Primer: Repeat after me

It is not the government’s responsibility to save Chrysler, GM, or Ford. Looking back, it was not the government’s responsibility to save AIG, Citigroup, or any other financial institution. Looking ahead, it is not the government’s responsibility to save coal companies, homebuilders, retailers, manufacturers, or hot dog carts. It is not the government’s responsibility to “protect” jobs – even when those jobs are held by member of politically powerful labor unions.

It is not the government’s responsibility to “create” jobs – the only jobs the government has the power to create are government jobs, and the world doesn’t need more bureaucrats.

It is not the government’s responsibility to prevent foreclosures, where people took out loans they cannot afford to pay back.

It is not the government’s responsibility to make sure that everyone has high-speed internet and cable TV. For that matter, it is not the government’s responsibility to pay for anyone’s personal expenses, be they medical costs, gasoline, or pedicures.

It is not the government’s responsibility to address “income inequality.”

To be clear, it IS the government’s responsibility to provide an environment where people and businesses can – through innovation, effort, and personal responsibility – achieve success, be self-reliant, and have the opportunity to strive for ever-greater achievement.

The ingredients are a fair, predictable legal system; dependable property rights; low taxes; and light regulation. That’s all.

Will BHO tack to center like Sarko?

Rush Limbaugh’s giddiness since the Republican election loss has proved infectious among French advocates of American conservatism, admittedly a rare breed but a committed one nonetheless. Why the Gallic mirth? Well, consider this. During the French presidential campaign back in early 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy pledged that, if elected, he would bring profound change to economically sclerotic France. “La rupture” he dared call it to liberal and even some center-right catcalls and hisses.

About 18 months on, those previously doing the catcalling and the hissing are now cheering and blowing kisses to their Nemesis-turned-fellow-traveler. How come? Well, in France’s predominantly leftist political culture, President Sarkozy has realized that his approval ratings as well as his chances of reelection in 2012 depend to a large extent on his ability to tack to the left.

Judging by his social and economic record so far, his reelection campaign started about a year ago. He calls it “pragmatisme”. Let’s take it for what it really is and call it Socialism, the “spread-the-wealth” kind of Socialism America voted for more than a week ago. Even on foreign policy, Sarkozy is turning out to be a typically French fair-weather friend, gesticulating against America’s Missile Defense just to placate his KGB pals over in the Kremlin.

Given la rupture’s slim hopes of survival in post-election worlds, President-elect Obama’s “Change we can believe in” may well follow Sarkozyesque revert-to-cultural-type political meanderings after all.

In other words, in a (still?) predominantly center-right country like the United States, Obama may well realize that sticking to some lite version of pro-family-strong-defense-tax-cutting conservatism is his best political option.

Even Rush himself not so facetiously let the cat out of the electoral bag a few days before the vote. In a brief exchange with Rudy Giuliani over Joe Biden’s Obama’s-gonna-be-tested-gaffe, Rush hinted that Biden’s pleas to liberal faithful for support of Obama’s response might actually imply that the next president would be as tough as George W. Bush.

Nothing for conservatives to worry about then? Maybe so, unless a majority of the American people, including 20% of conservatives, are so enamored of Sarkozy and Socialistic France that they are prepared to take their cue from Tocqueville’s ill-advised descendants and ditch freedom for the smothering embrace of Welfarist paternalism.

In that case, freedom will have been no more than one election cycle away from extinction. Conservatives, French and American alike, would then all be laughing on the other side of their faces.

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European and US politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

Practices, not principles, hurt GOP

After being routed at the polls for two consecutive election cycles, Republicans are turning introspective, asking how the party fell out of favor so suddenly and how to correct course. That introspection includes the inevitable catharsis that exacerbates tensions within the existing right-center political coalition.

Conservatives say moderates were too squishy, especially on spending matters. Moderates say conservatives were too rigid, particularly on social issues. Libertarians say both conservatives and moderates are correct in their diagnoses but wrong in their prescriptions.

The reality again harkens to Lord Acton's admonition about the corrupting influence of power. Contrary to advertising messages in the recent campaign, Republicans are people, too, which renders them just as susceptible to allure of authority as their Democrat counterparts.

Sen. Tom Coburn, first elected to the House in the 1994 "Republican revolution," observed in his book, Breach of Trust, that former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Majority Leader Dick Armey, vanguards of the 1994 Republican revolution, quickly became too focused on retaining power rather than advancing the agenda that brought them victory.

With a few exceptions, like reforming welfare and balancing the budget, Republicans' track record proves Coburn right. Now that Gingrich and Armey have escaped the vortex of elected office, they have re-emerged as leading advocates for governance guided by conservative standards.

Similarly, George W. Bush did not win election by promising to expand Medicare entitlements or by declaring that his chief foreign policy goal would be to "make the world safe for democracy." While those policies may have produced some short-term political gain, their long-term results eroded the public's confidence in his ability and his party.

So, were the last two elections a referendum on the Republican Party's core principles or its ability to deliver?

