Who's really winning the ideological struggle
Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at 8:44PM ■"Cheer Up Conservatives, You're Still Winning! The right has walloped the left in the war of ideas," op-ed by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, , June 2005, p. A1.
■"Rice Urges Egyptians and Saudis to Democratize," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 21 June 2005, p. A1.
■"Uzbek Ministries in Crackdown Received U.S. Aid," by C.J. Chivers and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 18 June 2005, p. A1.
As always, an interesting and provocative op-ed from those Economist guys with the godawful British names. This one underscores how Bush's brand of core values conservatism continues to grow in strength across the country, especially among the people making a lot of babies, which tends to be the religious whites and the immigrant populations, both of whom prefer clear and less ambiguous rule sets within which to raise their families.
Yes, they say, Bush is spending a lot of money, but virtually none is designed to redistribute wealth in society through government programs. Plus, look at the last election, where seemingly the Dems had everything going for them and still lost an election far less close than the one that preceded it.
Honestly, thinking about 2008 reminds me of when one of the two NFL conferences dominates the other for long stretches: the real contest for president is most likely in the Republican primaries, not the national election.
And you see this in foreign affairs: the Bushies are simultaneously the realpolitik types who are unafraid to rely on dictators and the Wilsonian types lecturing the Egyptian and Saudi leaderships on becoming more democratic.
The U.S. foreign policy that emerged in The New Map Game earlier this month was described by Alidade president Jeff Cares as a sort of "Republican Carter" administration, and I honestly think that description captures what most Americans will vote for in 2008: not too aggressive, not so ambitious as Bush, but focused on encouraging positive change that's defensible on moral grounds. I don't see the Democratic contender yet who can deliver that, but I suspect there are several on the Republican side who will.
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