Conservatism
March 27, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
What is the key to a revival of the Republican Party? In a sense, the question is unfair because it assumes the Party is in need of revival even though it did fantastically well in 2010 and well enough at the state and U.S. House of Representatives level in 2012. Even at the presidential level, the Republican candidate did about as well as the Democrat did in 2004. And John
»
March 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Charles C. Johnson is one of the brightest young writers in the conservative movement today, and Power Line was fortunate enough to sit down with Charles in Los Angeles last week for an extended conversation about his terrific new book, Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America’s Most Underrated President. We’ll roll out short segments from this long conversation over the course of the next week or two. In the
»
March 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The estimable Noemie Emery chides the “conservative wing” of the GOP for making “excuses, excuses” for the fact that the Republican Party hasn’t been nominating candidates for president more to its liking. The excuse offered is that “The Establishment met at the Country Club on alternate Tuesdays to undermine all the upcoming Reagans.” The reality, says Emery, is this. [A]gainst establishment types who were national figures, the conservative movement flung
»
March 20, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
During the past twenty years or so, the Republican establishment and the conservative base have operated pursuant to an unwritten accommodation. The Party nominates an establishment candidate who receives the base’s support; the establishment nominee embraces all major positions of the conservative base. Mitt Romney, for example, ran as a down-the-line conservative in 2012. Before he began seriously contemplating a run for the presidency, however, Romney was a moderate on
»
March 19, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Republican National Committee issued its plan for improving the Party’s electoral performance. Portions of the report deal with purely technical issues (e.g., digital transformation), while others pertain to technical matters with policy implications (e.g., fewer caucuses, more primaries, and fewer debates). But the report also calls for the Republican Party, in the words of the Washington Post, “to transform itself into a modern, welcoming home for a rapidly
»
March 17, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
What are Rand Paul’s biggest assets as he attempts to convert the GOP into an isolationist party? He has several, and one of them is John McCain. McCain surely is among the names Paul “didn’t need to mention” when he declared before CPAC that “the GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered.” Paul also didn’t perceive a need to name the GOP policies he believes are stale. Instead, he
»
March 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I first wrote about Dr. Ben Carson here after his outstanding speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last month. Dr. Carson is a pediatric neurosurgeon who has lived a life of incredible accomplishment defying seemingly impossible odds. Watching the video, of his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, I couldn’t help but wonder if Dr. Carson might not have a greater contribution to make outside the field of medicine. The
»
March 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I think of CPAC as the event in which endless speakers (that’s the bad part) serve up red meat to a conservative audience (that’s the good part). But this year, there seemed to be a ban on red meat conservatism as it pertains to the immigration issue. And with various Republican legislators lining up behind, or softening their opposition to, amnesty/a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, the vegetarianism was
»
March 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker
CPAC is drawing to a close. The speakers who got the most press, and the most enthusiastic receptions, were mostly those you would expect: Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was also well worth listening to, and to some, I suspect, surprisingly hard-hitting: There has been talk about a primary challenge to McConnell next year by someone ostensibly more conservative. We conservatives
»
March 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Surely some portmanteau word — here is a good list — can capture the appropriate reaction to Senator Rob Portman’s Columbia Dispatch column “coming out” in favor of gay marriage. Smog? Turducken? Senator Portman is in my view a serious man and a model Senator. He has a great contribution to make to our public life. In a body full of blowhards, Senator Portman stands out as someone who distinguishes
»
March 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
At the beginning of the month, I wrote about CPAC’s exclusion of opponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants from its panel on immigration. For those who don’t know much about CPAC and Grover Norquist, the absence of anti-amnesty participants must seem odd. After all, most conservatives oppose amnesty. Mark Krikorian was present for the one-sided discussion. He reports: [The] panel. . .was straight pro-amnesty agitprop. Entitled “Respecting Families and the
»
March 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
In all likelihood, Rand Paul cannot be nominated for president by the Republican Party unless he distances himself to a considerable degree from the views of his father. The younger Paul seems to understand this. For example, he has recently showed far more sympathy for Israel (which he visited) than Ron Paul ever displayed. But Rand Paul’s filibuster against (non-existent) drone attacks on American citizens minding their own business in
»
March 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Anyone who doubts that Rand Paul is a force to be reckoned with in the Republican Party should watch his CPAC speech and then think again. But anyone who believes that Paul can lead the Republican Party to victory should engage in similar reflection. Since the days of Reagan, the Party has stood, famously, on the three-legged stool of free-market conservatism, strong national defense conservatism, and social conservatism. Lately, to
»
March 14, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
That was the question debated last night by two of conservatism’s smartest and most thoughtful public intellectuals — Tevi Troy and Peter Wehner — at the American Enterprise Institute. The event proved to be as much a discussion as a debate, and was no worse for that. The moderator, the estimable Ramesh Ponnuru, fairly summed up the two postions as follows: Troy was arguing more for a recalibration of conservatism;
»
March 7, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Churchill used to say somewhere that only someone with a sense of humor could understand the most serious things in life. That’s one reason I’ve always told people that they should take the political humorist P.J. O’Rourke more seriously—deep down inside, his political humor is anchored in a grasp of some fundamental political truths. Like Will Rogers, or Mark Twain, his work conveys a serious teaching, and, like Jon Stewart
»
March 3, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Well what the heck, we may as well make this a Power Line symposium, like Commentary does from time to time. Paul and John’s posts are right down my alley just at this moment, as I’ve been in the throes of the University of Colorado business for the last several weeks. (Concerning which, see the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley and James Freeman discuss the issue—and mention me—in this video;
»
March 3, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I agree with John’s contention, sparked by an editorial in the Harvard Crimson, that populist anti-intellectualism isn’t a wise approach for conservatives to adopt. But I want to add that the editorial in question doesn’t show that the conservative critique of Harvard rests on populist anti-intellectualism. The Crimson cites three conservative “attacks” on Harvard. The first came from Ted Cruz, who complained that, during his time at Harvard Law School,
»
