Conservatism's Challenges

I pulled out Peggy Noonan's biography of Reagan (When Character Was King) this morning. I think that conservatives need to focus on ideas--one reason that the information about Obama's associates never took off is that its significance was never articulated well: we should care about that information because it is all that we have with which to assess him--he has no legislative or other governmental track record. If he had a legislative record of any length or significance, his associations would be less important.
Well, let me extricate myself from that little rabbit hole and return to the main point. One of the best things about Reagan was his belief in the power of his ideas--he did not have to talk about his opponents' personal problems or failings because he could expose and defeat their ideas. In retrospect, I think that conservatives focused too much on Clinton's personal peccadilloes; as demeaning and disgusting as those were, we should have hammered Clinton's ideas. Gingrich did just that in 1994 with great success.
I think that conservatives always have an uphill battle--we are not giving anything away, we're going to face up to serious international challenges (which makes us perpetually seem like storm crows), and we're going to advocate for a civil society. Sometimes I despair of ever overcoming the fundamental hurdles that we face, but I remind myself that a society can run but it cannot hide forever from reality, from that big bedrock that I call Truth. (When I think of "Truth" with a capital "T," I think of Chesterton's description of the character Sunday in The Man Who Was Thursday--another rabbit hole...) Since I'm currently teaching the book of Acts to both middle schoolers and elderly women at church, I remind myself of Paul after his conversion--I remind myself that the greatest apologist for Christianity began as an ardent persecutor of Christians; I remind myself that, after his conversion, Paul was a fugitive from his people. Yet, thanks largely to the conviction and perseverance of this man, Christianity became the dominant faith in his world, as it continues to be in ours. Paul, too, had to preach against culture--the corrupt world of late antiquity.
The other lesson that Paul teaches is an organizational one: we need to begin now to organize for 2010; we have a much better chance, I think, of prevailing in off-year elections. I think that our ideas focus should be narrow--we need to pick that focus carefully and stick to it like glue. Over the years, I've concluded that economics is the key battleground. Money powers the federal government; limit the money, and we limit the scope and intrusiveness of government. I don't think that economic conservatives have made their case well enough to social conservatives. Social conservatives need to understand that limiting the money that government has will limit government's ability to interfere in social issues such as abortion, marriage, and so forth. Part of what drives the gay marriage movement is the federal/state benefits that married couples enjoy (or are perceived to enjoy), including pensions, Social Security, tax filing status. Social conservatives also need to clarify their own theology regarding wealth-sharing: Jews and Christians are commanded to care for the "widows and orphans" among us Giving succor to those less fortunate is laudable; religiously motivated folks, however, often confuse voting to "spread the wealth" with providing that succor. Unfortunately, while giving one's own money is a virtue, voting to force someone else to give money conveys no moral benefit to either the voter or his victim; it is simply a form of extortion.
Final thought on this day after: conservatives need to think locally. We should apply the military's "hearts and minds" campaign to our own neighborhoods.
In sum, going forward we should organize, focus on our economic message, make common economic cause with social conservatives, and think locally.