Fayette Durlin and Peter Jenkin

Fayette Durlin and Peter Jenkin write from Brownsville, Minnesota.

That was the question of many editorials and articles in the conservative press after the last election, and we think it significant that little distinction was made between the GOP and conservatives, something that wasn't true a few years ago. The rash of articles telling conservatives how to win again in the future seems dumb to us; after all, a winning strategy is obvious, isn't it? Field a sound candidate who will articulate conservative ideas forcefully. That's not what we had last year, and we lost. Why Romney was the candidate and why he ran the campaign he did are matters that should be discussed and analyzed, because there seem to be some very stupid notions at GOP headquarters about how to run a campaign - witness the incredibly dumb handling of Sarah Palin in 2008 as well as the gutless Romney campaign.

But of course, conservative ideas have to be thought about, elaborated, and stated in compelling terms. For example, in a massive (53 contributors) symposium in the January issue of Commentary, Fred Siegel concentrates on problems in states, i.e., municipal bankruptcies in California and elsewhere.

California's cities and the state . . . offer a picture of the dangers ahead imposed by the power of public sector unions. . . . [what we need] now are knowledgeable politicians who can speak to the specifics of state and local problems while placing them in a conservative conceptual context.

He is not the only one to see the states as places where the conservative agenda can be advanced and from which conservatives can derive convincing arguments on the national level. In the 2/25 issue of National Review John Hood's article, "States of Conservatism," provides an interesting overview of conservative initiatives in several states. So there are many sources to draw on in elaborating conservative ideas, and we should actively work on them, beginning right now.

Generally speaking, contributors to the symposium fall into two groups: those who want the GOP to change its ways to accommodate what they see as the inexorable future - homosexual marriage, multiculturalism, and so on, and those who think conservatives should stick to their principles. This is true also of the several articles elsewhere. For instance, Christopher Caldwell writes in the 11/19/12 issue of the Weekly Standard, obviously criticizing Romney:

Where two candidates argue about values, the public may prefer one to the other. But where only one candidate has values, he wins, whatever those values happen to be.

That's a critique of Romney's practice, not of conservatism. But a number of the respondents clearly want conservatives to abandon social issues entirely. Many were embarrassed by Todd Akins. Well, we were annoyed, not embarrassed, but we didn't think he reflected the party. We think that such critics are made uncomfortable by conservatism itself.

Reading a symposium consisting of 53 opinions is a bore because bright ideas and sensible suggestions get lost in a sea of words. Those contributions that catch the reader's attention do so by their startling difference from surrounding opinions. So Dennis Prager stresses what he calls the "American Trinity": Liberty, In God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum:

Only if the American people are taught that the greatness of America is solely due to the unique American Trinity of Values - and also taught the mortal threat to those values that Leftism poses - will conservatism prevail.

It isn't really an answer to the question, but it makes us see the vital importance of conservatism, which, after all, is the point behind the symposium.

Evidently John Podhoretz, Commentary's editor, felt that he had not done enough with the subject because he returned to it in March with a five-point plan to "Save the Republican Party" by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, who say,

Prevailing political forces, as well as prevailing public attitudes, present enormous obstacles to the national success of [the] party.

Then the authors spend nearly two pages analyzing the political successes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, due, the authors claim, because they reoriented their parties "toward mainstream values" and shunned extremists. A puzzling claim, in regard to Clinton at least, because the Democratic party moved steadily leftward in those years, finally culminating in the most extreme leftist ever to become President: Obama in 2008.

After that, the five-point plan is revealed, and a pathetic plan it is. The first point is not controversial: focus on the "economic concerns of working and middleclass Americans" by campaigning against "corporate welfare" and for the breakup of the big banks. There follow anodyne ideas: educational reform, discouraging teenage pregnancy, improving infant and child health, encouraging "wealth-building and entrepreneurship."

The second point essentially advocates amnesty for illegal immigrants ("an attainable if duly arduous path to legal status and eventually citizenship"). The third point is so amorphous as to be meaningless: "Republicans need to express and demonstrate a commitment to the common good" by working "to reinforce the activities of civil society groups by involving them centrally in the next stages of welfare reform, in a robust agenda to overhaul our prison system." Sounds pretty gaseous to us. Then come social issues, mainly strengthening marriage:

Republicans need to make their inner peace with working with those who both support gay marriage and are committed to strengthening the institution of marriage.

Evidently the authors have not been paying much attention to the advocates of homosexual marriage if they think they want to strengthen marriage. This is all just baloney to obscure the fact that they want Republicans to get on the right sight of the homosexual agenda.

The fifth point is appallingly ignorant. "Republicans need to harness their policy views to the findings of science," which means acceptance of the hoax of anthropogenic climate change. This ignorance is what we have come to expect of conservatives, who immerse themselves in politics while ignoring the culture around them.

Such a silly article in an intellectual magazine like Commentary is depressing.

There is an odd, disturbing essay in the 3/15 Weekly Standard by Matthew Continetti, "The Double Bind," which claims that proposed Republican policies (as advocated in the Commentary article), like ending corporate welfare, are impossible because major conservative constituencies oppose them, so conservatives are damned if they do and damned if they don't. He makes much of an assertion by Irving Kristol in 1976 that Republicans are in trouble because the "party has never fully reconciled itself to the welfare state, and therefore has never given thought to the question of what a conservative welfare state would look like." For example, he wants to cut the "payroll tax and [increase] tax benefits for parents with children," an unexceptionable proposal that's been around for a while. His other ideas are equally anodyne and have been discussed in conservative circles for years, like "having consumers play a more active role in their health care," all of this imbedded in uplifting fatuous rhetoric:

Human beings are not faceless nomads choosing identities at will from a universal menu of options. Human beings are born into families, faiths, and nations.

Mr. Continetti seems to be arguing for a major transformation of the party:

The conservative welfare state is unachievable so long as the Republican party exists in its current form.

- but his proposals are vague and old hat, so where he wants the party to go is unclear, but it is almost certainly leftwards. Calling for a "conservative welfare state" at a time when it is becoming apparent in Europe and the U.S. that such a state is unsustainable, is quixotic.

Finally, there is the usual paean to Reagan who

. . . escaped a stagnant GOP by questioning the assumptions of the . . . party and challenging the priorities of its strongest constituencies.

We doubt it like hell, and we think nothing is more unprofitable than waving the Reagan flag, which we always take it as a sign of vapidity.

What we think really bothers all these "Whither" people is the almost universal scorn and contempt Republicans have endured from all quarters for the last decade or so. With all cultural institutions aligned against conservatism, loud in their scurrilous denunciations, it is no wonder that conservatives feel browbeaten.

The entire "Whither" enterprise is a sad commentary on our morale. We know what we have to do, and if we are sincere in our conservative desires we know we have to begin our work at once. We have to put forward our ideas at every opportunity, and we must spread the good news of our Review far and wide.

Postscript. Readers may recall our remarks at the end of our February column about "Singletons":

Affluence is at the root of the flight from marriage, hard times will reverse that trend. Remember you read it here first!

Mary Eberstadt, in "The Post-Welfare State Family" in the May 6 Weekly Standard, writes:

Might the dark ages of the welfare state end in a family renaissance? If the welfare states of the West finally do implode, it's hard to think of any institution but the family that could step into the vacuum . . . might there be earlier marriage and more of it, as the (unsubsidized) single life becomes less tenable? . . . Might the unreliability of the state lead people to look nearer for emotional and social sustenance - meaning less family breakup, maybe even a rise in the birth rate as insurance against the loneliness and uncertainty of old age? . . . the ongoing travails of the unsustainable state might yet refurbish the family nest somewhere down the road. *