found that

We are on the verge of a change election that can produce major Democratic gains. Indeed, this new national Democracy Corps survey suggests that voters are prepared for an upheaval and change of party control, if the challengers define this election, run as outsiders and show voters where they would take the country.

Well, it is true that George W. Bush has had to deal with one nasty problem after another, and the Democrats and the media have done a fantastic job of running up President Bush’s negatives.

But just how do the champions of the welfare state propose to present themselves as outsiders ready to take the country in a new direction? E.J. Dionne has already looked at the failure of the Meathead’s government-monopoly pre-school proposal in California and decided that progressives need to come up with something better. But what? Progressives just seem incapable of proposing ideas without government programs and spending attached.

Political scientist Jay Cost has taken a look at the CA 50 special election and decided that there really isn’t any grounds for expecting a Democratic surge this fall. Not yet, anyway. From his perspective, the voters in CA 50 voted “normally.”

There is no doubt that the national conditions are decidedly in the Democrats' favor - nor is there any doubt that these conditions will cause the Republicans to lose a not insubstantial number of seats. At the same time, though, Tuesday night's results imply that the Democrats' path to 15 - always a narrow one - is narrower than many have thought.

Of course, a continued fall in the stock market, real pain in the real estate market, and really bad news from Iraq could change all that.

Meanwhile, in case you haven’t noticed, the U.S. Senate has been scheduling votes on issues that Democrats would like to avoid, like the death tax and gay marriage. Expect more of that as the season progresses.

Sphere: Related Content |

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

mysql close 0