Ourselves to Blame (sort of)

Writing in National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg offers an astute analysis of the Republican Party's dilemma, resulting from the Bush era of "compassionate conservatism", and the lessons learned since then.

Recall that Bush came into office promising to be a “different kind of conservative,” and one of his first legislative victories was the No Child Left Behind Act, sponsored by Teddy Kennedy.

Throughout his presidency, Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” surrendered — either rhetorically or substantively — to the assumptions of welfare-state liberalism, i.e. that your decency was best measured by your commitment to large, inefficient government programs. “When somebody hurts,” Bush insisted, “government has got to move.”

Many conservatives disliked this whole mindset and the policies behind it, from comprehensive immigration reform to Medicare Part D.

Many conservatives muted their objections, in part because they actually liked the man personally or because they approved of his stances on tax cuts, judges, abortion, and, most important, the war on terror (we can see a similar dynamic with so many antiwar liberals who still support Obama).

Conservatives didn’t necessarily bite their tongues (remember the Harriet Miers and immigration fiascoes), but they did prioritize supporting Bush — often in the face of far nastier attacks than Obama has received — over ideological purity. Besides, where were conservatives supposed to go? Into the arms of John Kerry?

The 2008 GOP primaries compounded conservative frustration. Because there was no stand-in for Bush in the contest, there was no obvious outlet for anger at Bush’s years of pre-surge Iraq bungling or his decision to outsource domestic spending to Republican congressional ward-heelers. Then, as a lame duck, Bush laid down the predicates for much of Obama’s first 100 days, supporting both a stimulus and Wall Street bailouts. As one participant of the D.C. tea-party rally told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, “George Bush opened the door for Barack Obama and the Democrats to walk in.”