By Lee Edwards 

Lee Edwards, historian of the American conservative movement who published the first biography of Ronald Reagan, is the Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at The Heritage Foundation and an adjunct professor of politics at Catholic University of America. His latest book is To Preserve and Protect: The Life of Edwin Meese III. 

Following the Democrats’ recapture of Congress in the 2006 elections, there was nearly universal agreement as to its ideological meaning: American conservatism which had dominated the American political debate for decades was washed up, played out, kaput.

“The election,” wrote Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, “marked the exhaustion of the movement that Barry Goldwater launched with his 1964 campaign.”

“The conservative movement has passed into history,” opined Pat Buchanan, the conservative three-time presidential candidate and commentator.

“Conservatives are in a mess,” said the New York Times’ resident conservative, David Brooks.

“Conservatism is in crisis,” wrote National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru. “Everyone is saying so, and everyone is right.”

Liberals—or “progressives,” as they now describe themselves—crowed that the results signaled, in the words of one observer, “the beginning of the end to the country’s nightmarish reactionary drift.” And not just in the realm of politics.

Economists are engaged in an “impassioned debate,” the New York Times reported with some satisfaction in July 2007, over the way their subject is taught in universities around the country. “Economists can’t pretend that the consensus for free markets and free trade that existed 30 years ago is still here,” said Professor Robert Reich of UC Berkeley. Laissez-faire is out among this new breed of economists, heterodoxy—a strong skepticism about the undeniable efficacy of markets—is in.

Although in 1984 more than 50 percent of young Americans voted for Ronald Reagan, this age group is sending far different signals today. A recent national poll conducted by the New York Times, CBS News, and MTV found that more than half—54 percent—of Americans aged 17 to 29 say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008.

Twenty-eight percent describe themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. Only 27 percent of young Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public. And the percentage of young voters who identify themselves as Republican is 25 percent, down from a high of 37 percent during the Reagan years.

All of which means that the conservative movement is headed for a plain pine box in Potter’s Field, right? Wrong.

Conservatives did not lose in 2006—Republicans lost by ignoring conservative principles and practicing the same kind of money-driven, big-government politics that Democrats did during their 40 years in control. As David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, put it, the elections were a referendum not on the conservative ideas that brought the Republicans to power in Congress in 1994 but on the “sorry way” in which Republicans have gone about ignoring those ideas.

The Democratic victory of 2006 did not constitute political realignment—as some liberals have suggested—but was rather an event-driven election focused on the Iraq war, out-of-control government spending, and Congressional scandals that produced a shift of power that “one would expect when a finely balanced electorate swings mildly one way or the other,” columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote.

Nevertheless, the 2006 results contain critical lessons for Republicans as well as conservatives. For the former, lesson number one is the GOP abandons small-government conservatism at its peril. Big government conservatism alienates the Republican base and is rejected by Democrats who prefer their own brand.

Lesson number two: politics begins and ends with principle. You can disburse billions and billions of federal dollars and still lose if it is obvious that what you are trying to do is buy votes.

Lesson number three: political success depends upon the right public policies at the right time. The American public was not ready for Social Security reform, a major Bush initiative, but was enthusiastic about his historic tax cuts—a conservative idea.

This brings us to the future of conservatism, which is suffering not from failure but from success. Newt Gingrich and his merry band of revolutionaries captured the House of Representatives in 1994 on the issues of crime, welfare, and taxes. None of them is a major election-deciding issue anymore.

With President Bush, Republicans produced tax cuts that “kicked the economy out of recession,” analyst Michael Barone wrote, and gave the country robust, low-inflation growth.

Welfare reform started in the states with Republican Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin and wound up in Washington, D.C., where a Republican Congress passed it over not one but two Clinton vetoes.

Crime control was almost entirely the work of big-city mayors like Rudy Guiliani and conservative scholars like James Q. Wilson rather than the president or the Congress, which played a secondary role.

Conservatives cannot be content with past successes but must present creative policies that meet the needs of the day such as health care reform driven by the free market and not the federal government, school choice, and tax credits for individual retirement accounts.

