Real Clear Politics likes to juxtapose divergent columns about the same topic to illustrate to someone cursorily glancing at the entire rundown of headlines the breadth of opinion on the subject in the pundit world. Usually these contrasting pieces come from left and right - maybe a Victor Davis Hanson piece at NRO followed by a Paul Krugman piece at the NYT, for example.
Today, I was struck by the fact that such a RCP juxtaposition was between two divergent views on the right. There's Peter Ferrara's American Spectator piece arguing that Mitt is yet another embodiment of the Reasonable Gentleman / RINO / Establishment / starched-shirt-corporate-puke force that has sapped the Republican Party's natural energy for decades - and is therefore unelectable. The very next piece available for clicking is Jonathan Tobin's Commentary piece entitled "Conservatives Must Make Their Peace with Romney." (Regular LITD readers should be able to accurately guess that LITD agrees with the Ferrara view of the matter, although Tobin makes the excellent point that the remaining Pub prez contenders are making an unfortunate mistake by harping on the Bain-Capital-threw-people-out-of-work meme. Bain Capital showed its clients a return on their investments, which was what it was in business to do.)
The big question - the biggest of all - is, how does the GOP wind up at this juncture nearly every damn time? Whether they get elected or defeated, Pub prez candidates are routinely (with the exception of every conservative's towering hero, Dutch) the most white-bread, vanilla, reach-across-the-aisle-to-get-things-done-for-the-American-people figures among those running.
This scenario is an exquisite demonstration of the fact that culture comes before politics or economics. There is something in the makeup of a society that is so awash in prosperity, comfort, convenience and tachnological advancement, so removed from a sense of immediate danger (witness how quickly we went back to sleep after 9/11) that makes grandiose schemes, there-I-fixed-it wonkery, or, for that swath of the society that subscribes to a hard-left worldview, cries for "social justice" and "fairness" more appealing than simple truths that reality has proven time and time again.
While books, magazines and think-tank papers are churned out with regularity, the basic conservative message is fiarly easy to state:
1.) Economic freedom is inseparable from any other kind of freedom, and the state has no place in economic activity.
2.) The family structure that has been recognized the world over for thousands of years - a husband, wife and their children - is the societal unit where character is formed, and therefore must be upheld by public policy
3.) Men and women are fundamentally different
4.) People ought to form and foster civic institutions that build on the character-shaping function of the family. Churches and synagogues are foremost among these.
5.) War is a constant of the human condition, so we need a foreign policy and national-security stucture that reflects this fact.
There. That's about it.
Why is it so hard for this message to get through on a national level?
Foodie that I am, this phenomenon reminds me of our culture's seeming need to mess with recipes and time-honored foodstuffs in order to satiate our craving for novelty. We can't just have pizza pies that at least in the way they're marketed harken back to old Naples anymore; now they must have cheese-stuffed rims, or sport pineapples or barbecued chicken. We don't just eat sandwiches anymore; we load "flatbread" and "wraps" with all manner of ingredients, whether they make any thematic sense or not.
Similarly, we crave ever new forms of political razzle-dazzle that, as often as not, advance no ideology, good or bad. Zingers in debates, or emotion-triggering TV ads, or suspense surrounding endorsements suck the oxygen out of the polemical space which ought to be devoted to sharp and clear battling between worldviews that have been formed with the most rigor those asserting them could muster.
That would require a level of maturity I don't think we can collectively summon anymore.
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