The G O P finds the enemy Republicans have found it difficult to govern by bashing government Now some are whistling a different tune
Jr, E J Dionne
E.J. DIONNE, Jr. THE G.O.P FINDS THE ENEMY And it's them Hot the sake of the Republican party, the recent fight between Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and former Massachusetts Republican Governor...
...They don't mind that this makes them sound like cold-war Democrats in the tradition of the late Senator Henry M. Jackson...
...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...
...Helms has always opposed federal spending (except on tobacco), and also opposed federal intervention on behalf of civil rights, abortion rights, and feminism...
...Using government on behalf of "national greatness" could get you right back to the New Deal...
...Theirs is the conservative tradition- currently unfashionable-of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Teddy Roosevelt...
...They have been working for the last year on a new approach for the Republicans grandly called "national-greatness" conservatism...
...New Dealism doesn't bother Kristol...
...In other words, Republicans who claim to be united by an antigovernment creed are deeply divided over what it means to be antigovernment...
...Democrats were not prepared to fight for Weld...
...Weld had no base...
...Kristol and Brooks, both editors of the conservative Weekly Standard, were not just mouthing off...
...But for all their differences, Weld and Helms simply represent different brands of antigovernment politics...
...Senator Helms represents North Carolina social conservatism and can't stand Weld for his commitment to Massachusetts social liberalism...
...Such Republicans as Lamar Alexander, Bill Bennett, Steve Forbes, and Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona have expressed interest in aspects of the Greatness Doctrine...
...All believed in strong government...
...Listen to two Republicans, William Kristol and David Brooks, who offered a manifesto to their party recently in the Wall Street Journal...
...They are captives to these conservative sects instead of thinking in a fresh way about the American tradition," he said in an interview...
...Liberals claim TR, too, proving that history is complicated...
...But New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani fits his mold...
...Republicans (with notable exceptions such as Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana) wanted Weld to go away...
...Those three dots are theirs, presumably to emphasize their heresy...
...Weld is just as antispending as Helms...
...They haven't proved that yet...
...It had nothing to do with the Helms-Weld fight, but much bearing on it...
...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...
...The Helms-Weld battle revealed why Republicans need the argument that Kristol and Brooks want to start...
...If Republicans are serious about running the national government, they need to believe in governing...
...Helms had the power...
...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...
...The era of big government may be over, but a new era of conservative governance hasn't yet begun," they declared...
...Kristol is not shy about criticizing Republican politicians for factionalism and intellectual paralysis...
...Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and, for that matter, Lyndon Johnson, are big facts in American history," he said in an interview...
...Wishing to be left alone isn't a governing doctrine," they write, contradicting the governing doctrine of many in their party...
...He did...
...There's a message here: The era of bashing government is ending...
...The standard account of President Bill Clinton's failed nomination of Weld to be ambassador to Mexico is true as far as it goes...
...For them, this includes an interventionist foreign policy...
...But for him, being antigovernment means keeping government out of issues such as abortion and the medicinal use of marijuana...
...Kristol and Brooks are suggesting that Republicans give up the pretense that they are consistently antigovernment...
...Unpleasant though it is to admit, a barrier to the success of today's conservatism is...today's conservatism...
...I'm not willing to say that...
...A conservatism that organizes citizens' resentments rather than informing their hopes will always fall short of fundamental victory...
...and former Massachusetts Republican Governor Bill Weld ought to be the last gasp of an old argument...
...Kristol acknowledges that there is absolutely no mass base for his brand of conservatism-"a minor problem," he says with a chuckle...
...Instead, the party should ask what "limited but energetic" government would do...
...1997, Washington Post Writers Group...
...Are we willing to say that the country is worse off because of FDR or JFK or LBJ...
...Don't believe me on this...
...The idea is that government should be used, at home and abroad, to pursue large goals...
Vol. 124 • October 1997 • No. 18
