Completing the Revolution
Novak, Robert D.
Playing Not to Lose Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000 Robert D. Nova k Free Press / 24z pages / $24 REVIEWED BY Traey Robinson F or opponents of big government, the...
...D espite all of the false starts, blunders, and letdowns over the last six years, Novak does not think the situation is hopeless...
...So something had to be done to repair the marriage, and it was...
...He also implies--actually the culture insists on it-that Clinton's sex life has nothing to do with his character...
...She goes where the more sophisticated spokesmen do not go, and because she is not taken seriously she passes beneath their radar...
...Stop looking at politics from a triangulated, Clintonian point of view, he advises, and forget those focus groups...
...Instead of aiming for this ideal, he favorably mentions a reform, championed by former Rep...
...If it were up to me," he admits, "I'd remove the [contribution] limits altogether...
...And his short attention span-which he seemed unable to focus after the first loo days of Republican control of the House-also worked against him, alienating him from the Class of '94, whose members had come to Washington to make quick changes and then go home...
...He appeared to have no idea at all of why he had ordered it, and now you know why...
...Both parties now compete to see who can call for the most federal money for education or promise seniors more free prescription drugs...
...As Novak sees it, the root of the problem lies in the fact that congressional Republicans like the perks that accompany majority status--control of committees, increased campaign donations, better parking spaces--and they haven't wanted to risk it all by advocating and fighting for any real changes that could prove controversial...
...She called her husband from North Africa, and told him to get on with it...
...According to Novak, the qualities that made Gingrich the ideal revolutionary--a large ego and a talent for devising complex political strategiesmade him a singularly bad speaker, virtually doomed from the start...
...Rather, the goal is and should remain smaller government and more freedom for individuals...
...The media more or less believed in a conspiracy already, and Mrs...
...Clinton nailed it down...
...Veteran political columnist Robert Novak shares this concern...
...and making overtures to women and minority voters without compromising principles...
...Completing the Revolution chronicles the familiar and sad story of how ineffective congressional Republicans have been at dealing with President Clinton, particularly since the government shutdown of 1995 put them in mortal fear of appearing "mean-spirited...
...By ridding Congress of career politicians, term limits would enable the election of citizen legislators who aren't afraid of controversy and who haven't yet bought into Washington's pork-barrel ethos...
...Such legislative oneupsmanship makes one wonder: For this we elected Republicans...
...You couldn't believe a thing those awful right-wing people were saying...
...Linda Smith, that would require all campaign donations to be raised in the state a candidate is running to represent...
...Hillary Clinton knew what she was doing when she went on the "Today" show to talk about the "vast right-wing conspiracy...
...It also should be clear by now that the culture and its most sophisticated spokesmen--Toobin, for instance--accept, indeed promote, the notion that there is no connection between Clinton's private and public life...
...they're playing not to lose...
...In order to avoid the possibility of taxation under both systems simultaneously, the 16th Amendment would have to be repealed--an unlikely proposition due to the procedural hurdles involved...
...Compared to his principled stands on the sales tax and term limits, Novak's recommendation for campaign finance reform seems out of place...
...Clinton decided to bomb Kosovo...
...Playing Not to Lose Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000 Robert D. Nova k Free Press / 24z pages / $24 REVIEWED BY Traey Robinson F or opponents of big government, the Republican "revolution" of 1994 has been a colossal disappointment...
...For the past five years," he writes in Completing the Revolution, "I have waited for the Republican party to use its congressional majority to institute a true conservative program in line with the promises made in the election campaigns of 1994, 1996, and 1998...
...But time after time I have been disappointed...
...The freshmen of 1994 and a few others like Rep...
...Otherwise, don't be surprised if the next Republican Congress- if there is one anytime soon-gives us more of the same...
...continuing to strongly oppose abortion in spite of what the polls say...
...Novak asks...
...Forgoing a real contest and the intellectual debate over the direction of the party that goes along with it could end up harming conservatives in the long run, he reasons, since it "minimizes-in truth neglects-what the Republican party needs to do to survive in the new century...
...The Republicans have to make the case that it does, and the only way to do so is to have the courage of their convictions...
...And because of the importance he places on a Republican winning the presidency, he questions the virtual anointment, dating back nearly a year and a half before the zooo election, of George W. Bush...
...Bill Paxon were the real revolutionaries willing to fight for smaller, less intrusive government...
...Substituting a national sales tax for the monstrously burdensome income tax is still a fringe issue even though it has been debated over a couple of Republican presidential primary seasons...
...Most everyone in the Republican leadership comes offbadly: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is no match for the crafty and intensely partisan president, prospective speaker Bob Livingston was a "huge spender...with a bad temper to boot," and Dick Armey is described as "inefficient and incompetent as majority leader," focusing most of his energy on keeping his post after his role in the 1997 leadership coup was discovered...
...Instead, Republican candidates should appeal to their party's base by sticking to conservative principles...
...How, then, to revive the revolutionary spirit of 1994 and the sentiments behind the strategically successful Contract With America...
...Newt ally Vin Weber told Novak that Gingrich should not have risen higher than chairman of the Republican congressional campaign committee...
