The Crossed Pond

David Frum has become a very cogent articulator of what is wrong with the state of conservatism in America today, but also what can be done about it. Given our own trans-Atlantic background, I think this article is well worth passing along, in which Frum sketches out what the current Republican party can learn from the currenty Tory one across the pond. Some center-right conservatives fall into the trap of idealizing Cameron and company lately (as they did, weirdly, with Sarkozy) without quite seeing the imperfections that are more apparent to British conservatives. But nevertheless, the lessons he takes and unpacks are both dense and rewarding and, I believe, accurate. It’s a short article, so I’ll avoid quoting it in its entirety, but it boils down to this.

• While upholding your principles, align your priorities with the priorities of the country at large.
• Volunteer to do what you will be forced by politi­cal necessity to do anyway.
• The leader you want is someone who appeals to the voters you need to gain, not the voters you already have.

By the first, “While upholding your principles, align your priorities with the priorities of the country at large”, he means to not get lost in tangents, and that you ignore bonafide national priorities for the sake of base-thumping peripherals at your own peril. So the Tories pivoted from key issues like being anti-immigration and anti-EU and disgruntlement with the NHS to talking about the environment, public safety, economic strains on working families, etc. These were not issue on which they had a natural advantage, but by, unprodded (i.e. not in a reactive way), taking them up, they diffused a lot of the natural prejudices against their own party. In some cases they changed positions to meet the times (endorsing gay marriage, for instance). On others, they just de-emphasized things (like anti-immigration). And by doing so, they began to dispel the notions that they were a party compulsively over-focused on certain things and instead were a national party with serious interest in governing on the major problems of everyday Britain.

An example for the American GOP might be health care. For the last few decades, health care has been one of those issues that is just naturally chalked up to the Democrat in any competitive race, and it’s just assumed that for any Republican candidate, the less time spent on such kitchen table issues the better. So the Republicans stay in their comfort zone—national security, taxes, “family values”, whatever—and more or less refuse to engage in a constructive way (though perfectly willing to play the part of reactionary oppositional force) with the issues that, in most polls, are the first and second most important issues to voters (health care and jobs). What winds up happening is they cede any positive approach to the issues that range in the 30 and 40 percentiles (i.e. are “most important” to that percent of voters), and instead play reactive on them and live in their comfort zone of issues that are most important to, say, an eight of voters (national security, social conservatism, etc.). Check out the last WSJ poll on the matter, asking which should be the highest priority of the federal government:

Job creation and economic growth 30
Health care 21
The deficit and government spending 18
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 11
National security and terrorism 11
Energy and the cost of gas 4
Social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage 3

A lot of other polls are even more stark. For example, CBS in October:

Economy/Jobs 45
Health care 20
War/Peace (general) 7
War in Afghanistan 3
Budget deficit/National debt 3
Iraq 2

That’s not to say the GOP doesn’t have positions on all those issues, but the ones in which they have actual solutions to proffer (rather than criticisms of other people’s solutions), the ones in which they are consistently fluent and have a perception of being “serious about”, are small potatoes compared to things that the average voter seems to actually care about. Nor is that to say that more people agree with the Democratic position on those big marquee issues—though that’s true too, at least it has been and is right now. What I’m saying is it’s unconsciously assumed to be their territory. If you’re looking to cast a PROTEST vote on the issues that make up about 2/3s of the “important” pie, you might go Republican. If however you’re a voter that wants a party it believes to be serious about an issue, if you want to feel comfortable with a party constructively addressing and governing on an issue, Republicans just aren’t in that game at the moment, as the Tories weren’t on a lot of their important issues of the day.

In spots, of course, in Race X featuring Candidates Y and Z, a Republican can do just fine as a vehicle for a more reactive game plan. Enough of those spots in a given cycle, the party will pick up seats. But as a national party, as part of the national conversation, taking a view beyond just the next day’s race, that gameplan is ultimately a loser. One ultimately is left with the impression that Republicans have nothing to say on these issues—they’re just waiting around for a Democratic plan to come along that they can criticize. If there’s a Democratic plan out there, fair enough, you might meet with limited success. But when a voter decides they want something—anything—done on one of these issues, it’s not the GOP they turn to. In that way, you’re never a shaper of your own destiny. You’re just waiting around for the political winds to blow your way once or twice a generation, rather than being seen as an equal partner with voters in figuring out how to solve the problems that are the nation’s priorities.

Frum’s second point is “Volunteer to do what you will be forced by politi­cal necessity to do anyway”, meaning, I think, that even if you don’t want to address a certain issue, don’t be forced to by the voters, do it constructively of your own accord. I’m a bit less clear on Frum’s point here and its applicability—he describes the Tories finally giving in to the impressions that they were anti-NHS by becoming All About the NHS. Frum’s point:

American conservatism talks a much more ideological game than it plays. Conservative politicians vow radical cuts in government spending but make no attempt to enact them. They passionately deny that health care is a right, yet leave in place the laws that require hospitals to treat all com­ers regardless of ability to pay. Strong talk can succeed in mobilizing and exciting a movement’s base. It also frightens and repels new adherents. Sometimes you need to mobilize. Sometimes, as when recovering from a debacle, you need to reach out.

So I think what he’s saying here is: put up or shut up. If you’re not willing to follow through, then change your position. If you’re too scared to take on, say, Medicare, then why be anti-Medicare?

Finally, the third point “The leader you want is someone who appeals to the voters you need to gain, not the voters you already have”, is rather self-evident, but might ultimately be the hardest to learn. Sorry Sarah Palin.

Anyway, a lot of this is just a matter of tone. Great candidates reflexively have the ability to bust out of the natural and stale confinements of their party ID and seem, to voters, to seriously engage on ALL issues. Think Jim Webb on national security, or think David Cameron on the environment. When you actively sow the impression that you’re not a serious option on 2/3s of the most important issues of the day, you’re (duh) going to be a minority party. And that cycle can wind up feeding itself, as you play more and more to the base and further and further shrink the arenas with which you’re actively and constructively engaged. What’s more, the policy prescriptions themselves don’t matter all that much—there are seeds for a great conservative health care plan, for instance, that could have tapped into exactly the same concerns of regular Americans that the liberal reform plans have. But you have to start by not ceding 66% of the debate before you even step up to the podium.