Oh how I wish I could use this opportunity to spin, but I’ve become so much more sober and pessimistic recently. I would love to say, “This election was a defeat for Big Government Conservatism.” Then, I would promote a return to basic conservative principles. I would shout that we already won, and our voters threw out a perversion of those principles. We’re poised for victory in ’08 with real conservatism, or we will fight for our candidates in ’08 against the evil big government wing of the party. Alas, if it were only so!
This election wasn’t a rejection or approval of any set of principles. This election was a rejection of incompetence. The people were angry at Bush. He had failed with Katrina and failed with Iraq. The Republican party was corrupt, as evidenced symbolically by the Foley scandal. It wasn’t a rejection of any of the principles of family values, etc — it was the corruption of the principles. The Big Government Conservatives didn’t lose. Some of them were pissed off at the party as we (Limited Government Conservatives) were. Or rather, the Dems gained a good amount of the evangelical vote who cited “corruption” as an issue they cared about. We didn’t vote Republican because of high spending. Moderates and us voted Democrat because of the screw-ups in Iraq. Moderates hated not the corruption of certain principles, but actual monetary corruption — a part of a general theme of incompetence. Democrats, well, they were probably going to vote Democrat anyway.
My point is that none of us changed our ideology even though we may have voted a different way. I don’t like saying that there are “real” reasons for things. This is not so in human minds (uh oh, this could open a whole nother can of worms, so I won’t elaborate), but especially not so in a collective body — each person votes for different reasons. Attempts to find a real ulterior motive will fail because we all voted for different reasons. Still, I think there can be big contributing factors, and we can all find reasons that aren’t justified. If you want to know why Republicans lost, look at Bush’s low approval ratings. Why are Bush’s approval ratings low? He’s incompetent.
So, what does all this mean in the battle of ideas? Not so much, I guess. This election was a peculiarity, as all elections are. Greater historical meaning will be assigned in retrospect.
There’s a huge difficulty in assigning reasons to this loss. People tend to think that most people agree with them. Thus, I’ll tend to say that my reasons for not voting Republican were the reasons everyone voted Republican.
The Republicans lost votes from their base and lost big among independents. Why? I don’t think it was ideology. I don’t know if they are against the War in Iraq, per se. Mostly, they’re angry at the incompetent way it’s been handled. (Or at least, I am, haha.) The Republicans have bungled their rule for whatever reasons. People will assign whatever reasons they think that the Republicans were incompetent, but those reasons will vary. The fact is that the Republicans were incompetent in their governance. It made them unpopular. That’s the basic reason for losing.
But why oh why were we incompetent?
I just don’t think there’s a simple answer. The election itself doesn’t prove things one way or another. Still, I think we can eventually isolate certain elements.
Lloyd replies:
You’re absolutely right… in national politics, the answers aren’t so simple. But in very general terms, I’d say “overconfidence leading to hubris” is a good wrap. Add that to the old saw about absolute power absolutely corrupting, and I think that pretty much covers the philosophical bases. I’m quite sure it’s hard to consider first principles when you’ve got absolute power in hand. It’s so easy to say … “so freaking what.”