David Frum on the lacklustre performance of the Republican candidates
I have been concerned that the Republican field is underperforming and that the Search for the New Reagan is folly. David Frum, it appears, has similar misgivings.
Following talking up the candidates and talking down their performance, we have what Sullivan would call the ‘money quote’:
But as much as I blame the candidates, I have to blame the party too. Have Republicans absorbed how much trouble their party is in? To the (limited) extent that we do, we tend to to attribute everything to Iraq — as if Katrina, the Schiavo affair, corruption in Congress, and the intensifying irrelevance of our domestic-policy agenda did not exist. And so we demand from our candidates ever more fervent declarations of fealty to an ideology that interests an ever dwindling proportion of the public.
I wish somebody at the Reagan Library had said: “Ronald Reagan was a great leader and a great president because he addressed the problems of his time. But we have very different problems — and we need very different answers. Here are mine.”
Hear, hear.