Britain and America

America's most influential conservatives

Toby Harnden of The Daily Telegraph has been compiling a list of America's top 100 conservatives and top 100 liberals.  He's published the top 20 conservatives today.  It is interesting - and probably a fair conclusion - that no movement religious conservative appears in the top twenty.

Top of the list is Rudy Giuliani - the frontrunner for the GOP nomination.  Many conservatives won't agree that a candidate with liberal views on homosexuality and abortion is a conservative at all.  Some will think he should be in the list of liberals - where Toby has put Governor Schwarzenegger.  The conservative differences between Giuliani and Schwarzenegger are on tax, crime and national security.  There's also a big difference in attitude.  Giuliani relishes attacking liberals.  Governor Schwarzenegger has decided to make constant accommodations with them.

Petraeus is number two in the Telegraph list.  With the news out of Iraq more and more encouraging, Petraeus may well be a GOP candidate for the White House in years to come.

Matt Drudge is number three and well-deserved, too.  Over the last month his site enjoyed nearly 500 million visits (according to Mr Drudge himself).  Incredible influence.

John Roberts is at number eight in the list.  I'd have probably placed him higher.  Appointing Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was probably Bush's finest single decision.  Not only is Roberts a conservative, he's also a persuader.  Other conservative Judges on the Court are capable of winning arguments but not winning people.  Roberts is different.  David Frum has suggested that Roberts' people skills almost make him worth two judges.  Aged 52, God willing, he'll be Chief Justice for at least a generation.

Unlike Iain Dale's list of most influential UK conservatives, Toby has included some journalists.  Paul Gigot, Editorial Page Editor of the Wall Street Journal is at number fourteen.  Can't disagree with that.  The WSJ's opinion pages have been a platform for conservative views for a generation.  They have played a leading role in propagating conservative ideas.  No UK newspaper performs the same role for British conservatism.

President Bush doesn't even make the top twenty.  Toby explains his reasoning here.  In short, he says, it's because his list is about the future and not the past.  Why's Dick Cheney at number six then?  I'd use Toby's own words to suggest Bush deserves to be near the top of the list of conservatives: "For good or ill, the “Bush Doctrine” of pre-emption, unilateral projection of US power and dividing the world into those for and against the US will also endure. Major elements of it will probably be adopted by, for instance, a President Hillary Clinton."  Surely this is about the future?  The future of Bush's tax cuts will be central to the next election.  His appointments of Roberts and Alito will shape American law.  He still has the capacity to raise many millions for future candidates.  Whether or not he and Petraeus fail or succeed in Iraq will be one of the most important influences on who is the next President.

Other odd decisions: putting Christopher Hitchens, Joe Lieberman and Andrew Sullivan in the list of conservatives.  Hitchens is certainly a supporter of the Iraq war but he's much more liberal than Arnie - who, as already noted, is classified as a liberal.  Hitchens is more of a liberal interventionist than a neocon.  The same could be said of Senator Lieberman although he leans conservative-wards on many cultural issues.  On civil liberties and lifestyle issues, Sullivan is increasingly liberal.

Fascinating exercise by Toby, however, and - Bush aside - his judgment calls are largely very good ones.

The top twenty liberals - a list headed by Bill, not Hillary - can be found here.  I'll comment on that list soon...

"No one knows when the Berlin Wall will come down" is a good motto for a think tank

The American Enterprise Institute is one of the world's greatest think tanks.

Last week, on the pages of the Wall Street Journal - the greatest and most reliable of platforms for right-of-centre wonks - AEI's Christopher DeMuth explained his decision to step down as AEI President next year.  His article is a must-read for those think tank staffers and campaigners who are committed to the patient persuasion of those in public life.

Doctrinal versus dispositional conservatism

I used to pay a subscription to the New York Times so that I could read David Brooks’ twice-weekly column.  The NYT recently ended subscriber-only access – so there’s nothing stopping you from now bookmarking him!  His always-thoughtful column now appears every Tuesday and Friday.

Friday's column warned the Republican Party that it was becoming too ideological.  Beliefs in the transformational power of democracy and the importance of individual freedom were, he wrote, trampling on other conservative understandings; the importance of process and the unseen value of complex institutions, for example.  He contrasts Republicanism as currently practiced with Burkean conservatism.  I’ve talked of the tension between substantive versus dispositional conservatism.

The graphic below summarises the two forms of conservatism as applied to five themes.  The words are all direct quotations from Mr Brooks’ column.  I’ve always been much more of a substantive conservative than a dispositional conservative but the most important observation that David Brooks makes is at the end of his column: “conservatism is only successful when it’s in tension — when the ambition of its creeds is restrained by the caution of its Burkean roots.”