...Government spending is up, income-tax rates remain high, and notwithstanding promises to do away with several Cabinet-level agencies, even small federal programs like the National Endowment for the Arts and the Publie Broadcasting Service are thriving...
...The strategic political suggestions include accepting the importance of the religious right to the party and ignoring what the press says about it...
...Republicans, Novak wisely points out, need the "courage to be Republicans...
...President Clinton has outsmarted conservatives in Congress at every turn, triangulating them into calling for gun control, regulation of HMOs, and increases in the minimum wage...
...But that won't happen...
...Ill the Republican party is not going to deal with term limits, abortion, affirmative action, reduction of government, tax credits, tax reform, or deregulation, then does it make that much difference who is in power...
...But it does, of course, and this is something you either know or don't know, and if you don't know, any explanation would be lost anyway...
...Most of Novak's ten suggestions for Republican victory are eminently sensible and will appeal to conservative voters: calling for tax cuts, pushing for privatization of Social Security, supporting free trade, devising a foreign policy based on limited use of force abroad in our narrow national interest...
...I asked him about the rumors and he said, 'Well, don't you think I've done all I can do here?' I almost fainted, because he hadn't done anything...
...But enter now Gail Sheehy, America's pop psychology queen, and the author of Hillary's Choice...
...He really had no idea, except that she was angry, and he was empty, and something had to be done to patch up their marriage...
...Even his supporters were dubious of his abilities to govern effectively...
...Like many voters, he believes change necessitates control of the executive branch...
...ly advancing the Republican agenda and should not have been afraid of it," Novak writes...
...To be worthy of votes, Novak says, the Republican Party needs to know what it stands for--and what it stands for shouldn't be an expansionist "national greatness" or "compassionate" conservatism that can be all things to all people...
...At the same time Hillary grew icy and bitter...
...But they're not playing to win...
...Novak does not get much more specific than that, but warns Republicans that they need to "appear" to have "clean hands" in order to maintain the public's trust...
...Monica Lewinsky had been more than she could take...
...The Troopergate piece in TAS, which was all about sex, proved that long ago...
...The Republican Congress should have been courageousT~cY ROBINSON is deputy editor of The American Spectator...
...One of the funniest -- and saddest - parts of the book is Novak's retelling of a breakfast conversation he had with then-Speaker Gingrich in early x995, "when rumors were flying that he would run for president in 1996...
...Their motives were suspect, and their tactics dishonest, and up close they probably looked kinky...
...Sometimes it does use them, of course, but almost always so it can knock them down, and then deplore the people who first spread them...
...Suggesting that Republicans try to educate the public as to why most reform proposals would make the system worse than it already is would have been more in line with his other principled suggestions, and calling for the repeal of all current campaign contribution limits (with immediate full disclosure of the source of all donations) would have been downright courageous...
...Impeachment, she writes, left Clinton in "a state of disbelief...
...having grown tired ofintra-party squabbles and sick of seeing their agenda ignored, most of these citizen legislators have left office or are termlimiting themselves out this year...
...You may remember now what he was like the day the bombing began...
...Newt Gingrich's story is particularly pitiful...
...The Joint Chiefs had told him otherwise, but hers was a stronger voice, and in his unhappiness the president obeyed...
...Novak's position on term limits is also bold...
...Presswatch/Corry (Continued from page 43) scurrilous stories...
...Considering his role in forcing former Speaker Jim Wright from office for ethics violations, Gingrich showed especially poor judgment in accepting a $4.5 million book deal as a sort of spoils of victory...
...It ought to be clear by now that Clinton practices not just reckless, but compulsive behavior...
...The right wing, he Writes, is "more obsessed with the details of Clintoffs sex life than with his character...
...Even as he offers a "vision for victory" for GOP candidates, Novak has doubts about whether a Republican Congress (at least with the current party leadership) will ever act boldly and seize the agenda...
...When she says something political she is entirely conventional--Gingrich, for example, practiced "the politics of personal destruction," and he shut down the government because he had to use the rear door on Air Force One-but her reporting is not terrible, and she discovers some interesting things...
...Toobin picks up on this in A Vast Conspiracy...
...Undaunted, he also discusses other institutional reforms--such as drastically cutting congressional pay and increasing the size of the House from 435 to around 2,ooo members--that merely live in the minds of a few political scientists and grassroots activists, and have absolutely no chance of passing...
...Novak notes, rather understatedly, that such an effort "obviously is going to take some time and some creative thinking...
...Not even Chelsea," according to Sheehy, "could provide the glue in this splintered marriage anymore...
...Because they do not conform to the party line, three of Novak's suggestions 68 March 2 0 o o _9 The American Spectator stand out: replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, enacting term limits, and passing campaign finance reform...
...It is too bad Novak opted for pragmatism in this instance...
...The American Spectator _9 March 2 o o o 69...
...A career politician will ponder the evil of term limits every waking hour if it threatens his livelihood," Novak says, and he concedes that term limits are unlikely ever to pass...
...On the cusp of another election and with the GOP holding on to its majority by the slimmest of margins, the party has reached a turning point...
Vol. 33 • March 2000 • No. 2