Numerous polls taken close to Election Day confirm that voters simply lost faith in Republicans but remain strongly supportive of core conservative tenants like limited government and low tax rates.

Rasmussen found that 59% of voters still agree with Ronald Reagan's assessment that, more often than not, government is the problem, not the solution. Another survey, taken immediately after the election, found that 63% believe that tax cuts are the best economic stimulus, compared to just 20% who want more government spending.

Those tenets illustrate the challenge confronting Barack Obama who, as president, can no longer be all things to so many people, and the frustration confronting voters whose only choices were Republicans who failed to produce and Democrats who promised "change."

A Club for Growth survey targeted 12 congressional districts -- including Colorado's Fourth -- that voted for President Bush in 2004 but overwhelmingly elected Democrats in 2008. That survey found:

** 81% of voters said "Republicans used to be the party of economic growth, fiscal discipline, and limited government, but in recent years, too many Republicans in Washington have become just like the big spenders they used to oppose."

** By a margin of 66% to 23%, those surveyed preferred a candidate who would cut federal spending to one who would increase spending in order to bring home more federal pork.

** 73% said the best economic policy is giving everyone the opportunity to create wealth through their own efforts rather than using the tax code to "spread the wealth."

** 71% said government should not guarantee mortgages to help people avoid foreclosure.

** 66% want the death tax to die in two years, as scheduled; just 20% want to see it resurrected.

**61% said the highest tax rate anyone should pay is 35% or less; only 18% supported higher rates.

These positions are overwhelmingly supported by Republicans of all varieties, but somehow our leaders in Washington lost their focus.

Before Republicans spend too much time boldly pointing out each other's warts -- which persuades no one -- we must remember that the principles that unify us are also the principles that, when backed by action, have produced electoral majorities and will continue to do so.

Mark Hillman served as Colorado Senate Majority Leader and State Treasurer. To read more or comment, please go to www.MarkHillman.com

GOP must recover its North Star

(By Rep. Tom Tancredo) Barack Obama won the presidential election by making it a referendum on the Bush presidency and by making McCain look like a Bush clone. Voters decided they wanted more "change" than McCain could be expected to deliver. Whether that was a fair or accurate characterization of McCain's policy agenda is now a quaint question for historians. What we know for sure is that the voters opted for “change” without any real understanding of what kind of change they will get.

Even before all the dust has settled, there are some clear lessons for Republicans from the McCain campaign and eight years of the Bush presidency. Some of the lessons are obvious, but some are hidden beneath several layers of political correctness.

First, Karl Rove's grand paradigm for a "permanent Republican majority" built on "compassionate conservatism" was grand hype based on a grand illusion. No political victory can be permanent; each generation must fight for human liberty all over again. Bush's spending programs in Medicare, education and elsewhere succeeded only in vastly increasing the national debt without creating any new Republican constituencies. This orgy of government spending greatly damaged the "Republican brand" and left Republican loyalists dismayed and disoriented. Eight years of George Bush and the idiosyncratic McCain campaign have left voters confused about what Republicans stand for.

Second, it was neither smart politics nor smart policy to allow Ted Kennedy and the American Immigration Lawyers Association to write a Bush-McCain immigration reform plan which gave only lip service to border security. Those congressional battles alienated 90% of the Republican base and 75% of independents. Did the McCain support of two amnesty plans in 2006 and 2007 win him more support among Hispanic political groups than Republicans normally get? No. McCain could not out-pander the Democrat party and it was foolish to try.

A third lesson of the Bush presidency is that a large segment of the American news media has abandoned any serious pretense to objectivity and adopted a partisan agenda. The mainstream news media attacked George Bush for eight years through a relentless barrage of biased reporting and selective indignation: “Bush’s Failed War Strategy”… “Bush’s Oil Company Ties”… “Bush’s Deregulation of Wall Street”…“Bush’s War on Civil Liberties”….”Bush’s Approval Rating Plunges”….Some people can escape the impact of such incessant, poisonous negativism, but the millions of Americans who do not listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity could not.

The lessons of the McCain campaign mirror those of the Bush era. McCain did not run as a Republican until the final month of the election. In 2007 he launched his campaign as a "maverick," a man who was above party, a man who relished bipartisan deals like McCain-Feingold, echoing Bush’s early efforts to “rise above ideology.” This Lone Ranger theme earned him the approval of the liberal media only as long as he was running against conservatives in the presidential primary, but once he had the nomination locked up, the establishment media turned on him. "Maverick" is a style, not a program of reform and not a set of principles. By the time McCain began articulating a Republican agenda that could appeal to independents and blue-collar workers, it was too late.

McCain's campaign did not catch fire until the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The McCain operatives who now try to blame Governor Palin for the campaign's failures are both wrong and dishonest. It wasn't Sarah Palin who failed to deliver even a knockdown punch in three debates with Obama, and it wasn't Sarah Palin who forbade any mention of Obama’s association with Reverends Wright and Pfleger, the anarchist Ayers, the felon financial adviser Rezko, the PLO agent Khalidi and the vote fraud machine, ACORN.

