Turning The Triple Play

Why is the Republicans' three-legged stool wobbling?

Why aren't economic, social and political conservatives pulling together during this primary season the way they have in the past? To understand, let's imagine that we had three conservatives in the room with us--and that they said exactly what was on their minds.

The Economic Conservative:

It's not my fault that we're in such trouble.

You foreign policy conservatives got us into this endless war in the Mideast. You've driven up oil prices and busted the budget. And you social conservatives: Your obsession with same-sex marriage makes us look as if we're from the Middle Ages. And why can't you people pay for your own prescription drugs? The Iraq war was bad, but Medicare Part D could cost at least 15 times as much.

What this party needs is a return to the good old Reagan message: less spending, lower taxes and no more of these weird social and foreign adventures.

The Social Conservative:

You're blaming us? It's our votes that pass your tax cuts--and what do we get in return?

Of course you can't understand why we care about the marriage issue. You're rich and secure and highly educated. The divorce rates for people like you have plunged since 1979. With your big new salaries up there, mothers can quit their jobs and stay home with the children--while your illegal-immigrant housekeepers make the beds. Down here, though, it's still the 1970s. Our wages are stagnant. Both parents need to work, and those megachurches you laugh at provide the day care that makes it possible.

We can't afford a single mistake. We need government to send consistent moral messages to offset the poison your Viacoms and Facebooks are dripping into our children's minds.

You got a tax cut. We didn't. That big increase in the per-child tax credit with which you garnished your big payday? We can't use it. It's only credited against income tax, and many of us don't pay very much income tax. And even if we could use it, it usually gets clawed back by the alternative minimum tax. We are the party--but we've got little enough to show for it. It's about time we ran it.

The Foreign-Policy Conservative:

Have you people gone crazy? Have you forgotten there's a war on? And that we're in real danger of losing? Don't you have any sense of priorities?

You tax guys insisted on fighting this war on the cheap. So we didn't expand the armed forces after 9/11--and fought Iraq with half the troops the generals told us we'd need. You social conservatives are happy to talk about putting tariffs on Chinese toys. But the real issue is that the Chinese are underwriting Iranian energy development--and the North Korean weapons program. Can we do something about that, please?

If we're going to fight terrorism, we need to get off oil. But that means accepting higher energy prices, including energy-tax increases, and you economic conservatives always reject those.

And is it too much to ask you social conservatives to support a presidential candidate with some kind of background in foreign affairs, maybe one who can find Pakistan on a map? Christian leadership is all very well, but this is no moment to turn the other cheek.

Can this stool be saved? It's not too late, but it's going to require much more tact and understanding than we have seen so far.

Economic conservatives are right to want lower taxes on saving and investment. They need to recognize, however, that supply-side tax cuts are no longer a vote-winner. If Republicans want to hold their down-market voters, economic conservatives must learn to talk about health care with the same urgency, passion and detail that they are accustomed to bringing to taxes and over-regulation.

Social traditionalists too need to adapt to new realities. Opposition to same-sex marriage is dwindling. The pro-life cause, though gaining strength, remains a minority point of view. If social conservatives can avoid seeming judgmental or punitive, their core message will become more relevant than ever to an America where marriage is equaling college as a tollgate to the middle class.

Last, foreign-policy conservatives must recognize that crucial blocs of voters have wrongly but unmistakeably put 9/11 behind them. The apparent success of the Iraq surge--along with the National Intelligence Estimate taking Iran's nuclear program off the table--have transformed 2008 into a domestic-issues year. Uncontrolled immigration has replaced weapons of mass destruction as the supreme security concern.

What the Republican Party desperately needs is a domestic program that responds to the values and needs of the tens of millions of American families making around $70,000 a year. That's not an impossible order. But it will take some new thinking by our presidential candidates and other leaders to meet it.