2010: The Year of the GOP?
A very happy new year from all of us at FrumForum to our readers, friends and (yes!) critics:
We've completed 11 remarkable months on the site: lively discussion, rising traffic, and an ever widening circle of contributors.
Now we're looking forward to an even more fateful and exciting new year, 2010.
The harsh recession and the Obama administration's over-reach have created big opportunities for Republican gains in the coming year's elections. The question is: what kind of party shall this Republican party be?
Can we be a party that can govern effectively? In the decade from 1998 through 2008, we held control of both Congress and the White House for 6 years and of one branch or the other for the other 4. What did we deliver? And why should anybody believe we'll do better next time?
The dominant answer in the conservative and Republican world shrugs off our failures with an easy answer: We didn't live up to our own principles. Next time we'll cut government spending as well as taxes. Next time we'll abolish Obama's healthcare entitlements rather than (as we did with prescription drugs) creating our own. Next time we'll win the wars we start.
FrumForum exists to offer deeper analysis and a more realistic point of view. We see conservatism not as a protest movement, but as the future government of the country. We want to develop a program that can remedy the country's most pressing problems - and we seek political leaders competent to administer such a program.
I often hear it said - sometimes tauntingly, sometimes regretfully - "your party does not seem to be listening to you." That does not surprise me at all. Defeated parties recoil upon their extremes. Goldwater follows Nixon, McGovern follows Humphrey, the tea party movement follows George W. Bush. It's almost a necessary phase. But it won't work, not as politics and much less as public policy. The Republican party and the conservative movement will emerge out of the other end of this angry moment. When it does, we'll be here.
At another bad moment for conservatism, Bill Buckley was asked by an interviewer why he bothered. His mission seemed so hopeless. He answered to the effect: I've built a landing strip in the jungle. We're here to welcome the planes as they begin to look for a place to land. And when they do - coffee & Coke on the house!
See you all in 2010 - and 2011 - and the years to come.