The news media gave Obama a pass on his long association with these radicals and never subjected his tax and spending proposals to serious scrutiny. Republicans were blamed for the credit crisis despite Democrat fingerprints all over the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac scandals and Fannie Mae political donations to Obama. Sarah Palin was constantly ridiculed while Joe Biden's incoherence and frequent gaffes went unexamined.

In truth, McCain was at times his own worst enemy as a campaigner. "Economics is not my strong suit," he admitted in an interview one month before the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Lesson from Politics 101: Let your opponents discover your Achilles heel if they can, don't confess it on national television.

Can the Republican Party rebuild to gain substantial victories in 2010 and 2012? Yes, absolutely. In the first place, recovering the principles, vision and verve of Ronald Reagan will be a lot easier with Barack Obama in the White House and George Bush back on his ranch. Candidate Obama could demonize Bush, demagogue oil companies and Wall Street, and avoid spelling out his own policies in detail. But populist rhetoric must now yield to concrete legislation. After the public gets a look at the real Obama and his socialist plans for sharing the wealth across the globe—and yes, socialist is the most accurate term to describe Obama’s philosophy --- Republican alternatives will not only seem respectable, they will be downright attractive. Not everyone in heartland America drank the New Change Kool-Aid; many voters would have voted for Benedict Arnold just to poke Bush in the eye. That sentiment will dissipate quickly.

The party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan has endured a tortuous detour down the Bush Parkway and then into the McCain cul-de-sac. Fortunately, we do have a compass —a compass called the Constitution and a north star called limited government. The first step to regain our bearings is to stop talking about where we have been and start thinking about where we want to go. More than the future of the Republican party depends on our resilience and our abiity to chart that new course successfully.

Congressman Tancredo retired this year after representing Colorado's 6th district since 1998 and competing in the 2008 presidential primaries. This article first appeared in HUMAN EVENTS on Nov. 5.

For blame, look in the mirror

Tuesday at 6am I entered the precinct to open the polls. Sealed off from radio, TV, Internet, and even my cell phone, I knew nothing of the races until I emerged 14 hours later, my judge duties fulfilled. Too exhausted to join friends at election night headquarters, I turned my car for home. Alone in my living room, I watched the results with bleak resignation and feared for the future of my country. Wednesday morning with eyes cleared by eight hours of sleep, I viewed the true toll of the election in the morning paper. With cold amusement, I relived a scene from a favorite film of my youth and imagined conservatives hiding out on a frozen planet while the Empire reasserted itself across the known universe.

What in the world happened? Republicans across the country may be asking the same question. It would be easy to blame a deeply biased press, glitzy Hollywood endorsements, billionaire contributions, fraud a la Acorn, and the sheer eloquence of Barack Obama for the outcome of the election. Truth be told, however, the seeds of defeat were sown in the late 1990's when Republicans abandoned the principles of limited government and embraced the power of big government to advance its own ends.

No longer the party of constitutional limits, federalism, and individual rights, the GOP eagerly supported federal regulation, new entitlements, expansion of earmark spending, Great Society-like programs, nation building, economic planning and historic spending increases. In doing so, they lost the support of the base and the people they were trying to court. After all, why pick Democrat-lite when you can have the real thing.

For the past decade, few Republicans have been able to articulate why limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility are necessary for the preservation of individual freedom and national prosperity. Democrats, however, have eloquently made the case that big government, new entitlements and programs, higher taxes, and economic planning are in the nation’s best interest. It is not surprising that liberals managed to sway a great many in this state and across the nation to their viewpoint.

The silver lining is that leftist ideas are not in our best interest. Ideas have consequences and the change Democrats have in mind will bring economic hardship and social injustice. Just as FDR’s New Deal intensified the depression and LBJ’s Great Society programs mired generations in poverty, Democrats’ ideas have a predicable outcome. It is only a matter of time before the hope of a government-created utopia wears thin and people feel the consequences of this election.

In the meanwhile, the GOP has an opportunity to rebuild the party to be the freedom-loving, libertarian, limited government party. We need to do a housecleaning that sweeps out bumbling Me-too Republicanism and embarrassing politicians like the pork barreling Ted Stevens and anyone claiming to have a wide stance. Republicans who say they support the Constitution but in opposition to its principles, continue to advance their own programs, entitlements, and agendas will find a more receptive place on the other team.

Equally importantly, Republicans need to learn to articulate the case for freedom and why government programs encroach on the free will of individuals. Making the case for freedom can be difficult task. Free stuff is a much easier sell than freedom especially when the American people have come to believe that the purpose of government is to make them happy not to protect their right to pursue happiness. We must show them that the free stuff that Democrats promise comes at an enormous cost – freedom itself.

The consequences of leftist policies will surely make the case for us, but Republicans must be prepared to lead when the time comes.

Krista Kafer's column appears weekly on Face the State.com. Reprinted by permission.