THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION MARCHES ON
BARNES, FRED
The Conservative Revolution Marches On By Fred Barnes Watch the pen when President Clinton signs the Kennedy-Kassebaum health care bill in September. It may quiver. In January 1994, Clinton...
...For all his popularity, Reagan never dreamed of de-entitling welfare and handing it over to the states— and cutting spending in the bargain...
...Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, a noisy liberal seeking a second term, isn’t so liberal anymore...
...In Kansas, Sen...
...What’s the biggest threat to America: big government, big business, or big labor...
...The point should be obvious: The conservative revolution in America roars on...
...Poll after poll reminds him...
...The partisan realignment toward the GOP has halted (though it hasn’t been reversed...
...Given the fickleness of politics, this isn’t surprising, and it may be temporary...
...True, the Republican revolution has stumbled...
...Clinton, of course, has made heroic adjustments to the conservative mood, seemingly unaware of where he is heading...
...Liberal Democrats have tried to dress up the president’s capitulation as a victory...
...Now, many GOP leaders are leery of issues like abortion, gay rights, and quotas...
...Yet Clinton has agreed to this and more (denying welfare to noncitizens, for example...
...Earlier in 1996, Democrats had a nine-point advantage...
...In truth, he’d rather emulate Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson...
...On cultural issues, there’s not as great a unanimity...
...Suddenly, Sen...
...The overarching question is not whether there should be a balanced budget, but whose version is better, congressional Republicans’ or the one they extracted from Clinton...
...But on others, such as making English the nation’s official language, backing has soared in the 1990s...
...Reagan strongly supported prayer in school but did little to achieve it...
...Before trashing Bob Dole’s taxreduction plan on CNN on August 4, White House economist Laura Tyson took pains to spell out tax cuts proposed by Clinton (“tax cuts for middle-income families, a child credit, a tax deduction for education and training, a whole scholarship tax credit...
...That tack doesn’t always work...
...That’s what’s so telling about his makeover...
...He correctly gauges that the country is too conservative for any of that...
...As a result, the debate in Washington (and more often than not in statehouses, too) has been transformed...
...More than half the GOP House members have served only one or two terms...
...In Senate and House races, liberals are running as moderates, moderates as conservatives, and conservatives as real conservatives...
...In fact, it’s considerably narrower than even the most conservative legislation introduced by Republicans in 1994 when health care topped the national agenda...
...By the way, the official agenda of congressional Democrats for 1997 is dubbed “Families First...
...Wellstone contends he’s not positioning himself toward the center but has simply modified some of this views based on what he’s “learned from people...
...This summer, Clinton and congressional Republicans agreed to one...
...In 1979, 43 percent said big government...
...He fought to rebuild America’s military,” a Warner TV spot declared, “and worked at Ronald Reagan’s side to help end the Cold War...
...And he’s expected to submit another in 1997...
...Clinton has made uniforms and curfews a major talking point in his speeches...
...Pollster Fred Steeper concluded that social issues provided the biggest single impetus for Republicans in 1994...
...I can’t think of anything that’s changing in a liberal direction,” says polling expert Karlyn Bowman...
...Nonsense...
...In the heyday of liberal Democrats from 1932 to 1980, Republicans elected two presidents and captured Congress twice...
...After failing to impose their program on Clinton last winter and suffering politically for trying, they’ve recovered a bit...
...And if he’s reelected, he’s likely to propose even deeper cuts next year...
...Clinton intends to sign it anyway...
...On taxes, the question is not whether to cut but how much and when...
...In January 1996, 58 percent said yes...
...As much as Reagan relished slashing federal spending, he never managed an absolute cut in real discretionary spending...
...In new polls by Time/CNN, Reuters, and the Pew Research Center, voters are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats on whom they prefer for Congress...
...It’s safer to talk about tax cuts and spending and balancing the budget,” says Steeper...
...She lost to Rep...
...Clinton went further, jawboning television moguls to establish a rating system for TV shows similar to the one for movies...
...Once a passionate foe of capital punishment, he recently backed the death penalty for terrorists...
...Okay, Clinton isn’t sincere in lurching to the right...
