The G.O.P. finds the enemy - Republican Party

Commonweal, Oct 24, 1997 by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

And it's them

For the sake of the Republican party, the recent fight between Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and former Massachusetts Republican Governor Bill Weld ought to be the last gasp of an old argument. If Republicans are serious about running the national government, they need to believe in governing. They haven't proved that yet.

Don't believe me on this. Listen to two Republicans, William Kristol and David Brooks, who offered a manifesto to their party recently in the Wall Street Journal. It had nothing to do with the Helms-Weld fight, but much bearing on it.

"The era of big government may be over, but a new era of conservative governance hasn't yet begun," they declared. Why? "Unpleasant though it is to admit, a barrier to the success of today's conservatism is...today's conservatism." Those three dots are theirs, presumably to emphasize their heresy.

"Wishing to be left alone isn't a governing doctrine," they write, contradicting the governing doctrine of many in their party. "Indeed, in recent years some conservatives' sensible contempt for the nanny state has at times spilled over into a foolish, and politically suicidal, contempt for the American state. A conservatism that organizes citizens' resentments rather than informing their hopes will always fall short of fundamental victory." And they ask a question remarkable only in light of current Republican rhetorical habits: "How can Americans love their nation if they hate its government?"

Kristol and Brooks, both editors of the conservative Weekly Standard, were not just mouthing off. They have been working for the last year on a new approach for the Republicans grandly called "national-greatness" conservatism. The idea is that government should be used, at home and abroad, to pursue large goals. Theirs is the conservative tradition - currently unfashionable - of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Teddy Roosevelt. All believed in strong government. (Liberals claim TR, too, proving that history is complicated.) Kristol is not shy about criticizing Republican politicians for factionalism and intellectual paralysis. "They are captives to these conservative sects instead of thinking in a fresh way about the American tradition," he said in an interview.

The Helms-Weld battle revealed why Republicans need the argument that Kristol and Brooks want to start. The standard account of President Bill Clinton's failed nomination of Weld to be ambassador to Mexico is true as far as it goes. Senator Helms represents North Carolina social conservatism and can't stand Weld for his commitment to Massachusetts social liberalism.

Helms had the power. Weld had no base. Democrats were not prepared to fight for Weld. Republicans (with no-table exceptions such as Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana) wanted Weld to go away. He did.

But for all their differences, Weld and Helms simply represent different brands of antigovernment politics. Helms has always opposed federal spending (except on tobacco), and also opposed federal intervention on behalf of civil rights, abortion rights, and feminism. Weld is just as antispending as Helms. But for him, being antigovernment means keeping government out of issues such as abortion and the medicinal use of marijuana.

In other words, Republicans who claim to be united by an antigovernment creed are deeply divided over what it means to be antigovernment. Kristol and Brooks are suggesting that Republicans give up the pretense that they are consistently antigovernment. Instead, the party should ask what "limited but energetic" government would do. For them, this includes an interventionist foreign policy. They don't mind that this makes them sound like cold-war Democrats in the tradition of the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.

Kristol acknowledges that there is absolutely no mass base for his brand of conservatism - "a minor problem," he says with a chuckle. But New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani fits his mold. Such Republicans as Lamar Alexander, Bill Bennett, Steve Forbes, and Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona have expressed interest in aspects of the Greatness Doctrine.

What's missing are specifics - a problem since Kristol and Brooks have to explain where they differ from Democrats, who also favor "limited but energetic" government. Using government on behalf of "national greatness" could get you right back to the New Deal.

New Dealism doesn't bother Kristol. "Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and, for that matter, Lyndon Johnson, are big facts in American history," he said in an interview. "Are we willing to say that the country is worse off because of FDR or JFK or LBJ? I'm not willing to say that."

There's a message here: The era of bashing government is ending.