Where We Went Wrong
By Dick Armey, Washington Post op-ed
Somewhere along the road to a "permanent majority," the Republican Revolution of 1994 went off track. ... Where did the revolution go astray? How did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-scoring on meaningless wedge issues of today -- from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?
The answer is simple: Republican lawmakers forgot the party's principles, became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy. Now, the Democrats are reaping the rewards of our neglect -- and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
In 1989, Newt Gingrich rose to the number two leadership position in the House after a contentious three-way race pitting young backbench conservatives such as myself, Bob Walker, Joe Barton and others against old bulls such as Minority Leader Bob Michel and other ranking members. We thought they suffered from a minority party mindset and were too accommodating of the Democrats. Out of congressional power for nearly two generations, Republicans had become complacent. Senior members of the party were happy to accept the crumbs afforded by Democratic chairmen. Life was comfortable in the minority as long as you did not rock the boat. Members received their perks -- such as travel abroad and special banking privileges -- and enough pork projects for reelection. The entire Congress lived by the rule of parochial politics.
Gingrich and I and a handful of true believers in Ronald Reagan's conservative vision set the goal of retaking the House. The "Contract With America" outlined our platform of limited government. This vision appealed to both the social and economic wings of the conservative movement; equally important, it included institutional reforms for a Congress that had grown increasingly arrogant and corrupt. The contract nationalized the vision of the Republican Party in a way that unified our base and appealed to independents. We championed national issues, not local pork projects or the creature comforts of high office.
In 1994, this vision was validated when Republicans took 54 seats in the House, eight seats in the Senate and control of both houses of Congress.
Welfare reform in 1996 only affirmed the revolution. Bureaucrats, special interests and the White House all claimed that the sky would fall if we touched this failed Great Society program, but we held firm. When you take on a sacred cow, you must kill it completely -- tinkering on the margins is ineffective. In the end, the reform proved so successful and popular that President Bill Clinton (who rejected the original bill twice) considers it one of the best ideas his administration ever had.
At one point during the welfare reform debates, a member approached me and said, "Dick, I know this is the right thing to do, but my constituents just won't understand." I told him, "So you're telling me they are smart enough to vote for you but not smart enough to understand this?" He ended up voting to pass the bill.
Yet despite such successes, we didn't learn the right political lessons. A few months before the victory on welfare, we lost the battle over the federal government shutdown of 1995, when we were outmaneuvered by Clinton, a masterful political operator. After that fight, too many Republicans apparently concluded that America wanted bigger government. This misreading was the first step on the road away from the Reagan legacy.
We emerged as a wounded party; we stopped trusting the public; and we internalized the wrong lesson. Since the party won the majority in 1994, the GOP Conference had been consistent in requiring offsetting spending cuts for any new spending initiatives. (In fact, during the aftermath of a large Mississippi River flood, Rep. Jim Nussle even waited to find and approve offsets before moving the relief legislation for his own state of Iowa.) But by the summer of 1997, the appropriators -- rightly called the "third party" of Congress -- had begun to pass spending bills with Democrats. As soon as politics superseded policy and principle, the avalanche of earmarks that is crushing the party began.
Now spending is out of control. Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage.
They're fooling only themselves.
...
How can the Republicans respond?
The leadership must remember that the modern conservative movement is a fusion of social and fiscal conservatives united in their belief in limited government. The party must keep both in the fold. Republicans also need to get back to being the party of big ideas. ... Americans want more freedom and choice in education, health care and retirement security. Republicans -- too busy dreaming up wedge issues to score cheap points against Democrats -- have lost sight of their broad national agenda.
The likely Republican losses in next week's elections will not constitute a repudiation of the conservative legacy that drove the Reagan presidency and created the Contract With America. To the contrary, it would represent a rejection of big government conservatism. When we get back to being the party of limited government, putting a national agenda ahead of parochial short-term politics, we will again be a party that the American voters will trust to deal with the serious challenges facing our nation.
The 2006 midterm elections will be a success for the Democrats. Republicans will have to manage their own disappointment. Fingers will be pointed, and various villains will be fashioned out of recent events. But the plain fact is that Republicans have been setting the stage for this outcome for nearly a decade, running from themselves and their own principles. We will not find ourselves by conforming to the status quo, but by returning to our Reagan roots.
