Cowering in the bushes

What are the prospects for Republican victory in 2000? G. W. Bush’s
claim to be the Republican standard bearer is based primarily on his
supposedly inevitable victory over the Democratic nominee. So let’s
take a look at the victory strategy of the Bush Republicans.

The core of the Bush strategy is to maintain a resolute silence on
the fact that we have just come through the most humiliating period in
American history and suffered the deepest betrayal ever of America’s
moral conscience. Advocates of the strategy of victory through silence
like to refer to it as “uniting behind G. W. Bush.” I prefer the more
accurate, if less flattering expression — “cowering in the bushes.”

In ignoring the national embarrassments of the past eight years, the
Republican “victory” team will be ignoring the clear connection between
the symptom of our corruption and its underlying cause. The Clinton
administration has been merely the symptom of our real national problem,
which is our abandonment of the most basic principles of justice and
decency that constitute the foundation for our discipline as a free
people. Bill Clinton’s tenure has been the most public and grotesque
result so far of this abandonment, but it will be neither the last, nor
the worst, if we do not act now to renew our national moral character.

But I gather this is a minor matter, to some people, next to the more
important question of victory at the polls. So let’s examine the likely
fate of a Republican strategy of victory through silence.

As I told Bob Dole on the eve of the 1996 Republican convention, if
the Republican nominee fails to address the national moral crisis as his
top priority, he will lose and he will deserve to lose. It was true
then and will be true again in 2000.

Over the course of the 20th century, the American people have never
handed the White House from one party and to another without good
cause. Republicans usually retake the White House when Democrats have
botched up our security and Republicans have to save it. Occasionally
Democrats have compounded their foreign policy mistakes by leading the
country into economic trouble. When Republicans have lost the White
House, it has usually been for economic reasons. Voters handed the
White House to Bill Clinton when they started to think that there was a
serious recession coming in 1992.

The closest thing to an exception may have been the election of 1960
(which was probably stolen for Kennedy anyway). But even in this case
Democrats actually won only by managing successfully to fabricate a
serious issue: the “missile gap.” This
supposedly serious security crisis was concocted to convince the
electorate that in the wake of Sputnik we were falling dangerously
behind the Russians. Without it, the Democrats would have lost.

If the 2000 Republican presidential nominee puts moral concerns in
the deep freeze, there will remain no issues that rise to the level
historically required by American voters as the basis for changing the
party in the White House. Without the moral agenda we simply do not
have issues salient enough to offer the opportunity for a Republican
candidate to achieve victory against the incumbent Democrats.

The economy is still chugging along, and all indications are that it
will be chugging along at election time next year. It is true that some
of our most basic security interests have been betrayed by the Clinton
administration, but the chickens don’t come home to roost for years in
such matters. Most Americans are aware only that the troops we sent to
various battles were brought back, and they believe that we are still at
peace and secure. We have no embarrassing Iran-style dilemmas, no
stewing war we cannot get out of.

As far as most Americans can tell, we are enjoying stable prosperity
and the world is reasonably peaceful. They will ask why they should be
bothered with the tumultuous proposal of changing the party in power.
It will seem quite reasonable to them to let the Democrats keep the
White House until they cause the nation serious harm.

There is no reason that Republicans should expect to win in such an
environment. Without an issue that will command the attention and
concern of the electorate, the challenger will lose. Voters listen most
attentively to a challenger, as they listened to
Ronald Reagan, only when they are in the midst of trouble.

Ronald Reagan put his principal emphasis on the need to confront the
crisis of our deteriorating international position. He called our
national attention ceaselessly to the victory that we were wrongly,
sadly and stupidly surrendering to the communist world as a result of
our own lack of commitment and clarity. In his campaigns and his
administration, Reagan put this challenge at the top of his priorities
for the American people. Because it belonged there, the people
responded before and after he was elected.

Reagan’s economic emphasis also contributed to his success, but this
again was because at the time of his election Americans were suffering
some of the worst economic malaise in a long time. Reagan’s election
and success in office were grounded on the fact that he offered
principled solutions to fundamental concerns felt by a majority of
voters at the time of the 1980 election. Again, political success
required real issues and a leader willing and prepared to respond to
those issues.

We are not suffering economically now, and we face no evident
international crisis. We cannot win the White House on the basis of
these issues, and those who tell us we can are like generals fighting
the last war, unwilling to turn from the supposed lessons of their own
past to examine the real circumstances. Our true situation is that the
moral condition of this country is the most salient issue of our time.
This is simply
the truth, and is also, not coincidentally, the key to political success
in 2000.

The American people will only understand that removing Clinton
Democrats from the White House is vital to the survival of their freedom
and decency if they are brought face to face with the depth of moral
betrayal that they have endured in the last several years, and the
threat it implies to our way of life. Voters will not reject the
Democratic Party unless they are confronted with the connection between
the actions of the Clinton administration and our willingness, in
policies on abortion and family life and human sexuality, to turn our
backs on the most basic, common sense principles of our life and our
civilization.

Democratic hopes rest on keeping the electorate from acting. The
Congress has been drifting toward Democratic control for four years, and
Democrats already control the White House. A passive acceptance of the
status quo will very likely mean a return to Democratic domination of
the executive and legislative branches. To prevent this, Republicans
must inspire in voters the will to change and improve their government,
to end one political period and begin another. We cannot do this by
resolving not to speak to them about the only issue that has a
reasonable chance to move them to action. The counsel of silence is the
counsel of defeat.

The litany of moral suffering in America today should be the
Republican battle cry. The scandals in the White House; the
deterioration of our concept of family life; the promotion from high
places of agendas that in their radical assault on sexual responsibility
and even the very definition of our humanity will destroy the
possibilities of decent family life; the lack of courage and conviction
in the Congress in dealing with those moral matters — these are matters
that will move all decent men and women to seek political victory for
the right reasons.

And these issues are coming to a head in America in our time. If we
do not deal with them, we will be overwhelmed by new generations — our
own children — who will have no concept of the moral culture we have
lost, and of the happiness we have lost with it. Avoiding this fate,
for ourselves and our children, should move us to the greatest
sacrifices. It would be pathetic beyond words if instead we cower
silently in the bushes, like frightened children who think that bad
things go away if they are ignored. If we foolishly expect to prosper
politically by carefully avoiding the only possible path of success, and
the only decent one, we will once again lose, and deserve to lose.