That’s surely right in most circumstances but I remain of the view that the Republican hawks have been more right than wrong in how they have pursued the war on terror.  While it’s true that there has been insufficient study of hostile nations’ cultures and there have been inadequate troop deployments, the threats to civilisation posed by Islamic fundamentalism are so great that it has largely been right to act pre-emptively and in ways that have sometimes met the disapproval of more cautious conservatives.  What we will never know now is what would have happened if the radical doctrine of pre-emption had never been pursued.  Dispositional conservatives can point to the current difficulties in Iraq in a 'told-you-so' kind of way but what would the world have looked like if Saddam had remained in power?

The era of big government conservatism?

Tim Montgomerie writes:

One of the big conclusions of my ongoing tour of Anglosphere conservative parties is that small government conservatism is proving hard to find in practice...

• As noted yesterday in my profile of Stephen Harper, spending by Canada's minority Conservative government is increasing sharply (although the budget is still balancing)...
• Tax freedom day in John Howard's Australia is getting later...
• David Cameron's Conservatives have largely accepted Gordon Brown's increases in UK public spending to European levels...
• And then, of course, there is the USA itself where George W Bush has presided over a massive increase in federal spending.

Conservative commentator after conservative commentator has agreed that there are few votes in promises to cut the size of the state.  Ramesh Ponnuru (pictured) of National Review told me that American voters were against big government when that government subsidised ways of living that offended mainstream values.  Welfare reform has changed that.  Government looks more palatable to middle America - particularly when it provides the middle classes with support.

A recent article by Stanley B Greenberg in the leftist American Prospect referred to pro-government attitudes amongst US voters:

"People want government to get serious about addressing the challenges we face as a country.  Huge majorities want the government to be more involved in a range of issues including national security, health care, energy, and the environment.  To tackle global warming, two-thirds of Americans support stronger regulation of business.  When it comes to healthcare, the results are dramatic.  By a two-to-one margin, people opt for a universal health care system rather than separate reforms dealing with problems one at a time.  A majority even goes so far as to say it's time to establish a Canadian-style health care system."

Other numbers quoted by Greenberg suggest a less rosy future for big government, however:

• By 57% to 29% Americans believe that government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life.
• 62% told Pew that elected officials don't care what people like them think.
• 62% also believe that things run by government tend to be wasteful and inefficient.
• 83% believe that government would be more likely to waste any more money it had rather than spend it well.
• Two-thirds believe that politicians put their own interests before those of the public.

Voters are clearly conflicted.  They appear to want government to take on more responsibilities but they fear it will be wasteful and self-interested if it does become bigger.

Greenberg's solution to this conflict is to advocate reforms to the state - including tougher regulation of lobbying and better auditing - in order to improve public confidence in the ability of the state to fulfil the aspirations that a majority of voters have for it.  It is far from clear if conservative parties across the world have their own distinctive answers to managing the same public attitudes.

***
This is the third of a series of posts flowing from Tim Montgomerie's four week tour of the Anglosphere.  His essay on Canada's Conservatives can be read here and an essay on American conservatism here.

Conservatism in America - a report card

Tim Montgomerie writes:

My week in the USA has come to an end and I have just arrived in Ottawa to spend a few days with Canadian Conservatives.  It's then off to Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney to spend some time with Australian conservatives.  I then hope to write a few bird's eye essays on conservatism in the English-speaking world.  Here, in the meantime, are some headline observations about the conservatism in America...

The Bush legacy.  George W Bush's disapproval rating is now at 65%.  Only Nixon - a few days before he resigned - had a worse rating (66%).  The unpopularity of Bush cost the GOP control of the Senate and House last November.  His deep unpopularity is the main reason why the Democrats are expected to win the White House next year.  My own belief is that the Bush Presidency can still claim some big achievements...

• The tax cuts that have powered the American economy and proven 'Laffernomics' again.
• The appointments of Justice Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court and other conservative judges throughout the judicial system.  Appointing John Roberts as Chief Justice may be Bush's greatest legacy.  Scalia and other conservative judges are good at winning arguments but not at building majorities.  Roberts is almost worth two judges because of his gifts of persuasion.
• The cultural impact of the faith-based initiative.  Although the initiative can claim little to zero legislative success it has encouraged American churches and other social entrepreneurs to take their personal responsibilities to the poor more seriously.
• The liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq.  Despite the enormous failures associated with both 'liberations' the world is still better off with the Taliban running Afghanistan and Saddam ruling Iraq.  The US military is better equipped than it has ever been.  A big increase in the recruitment of ground troops is underway.