---
I have also recently posted a demand that Buch/Cheney face reality from a leading conservative from whom I once took a course at
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976828480
and a classical conservative critique of the unconservative shenanigans of attempts to re-engineer the Middle East at
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976828154
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Comments: 26
I have one about the War I'd like your opinion on. Called "How to win the War on Terror".
Im a disgusted Republican who is tired of the far right running my party... just like true Democrats are probably pissed that the far left is controling their policy.
However Mr. Armey misses the boat on a number of issues.
1) Social conservatives did not invent the wedge issue of same-sex marriage . That issue was pushed into the courts by gay and leftist organizations. Let us not forget who pushed who and who is pushing back.
2) Social issues ARE fiscal issues. This country spends over a Trillion in federal, state, county and city funds on mitigating the catastrophic consequences of recreational sex and drug abuse. The only way these problems will be turned around is to change the underlying lack of social ethics and morals that spawn them.
3) Apparently Mr. Armey fails to remember that this country was attacked by terrorists on 9/11. One would hope that the defense budget as well as the homeland security budget would increase.
Are you suggesting that creating a wedge issue is NOT divisive but responding to one is?
And those who sued were seeking equal treatment by the government. The demonizing response has been cynical and disingenuous... and typically American in refusing to look at the experience of other countries, including our neighbor to the north. It is the Christianist Right who made a wedge issue (which former congressman Armey now regrets).
Absolutely not. The wedge was created by the end-run around democracy and through the courts, not by the conservatives who worked through the democratic process to amend the constitutions.
Christian conservatives only make up a small percentage of the population. Republicans, Democrats, Christians, Jews, and the non-religious all supported these amendments.
Now all you need is the governor's signature. Once that is done you will have gone through the process.
Welcome to democracy!!!
The courts are supposed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Equal rights for minorities is rarely, if ever supported by a majority receiving special privileges.
That "this issue was forced upon the public through the courts by a series of well-financed lawsuits after it failed to pass through the legislative process" remains false. Individual couples' court cases came first, and it was then gay conservatives who have pushed the issue. National organizations (gay or liberal) did not finance the lawsuits and sought to discourage them.
Not quite, its institutions were DESIGNED to curb very small but powerful minorities from grabbing the reins of power. Not only is our system designed to protect the minority from the majority but it is also designed to protect the majority from the minority.
This is a classic case of a minority doing an end-run around democracy....and it cost them dearly.
Do not blame conservatives, blame a lousy strategy by the progressive activists who have always used the courts to assert their agenda.
Believe whatever gets you through the night.
I said it before and I will say it again, you are a man of brillance, your honest and I like that about you. I read your article you wrote and I never was so inspired by the words you wrote! I like that. You took time out to really think, not just about the here and now, but about the future (I am referencing your article you wrote on gather) I thinks it's sad. I don't even know how they new incombents will try to restore anything resembling Sense out of this! Please never let anyone tell you you're not a good writer or thinker you exceed critical limits! I think you should be applauded for your honesty, and looking outside the 8 ½ by 11 aka the box! I admire your candidness, and you know something tells me I'm not alone with this regard!
Tocqueville warned that the American system did not provide sufficient protection against tyranny of the majority (where he was a conservative or a liberal in the 19th- or 21st-century sense). Having studied Tocqueville with a Straussian, this has seemed right to me ever since.
Leaving aside the anti-democratic Electoral College, we currently have a Senate in which 45 Democrats represent more people than the 55 Republicans, and a House in which Democrats have received more votes than Republicans in 4 of the last 5 elections. The "democratic system" is not applicable to the United States. Neocons prescribing it to the Middle East while content not to have it here is one of the many ironies of the present, along with the increasing noncorrelation of "fiscal conservatism" and the reactionary position in the cultural wars. And Big Government Republicans misapropriating the label "conservative" in self-reference.
So you are trying to tell me that LambdaLegal DID NOT finance 135 court challenges to same-sex marriage bans?
Where does the strain on credibility begin to snap?
Are you actually trying to convince us that LambdaLegal is a "conservative" organization?
Absolute garbage. Why hide the fact that LambdaLegal selected and financed these cases?
Why not be proud of it?
As for "Bush's recent attempt to divert attention", please remind yourself that 22 state passed marriage amendments. Clearly, the left handed the Republicans an issue on a silver platter.
Mr. Armey failed to mention 9/11....as have you, which I find incredible.
What is more incredible is your proposal to place the party of the expansion of government into power to combat the expansion of government.