Conservatives need to recognize that the governing coalition of social conservatives, economic conservatives, and anti-communists of the 1980s, united under the light yoke of President Reagan, is gone, never to return. In its place is a fractious almost fractured collection of social conservatives more willing than in the past to use government to protect their values and economic conservatives more ready to resist the enforcement of social issues. The war against terrorism—”Islamic radicalism” as President Bush now describes it—has not yet united the factions of the conservative movement or for that matter the nation as communism did during the Cold War.

Can the social and economic conservatives of today form something beyond a temporary alliance? Perhaps, but it will take the right leadership. Which leads me to the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

There are only four candidates who have the requisite fund-raising capacity, national organization, and charismatic appeal to win the nomination: Rudy Guiliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and John McCain. The others—including Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul—are destined to be also-rans.

One of the latter could win the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary and still not gain sufficient momentum to win the nomination because the nominating process of the Republican Party has changed drastically.

There used to be three waves of delegate selection leading to the national convention. The first was Iowa and New Hampshire, the second South Carolina and Florida, the third New York, Ohio, and California. A candidate could weather a close loss in Iowa or New Hampshire if he did well in South Carolina or Florida and even survive without a victory in the first two waves if he racked up impressive wins in one or more of the delegate-rich states like New York or California. No more.

The three waves have been succeeded by the tsunami of February 5—Super Duper Tuesday—when at least 1,144 delegates will be selected in at least 21 states only three weeks after Iowa and two weeks after New Hampshire. 1,034 delegates are needed to nominate. If a candidate sweeps most if not all the primaries and caucuses on February 5, he could build an insurmountable lead. Therefore, a candidate must campaign effectively everywhere and at the same time. Only Guiliani, Thompson, Romney, and McCain have the potential resources to do that.

Which leads us to the big question: Which candidate has the best chance to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2008?

I am an historian, not a fortune teller, but I offer the following formula to help gauge the relative success and failure of the candidates over the succeeding months.

The essential elements of a winning political campaign are money, organization, the candidate (as a campaigner), issues, and the media. They form the acronym—MOCIM.

Get out your calculator and assign a value of 1-5—5 being the highest—for each candidate in each category. Who has raised the most money so far? Romney and Guiliani, with Thompson—a late starter—third and McCain trailing rather badly. Who has the best national organization? Guiliani and Romney lead with Thompson a close third and McCain whose campaign organization is almost dysfunctional.

Who is the best campaigner? Each of the four men has his strengths and weaknesses on the hustings: Thompson is a competent but not dynamic public speaker, Guiliani’s answers to questions are often prolix, Romney is almost too polished, and McCain seems a shadow of his 2000 self. Thompson is trying to position himself as the candidate most like Ronald Reagan, who has achieved iconic status within the party and in much of the nation. But Guiliani and Romney often cite Reagan as does McCain.

What are the issues each man is stressing? All are campaigning as economic conservatives with Thompson and Romney—and McCain to some extent—underscoring their social conservatism as well. Guiliani passes over his pro-choice, pro-gay rights stands as quickly as possible. All promise to appoint “strict constitutionalists” to the Supreme Court. As suggested above, every one of them frequently quotes Reagan, who has become the presidential standard of the Republican Party.

There is also the issue of leadership, with Guiliani outlining his pre- and post-9/11 performance as mayor of New York City and Romney talking about his managerial record as governor of Massachusetts and how he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

How are the media treating them and how are they using the media? Romney and Guiliani are using the Internet effectively. Thompson has enjoyed favorable press as the newest entrant in the race along with his appeal as a well-known film and television actor. Personal characteristics—Romney’s Mormonism, Guiliani’s explosive temper, Thompson’s lackluster record as a U.S. senator—will receive increasing media scrutiny.

All four candidates are supported by conservatives of varying influence and importance, underscoring the present divided nature of the conservative movement. When asked, many prominent conservatives are replying, “I haven’t made up my mind yet.” If conservatives were to unite behind one candidate, he would win the nomination. That seems unlikely although the prospect of a President Hillary Clinton might force conservatives to make some hard decisions.

In determining a course of action, they would note that Guiliani defeats Clinton in most polls, persuading them, perhaps, that while social issues like abortion and the marriage amendment matter so does the future of the nation under an liberal ideologue like Senator Clinton. I think such pragmatism explains why Guiliani has been the GOP front-runner since he got into the race early in 2007. However, he is not the inevitable nominee. Thompson’s strong showing in the early going suggests that conservatives are searching for the candidate who combines principle with electability.

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