...Sam Brownback, who’s more conservative...
...Two decades ago, only 40 percent wanted less government...
...Reagan complained about the content of movies and television shows (on weekends at Camp David, he screened 1930s and 1940s films...
...The effect of all this on the 1996 election is palpable, and it goes beyond Clinton’s embrace of conservative ideas...
...But Clinton, hectored by Republicans, has produced one that at least reaches balance after seven years—without a tax hike...
...Consciously or not, he’s become in many ways a more conservative president than Ronald Reagan...
...It’s all the more conservative...
...His inclination is to beef up the federal government, create new antipoverty programs, and introduce fresh entitlements...
...In March 1993, 43 percent said yes...
...In January 1994, Clinton ostentatiously held up another presidential pen during his State of the Union address...
...Clinton issued an executive order to facilitate school prayer...
...But he’s afraid to...
...Yet KennedyKassebaum cleared Congress only after mandated mental-health coverage, favored by liberals, was dropped and medical savings accounts, wildly popular among conservatives, were added...
...My guess is Reagan looked fondly on school uniforms and curfews for teenagers, but he never said so...
...In Virginia in June, moderate Republican senator John Warner won a primary battle against conservative Jim Miller by declaring himself a Reaganite...
...For the realignment to advance, there needs to be...
...But Clinton, while denouncing GOP entitlement cuts, has proposed far deeper reductions than Reagan...
...Most Democrats have little credibility posing as moderates or conservatives...
...There’s more...
...There’s unanimity [among Republicans...
...CONSCIOUSLY OR NOT, BILL CLINTON HAS BECOME IN MANY WAYS A MORE CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT THAN RONALD REAGAN...
...Unlike Democratic members of Congress who withstood the reelection landslides of Richard Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984, many Republicans are not entrenched...
...Sheila Frahm, a moderate appointed in June to fill Dole’s seat, portrayed herself as a “conservative voice” in the August 6 primary...
...So the conservative undertow ought to further Republican realignment, adding a GOP president to Republican control of Congress...
...But realignments don’t move in a straight line...
...Reagan trimmed around the edges of Medicare and other entitlements...
...But scores of Republicans are vulnerable...
...On the central issue of the role of government, more than 60 percent of Americans now favor fewer services and lower taxes...
...Ted Kennedy claims Republicans “have decided that they need to pass Democratic initiatives before the election because their own record is too empty and too shameful to run on...
...Reagan never came close to his cherished dream of a balanced budget...
...On some conservative issues—the death penalty, balancing the budget, term limits—three-fourths or more of the public has been supportive for years...
...Kennedy-Kassebaum enacts some health-insurance reforms but provides no such guarantee...
...Wonder where they got that idea...
...Chances are, Clinton will defeat Dole, and Republicans will hold the House and Senate...
...The ad also credited Warner with a “95 percent conservative coalition rating” and “common-sense conservative leadership...
...Now, he’s for term limits and against same-sex marriage...
...Not to be outdone, the Democratic platform has taken on conservative coloration...
...On Medicare, the issue isn’t how to expand coverage but how to rein in spending...
...Is government doing too much...
...What Republicans lack this year is the very thing that spurred them in 1994: economic and social issues working in their favor...
...last year, 64 percent said so...
...But what hasn’t changed is the underlying ideological trend in the country, which is less prone to fits and starts...
...Guess what the platform says is the most powerful force to cope with national problems and create a stable future...
...The draft text set for adoption at the Democratic convention in Chicago says: “We have worked hard over the last four years to rein in big government, slash burdensome regulations, eliminate wasteful programs, and shift problem-solving out of Washington...
...If you send me legislation that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away,” he told members of Congress, “you will force me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we’ll come right back here and start all over again...
...Despite Kennedy’s name on it, the bill is breathtakingly far from what Democrats really want...
...It’s “personal responsibility...
...He voted against welfare reform in July, but he’s declared in TV spots that he supports “workfare,” though he’s voted against it as well...
...Democratic presidents often faltered: Roosevelt in the second New Deal, Truman with various scandals, Johnson in Vietnam...
Vol. 1 • August 1996 • No. 47
