EDMUND BURKEWhile the Republican presidential candidates slug it out over personal matters – accusing one another of being flip-floppers, grandiose, Washington insiders, out of touch with real people, and the like – they are also engaging in a less obvious struggle with ramifications beyond this election. They are fighting over the future of conservatism.
This somewhat under-the-surface debate shows up in the candidates’ repeated claims about being the “real conservative,” the “true conservative,” or the “genuine conservative.” A search in one electronic database reveals that those three phrases have appeared more than 2,000 times in periodicals and news broadcasts over the past twelve months – and that’s not counting “consistent conservative,” which has a different meaning.
There is a tendency to assume this rhetoric is about who is more conservative – that is, further to the right on a one-dimensional ideological spectrum – but actually something else is going on. After all, “real,” “true,” and “genuine” mean something different than “more.”
At bottom, this is an argument about what conservatism means. The candidates are saying that their brand of conservatism is the one and true conservatism.
Though it is seldom articulated explicitly, this question may be the most compelling of all to Republican voters. If God – or more appropriately, Ronald Reagan – were to descend from heaven and declare a particular candidate to be the true conservative, do we doubt that much-relieved Republican voters would happily fall in line behind that candidate and propel him to victory at the Republican National Convention in Tampa?
But there is no word from heaven. Instead, there is an argument over who the real conservative is, and the fact that argument is taking place is evidence of uncertainty. The paradox is that Republican voters may consider being a true conservative a candidate’s most important attribute, even though they are plagued by doubt and division about what being a true conservative means.
Ever since it was redefined by William F. Buckley Jr. in the 1950s and 1960s, conservatism has been an alliance of three different schools of thought: libertarianism, neoconservatism, and religious or social conservatism. A coalition was possible because there is overlap among beliefs by adherents of these philosophies. But there are significant differences as well. Buckley personally embraced all three, reconciling them with doses of moderation and compromise, and his example helped make the coalition possible.
Religious conservatives are primarily concerned with social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, religion in public life, and what they see as decadence in modern America. Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum battled for the right to represent religious conservatism. Many assumed that after winning that struggle, Santorum would soft-peddle social issues. Most committed religious conservatives knew Santorum was faithful to their cause; he didn’t need to continue beating their drum to win them over. To win over other types of conservatives, Santorum needed to emphasize issues they care about.
But Santorum doubled down – nay, quadrupled down – on religious conservatism. He questioned whether public education should continue, or whether education should become the exclusive province of private, parochial, and home schools. He made contraception a campaign issue. He said John F. Kennedy’s famous Houston speech about the separation of church and state made him want to “throw up.” He seemed to relish a 2008 speech that he gave turning up, in which he warned that Satan is embarked on a scheme to destroy America, and that the first two institutions to fall to the Father of Lies were academia and mainline Protestantism. Some commentators assume that Santorum’s strategists have calculated that whipping up religious conservatives will be more effective than making a more broad-based appeal. But there is another possible explanation for Santorum’s campaign choices: He’s a true believer who thinks that battling evil and promoting religious conservatism – which, as he sees it, is the same endeavor – is more important than becoming president. After all, even if pushing these issues leads to pluralities in some Republican primaries, it’s a strategy doomed to disaster in the general election.
Neoconservatism is primarily associated with an aggressive military foreign policy designed not only to defend American interests but also to project democracy across the globe. Not long ago, neoconservatives ruled the roost in high Republican circles. Discredited by the invasion of Iraq, however, they are lying low this election cycle. While no current candidate can be clearly classified as a neoconservative, Romney and Santorum seek to make themselves acceptable to neoconservatives by stating that they would not permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons while Gingrich tried to one-up them by suggesting he would also pursue regime change.
Libertarians have a purist devotion to laissez-faire, and wish to confine government to few activities. Ron Paul represents libertarianism expressly. His goal is not to become the Republican nominee but to increase the influence of libertarianism – especially among young voters. He is having considerable success among voters under 30. By contrast, social conservatives are in trouble with young voters. According to Gallup, most voters under 35 are pro-choice on abortion, and 70 percent support same-sex marriage. Santorum may be getting more votes than Paul this year, but this battle is not merely about 2012. It is for the future too.
Paul’s popularity flows exclusively from his ideas, not from a scintillating personality. Although Paul makes some concessions to the other schools of conservatism – he opposes abortion, even though pure libertarians believe government should not regulate personal choices of that kind – his concessions are few and far between. He rejects neoconservative foreign policy root and branch. When he attacked Santorum for supporting earmarks, Paul called Santorum a “fake conservative.” His message was that libertarians – who oppose government spending so ardently that they will not compromise by funding projects in their districts with government largesse – are the real conservatives.
What about Mitt Romney? Romney is not a libertarian, neoconservative, or religious conservative – and therein lies both his weakness and his strength. Members of none of these three schools are confident that he represents their views. Moreover, because he’s not an identifiable kind of conservative, people question whether he’s a conservative at all. If he clearly belonged to one of the three schools, his compatriots would cut him slack for having taken pragmatic stands on particular issues while he was governor of Massachusetts.
Sometimes Romney is classified as a country club Republican. That’s basically saying that Romney will defend the prerogatives of the well-to-do. Republican Party officials and operatives may believe the party is about representing the wealthy; but Republicanism and conservatism are different things, and few conservatives think that is what their philosophy is about. The difference was observable during the last months of George W. Bush’s administration, when the government bailed out large investment and commercial banks, insurance company AIG, and automobile manufacturers, as well as the government sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack. This was great for the wealthy, but many conservatives – libertarians especially – were outraged.
Romney’s weakness is also his strength because no one school of conservative thought sees him as promoting a competing vision of conservatism. Each school of thought recognizes that in the battle for the future of conservatism, he won’t be their champion – but he won’t be their enemy either. A Romney administration would probably include representatives of all three of the conservative schools, and the battle for the future of conservatism would continue. If members of one of the three schools of conservatism that mistrust him the most, it is religious conservatives – Romney was both pro-choice and pro-gay rights as a Massachusetts politician – and it makes sense that it’s a religious conservative who is taking him on most persistently and forcefully.
Elections, of course, are not just about ideology. They are about candidates – their personalities, competence, integrity, and – in primary contests – electability. Elections are also about specific issues of public policy. Yet in this particular election, questions of public policy seem less important as ends-in-themselves than as examples of what conservatives should believe.
The era when William F. Buckley Jr. exemplified how to make a coalition possible by tempering purity with doses of moderation, pragmatism, and good-natured wit has ended. As the three schools of conservatism separate and compete, their representatives are becoming more absolutist, more extreme, and more mean-spirited.
How will it end? No one can say. It is possible that none of these three schools of thought will prevail. A previously defeated school of conservative thought – such as Burkeanism – may reemerge, or a new school of thought may develop. But when historians study the 2012 Republican presidential contest, they will see the beginning of what is likely to be a long and increasingly intense struggle for the future of conservatism.