With postmortems on the Romney campaign piling up faster than broken promises of relief to Sandy’s victims, there is time before the “big deal” gets cut and the national misery deepens to reflect briefly on what Mitt Romney did right — and there was much he did right.
Romney saved the House of Representatives from reverting to Nancy Pelosi’s rule. A bad enough showing from the GOP nominee, or even an uninspired replay of 1996 or 2008, would have left dozens of House freshmen dangling. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions runs a great operation, but the top of the ticket inspires or deters the base from turning out. Mitt Romney got the base together and motivated. And thank God he did.
Romney also assured the succession of the party’s leadership with his choice of Paul Ryan. Had he gone with Tim Pawlenty (my choice) or Rob Portman (many others’ choice), there would be a very complicated primary ahead in 2015-2016. Now we know the GOP is going young. We don’t know if Ryan, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, or which of the other bright young stars of the conservative movement will emerge as its leader, but Romney delivered his party to the next generation of pro-freedom, pro-growth, pro-family and pro-life leaders.
Whatever you think of the Obama record, it’s worth keeping in mind that by any measure, free enterprise has been winning the game for a long, long time to this point.
Compare the United States of 2012 to the United States of 1962. Leave aside the obvious points about segregation and discrimination, and look only at the economy.
In 1962, the government regulated the price and route of every airplane, every freight train, every truck and every merchant ship in the United States. The government regulated the price of natural gas. It regulated the interest on every checking account and the commission on every purchase or sale of stock. Owning a gold bar was a serious crime that could be prosecuted under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The top rate of income tax was 91%.
It was illegal to own a telephone. Phones had to be rented from the giant government-regulated monopoly that controlled all telecommunications in the United States. All young men were subject to the military draft and could escape only if they entered a government-approved graduate course of study. The great concern of students of American society — of liberals such as David Riesman, of conservatives such as Russell Kirk, and of radicals such as Dwight Macdonald — was the country’s stultifying, crushing conformity.
…
Fifty years ago, Marxism was still a live intellectual force in British universities. Marxists taught that human society must inevitably evolve into a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. The great British conservative historian Hugh Trevor-Roper scoffed at this arrogance. He said, “When radicals scream that victory is indubitably theirs, sensible conservatives knock them on the nose. It is only very feeble conservatives who take such words as true and run round crying for the last sacraments.”
We need more sensible conservatives. As for the feeble conservatives, they should take a couple of aspirin and then stay quietly indoors until the temper has subsided and they are ready to say and do something useful again.
If Republicans hope to win in 2016 and beyond, they need to change everything about the way they sell themselves. They’re viewed by the 18-24 set as the “party of the rich” and as social bigots. That harsh, flawed opinion could be rectified if Republicans started presenting their positions in a different way. The GOP is like a supermodel who has been doing photo shoots under fluorescent bulbs without any makeup. But fix the lighting, dab on some foundation and highlight her good side, and she can take the most attractive picture.
My age group is one pocket of voters who Republicans should be carrying with ease. Youth is all about rebellion and freedom and independence—things the Democratic Party preaches but doesn’t deliver. Behind their clever one-liners lurks a government shackle waiting to be slapped onto the wrists of every young voter they ensnare.