...this is not to deny that there has been incompetence and failure but the Presidency is far from the disaster that its critics claim.

The conservative movement.  The Economist's Adrian Wooldridge worries that the movement has three main problems:

• Social conservatives are disproportionately strong.  There is a danger that culturally conservative issues that benefited the Republicans in the past - eg gay marriage - are going to be surpassed by new 'moral issues' that favour the Democrats.  GOP strategists, for example, fear that Christian conservatives' highly-principled opposition to embryonic stem cell research will be a vote loser when Democrats are promising to clear the obstacles to research that - it is controversially claimed - will cure terrible diseases like Alzheimers.  The Democrats are using more religious language and emphasising 'creation care' and justice issues to attract moderate Christians away from the Republican Party.
• There is an intellectual sluggishness.  Wooldridge is concerned that the right isn't currently matching the intellectual energy of the left.  He asks: "Where are the new ideas on the right? Where are the agenda changing books like Losing Ground?  Where are the young James Q Wilsons and Charles Murrays?  The first-rate books that have appeared—such as Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power—tend to be as much diagnoses of a problem as prescriptions of a solution."
• The Ann Coulterisation of the right.  Tune in to Talk Radio or glance at some of the books that sell well within the American right and there is a worrying level of hysteria that repels mainstream voters.  This is not to say that the Left doesn't have equivalent problems.  Powered by the netroots there is also a Cindy Sheehanisation of the American left.  Ms Sheehan recently announced plans to challenge liberal Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi should the Speaker fail to to introduce articles of impeachment against George W Bush.

There are reasons to be more optimistic, however, about the conservative movement.  Movement organisations like the Heritage Foundation and Manhattan Institute - unlike the Republican Party - are winning record fundraising.

American conservatives - currently depressed by the immigration row, in particular - would do well to remember that most conservative movements around the world (and there aren't many of them) would love to have their movement's achievements.  The dynamism of the US economy, welfare reform and zero tolerance policing are worthy of special highlight. 

Conservatives and government.  One of the big aims of the Bush presidency was the attempt to end the anti-government rhetoric of the Republicans.  In 2000 he abandoned the long-standing Republican pledge, for example, to abolish the Department of Education.  During his Presidency George W Bush has allowed spending to rise considerably.  This has produced consternation among many diehard conservatives but it is far from clear that there is a big voter appetite for a smaller government.  Bush would almost certainly have lost the 2000 election if he had not produced his own prescription drug benefit to offset the Democrats' earlier and very popular commitment to do the same.  Whilst there was majority opposition to the big government of the sixties and its welfare dependents there is not necessarily opposition to a government that promotes middle America's interests.  Voters still dislike centralism, waste and fiscal ill-discipline but there are serious dangers to any Republican attempts to make big cuts in government programmes.

The 2008 field.  Conservatives are not as enthusiastic about their candidates as Democrats are about theirs.  65% of Republican supporters are happy with their choice of candidates (13% very satisfied) but 83% of Democrats are satisfied (33% very).  But the security issue may yet come to the Republicans' rescue.  In yesterday's Wall Street Journal a progressive commentator, Mark Ribbing, noted that Americans inevitably choose Republicans "in times of perceived peril".  Rudy Giuliani, in particular, has the capacity to polarise the 2008 choice as between a Republican - him - who will keep America safe and a Democrat who won't.  His record of competence and fiscal conservatism will also help him to be seen as an alternative to the weaknesses of George W Bush.  A socially conservative running mate and a promise to appoint judges in the mould of Robert and Alito may help him to overcome the suspicions of socially conservative Republicans but others worried about his personal life and harsh treatment of juniors will not easily support him.  Former White House chief speechwriter Mike Gerson has suggested that Giuliani's views are completely opposed to the Catholic social teaching championed by Bush: "Giuliani is not only pro-choice. He has supported embryonic stem cell research and public funding for abortion. He supports the death penalty. He supports "waterboarding" of terror suspects and seems convinced that the conduct of the war on terrorism has been too constrained. Individually, these issues are debatable. Taken together, they are the exact opposite of Catholic teaching, which calls for a "consistent ethic of life" rather than its consistent devaluation. No one inspired by the social priorities of Pope John Paul II can be encouraged by the political views of Rudy Giuliani."

Mike Gerson and another former Bush speechwriter - David Frum - will each publish major books on the future of conservatism towards the end of this year.   Frum's book is expected to emphasise security issues.  Gerson's book will focus on the conservative attitude to the scope of government and international justice.  The two books are eagerly awaited by an uncertain and demoralised conservative movement.