Breaking ranks - neo-conservatives may have aided George Bush's defeat in 1992 presidential election

National Review, Jan 18, 1993 by Elliott Abrams

THE Republican loss in November brings to mind the old adage that victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. In this case, it would be more apt to say that defeat is an illegitimate child: no one will accept responsibility, though many are ready to accuse others.

There are a number of candidates for the honor, starting with Mr. Bush and his team. Their frequent abandonment of conservative principles, and their general incompetence during the campaign, forced many components of the "Reagan coalition" to confront a difficult choice. Stick with Bush because the Democrats were even worse, or jump ship?

Polling evidence demonstrates that the most faithful group for Mr. Bush was the Christian Right, whereas the first to jump ship were members of the Old Right, including two who ran against the President: Pat Buchanan in the primaries and Howard Phillips in the general election (in those states where he could get on the ballot).

Where did neo-conservatives fit in this spectrum? Nearer the Christian Right than the paleo-cons, it seems. While this magazine urged a tactical vote for Mr. Buchanan in the New Hampshire primary, neo-cons from Irving Kristol to Michael Novak, from Jeane Kirkpatrick to Midge Decter, from Norman Podhoretz to Richard John Neuhaus, urged staying with President Bush.

But a few neo-cons backed Clinton very publicly, signing a newspaper advertisement for him, writing articles on his behalf, and advising his campaign. The best known of these were: Richard Schifter, a lawyer who had served with distinction as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights from 1985 to 1992; Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute, author of Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny; and Penn Kemble of Freedom House.

What ties these men together is their tendency to give human-rights policy primacy in American foreign policy. They are accurately described as Wilsonians or interventionists, who believe that the expansion of democracy is not only a moral good but a practical goal for the United States. By contrast, neo-cons like Irving Kristol place great emphasis on the careful delineation of American national interests. They take a much more skeptical view of the ability of the United States to spread democracy and of very many countries to sustain it.

It is not surprising that this split was reflected in the presidential campaign, for Clinton espoused a much more activist view than did Bush. It is widely believed that one reason Schifter quit his job and endorsed Clinton was that the Democrat had urged stronger protests against the human-rights abuses of the Chinese Communist government, while the Bush Administration's Realpolitik required near silence on those abuses, even after Tiananmen Square.

Human-rights policy, however, is only one issue that separated the Clinton backers from their friends; foreign policy in general was another. Perhaps encouraged by the warm welcome they received from the Clinton campaign (and, in Schifter's case, association with Clinton himself going back to the mid 1980s), the three came to believe that a Clinton Administration would not be Carter II. They suggested that Clinton's leading role in the Democratic Leadership Council showed his true feelings, which were hardly McGovernite. Most neo-cons, by contrast, remained deeply skeptical. Clinton, they pointed out, had little or no foreign-policy experience. He would be surrounded by "experts" whose views had helped drive many neo-cons out of the Democratic Party in the late 1970s. And he would face a Democratic Congress that had fought Reagan's policy at every turn. Since the weight of opinion in the Democratic Party remained well to the Left, familiar names from the bad old days would soon crop up.

The pro-Clinton neo-cons did not debate this. Instead, they argued that a Clinton Administration would be a battleground between Clinton's moderate inclinations and more radical forces in his party, and they wanted to get into that fight. The price of admission was an endorsement of Clinton. This was a powerful argument as far as it went, but it required an optimism about the Democrats that most neo-cons did not share.

The Home Front

IT ALSO required a dismissal of the importance of domestic policy. Most neo-cons, like most other conservatives, were unhappy with the President's failure to unseat Saddam Hussein, his support of Gorbachev against Yeltsin, his lack of enthusiasm for breaking up the Soviet empire, and his sometimes bitter criticisms of Israel. But if these reproaches were counterbalanced by doubts about a Clinton foreign policy, they were altogether outweighed by a certainty that Clinton domestic policy would turn sharply left.

And here is perhaps the sharpest division between the Clinton backers and most neo-cons. Those who supported Clinton have never shown much interest in the domestic-policy issues that move most conservatives, from economic regulation, antitrust policy, and free markets, to "gay rights," restrictions on "abortion rights," judicial appointments like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and school choice. If they have strongly opposed racial quotas in employment in the past, they must have swallowed their views under the theory that no candidate is perfect.