11/13/2006

The Blame Game Begins

Investor's Business Daily

11/13/2006

By Gary Bauer

It’s already started. Now that the Republicans have suffered their much-heralded Election Day rebuke, the intra-party finger pointing has begun in earnest. Who’s to blame? According to some Republicans, it’s the religious conservatives.

In fact, as the votes were still being tallied on election night, the Main Street Partnership, a Republican political organization, released a terse statement titled, “Far Right Solely Responsible for Democratic Gains.” The next day, former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey penned an op-ed chiding the GOP for focusing on “wedge issues like illegal immigration and same sex marriage,” and criticizing the Senate for dedicating “two legislative days to a constitutional ban on gay marriage…” calling it “pure politics.”

Of course, the scapegoating of church-going conservatives started before Election Day. An election eve cover story in The Economist mentioned the Iraq war and President Bush’s “pandering to the religious right” as the primary reasons for the GOP’s impending electoral misfortunes. Then there’s the slew of new books warning freedom-loving Americans that the Republican Party has been taken over by Bible-thumping “Christianists” intent on turning America into a theocracy.

Enough! Such incriminations may sell books and boost ratings, but they overlook two important facts. First, Christian conservatives are the lifeblood of the GOP. Second, very little political capital has actually been spent on the issues they care about.

Let’s remember how we got here. Prior to 1980, the Democrat Party was the dominant force in American politics, enjoying almost uninterrupted control of the House of Representatives for nearly five decades and the Senate for 26 years. Democrats had also won eight of the previous 12 presidential elections.

Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 marked a sea change in American politics, ushering in Republican control of the presidency for 18 of 26 years (in fact, since 1980, no Democrat has won 50 percent of the popular vote in a presidential election), and Republican control of the Senate for 15 of the past 25 years. 1980 also saw Republicans make modest gains in the House of Representatives, a foretaste of their decisive 1994 takeover.

The numbers don’t lie. Before Ronald Reagan’s presidential election, the GOP was a perennial loser; since then, Republicans have enjoyed an era of unprecedented success.

The secret of Reagan’s success was his ability to solidify support among fiscal and foreign policy conservatives—then the party’s base—while reaching out to capture the support of many southern and socially conservative northern voters—Reagan Democrats—by embracing the mantle of traditional values. Barry Goldwater may have been the Father of the Conservative Movement, but it took Ronald Reagan to transform that movement into a powerful governing majority.

The GOP’s conservative coalition has endured since Reagan left office, maturing into an alliance that now includes a burgeoning voting bloc of evangelicals, the difference makers in George W. Bush’s two election victories.

Even this year, as many voters turned away from Republican candidates, they did not reject conservative values. When values issues stood alone, they almost always prevailed. For example, in 7 of 8 races, traditional marriage won overwhelmingly (with the other yet to be decided); English as the official language was embraced in Arizona; racial discrimination was rejected in Michigan; the legalization of marijuana was rejected in three states; slot machines in another; and private property rights were strengthened in nine states. Perhaps most tellingly, Democrats ran a number of socially conservative candidates in southern and heartland states; almost all of them won. How ironic: Democrats act like conservatives and win, while some Republicans move to the left and lose.

Clearly, the public’s disaffection is with the Republican Party, not conservatism.

Despite the popularity of conservative values issues, the Republican Party has been reluctant to take up the values agenda. After turning out like never before in the 2000 and 2004 elections, religious conservatives have watched as their issues have been swept aside in favor of other priorities like privatizing Social Security and a massive new prescription drug entitlement. The White House offered only muffled support for the federal marriage amendment, while largely staying out of debates over religious freedom, the sanctity of life and the Ten Commandments.

What’s more, government spending—another conservative bane—has surged. A recent Heritage Foundation study found federal spending is now over $20,000 a year per household in today’s dollars for the first time since World War II. Meanwhile, little of substance has been done to curb illegal immigration.

The only real victories for values voters were the Supreme Court appointments of John Roberts and of Samuel Alito, who was only nominated after a conservative backlash against Bush’s first selection, Harriet Miers.

Earlier this year, the Family Research Council conducted a poll in which 63 percent of respondents said they felt the GOP had not kept its promises with values voters. This resentment was still palpable this fall at the Washington Values Voter Summit, where I heard from scores of religious conservatives demoralized over the lack of action on values issues.

Instead of standing up for values, too many Republicans were mired in scandal. Polls now show a majority of Americans believe Democrats reflect their values more closely than Republicans do. Exit polling from this year’s election found that nearly one-third of white evangelicals voted Democratic and that most of them cited corruption as an important factor in their decision.

All this begs the question: If the Republican Party built its majority on the backs of church-going conservative voters, while offering little more than hollow rhetoric in return, why are some Republicans blaming religious conservatives for the party’s current woes?

Current data on cultural trends reveal an America that is becoming more conservative, not less so. As Republicans look ahead to the future of their party, I hope they first reflect back—on the Reagan legacy—and renew their commitment to fiscal discipline, strong national defense, and traditional American values, the pillars upon which a nation was founded and a revolution launched.

Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of Campaign for Working Families