Conservative Treatise, Part II

2. We need to find articulate and intelligent people to lead our cause.
“Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information” - Mark Twain

We have our Bill Bennett’s, our Rush Limbaugh’s, our Peggy Noonan’s, and our George Will’s. The liberals have articulate, passionate, and intelligent people in their ranks too, but more than a few of them enter the fray of politics rather than pursuing private endeavors. Unfortunately, we are not very good at producing candidates who can convey passion and intellect simultaneously. Let us face a simple truth; George W. Bush was not the best we had to offer and his failures were based in his inability to communicate with his national constituency. One of the major reasons that Iraq has become an unpopular war is because Bush does not have a great enough command of the English language to effectively debate his opponents. Bush once told Katie Couric, “"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." In essence, he was admitting his inability to explain that he lacked the eloquence to effectively explain his decisions as Commander-in-Chief. You can allow surrogates to speak on your behalf for a while, but when the Commander-in-Chief seems fastidious about where or when he will fight for his policies, people stop following. In marriages, families, businesses, and in any institution which requires a collective commitment to succeed, communication is essential. Government is no different! When we find leaders within our cause, we must be certain that they have the capacity to argue the issues extemporaneously!

Since President Reagan, the only nationally recognized political leader we have had who possessed both the eloquence and intellect to carry the banner of conservatism and rally the nation behind our cause has been Newt Gingrich. Although Gingrich stumbled with a few problems while Speaker, those matters should not have been insurmountable and should not have led to his departure from the House. The problem was that the media placed crosshairs on him the moment that Dick Gephardt surrendered the gavel. That was further compounded by another foolish GOP presidential nomination in 1996. At a time when new, fresh, and energized conservatives were sprouting all over the country, the Republican Party nominated Senator Bob Dole, a member of the Old Guard who had spend his career (as McCain has) compromising with Democrats and cozying up the left leaning members of his own party, despite maintaining a personally solid conservative scorecard. By 1999, the Republican Party had begun to fall apart as the lust for power enveloped members of Congress, and those who had placed their faith in men and women who had promised to cut the size and scope of government were now dashed. Clinton had survived and impeachment trial for lying under oath, Gingrich was out, but we faced a new millennium with untold opportunities to promote greater liberties, freedom, and justice. Instead, we squandered our opportunity by nominating a very decent man who no real conservative thought would govern from the right. In the midst of war, whether it be physical or cultural, you cannot elect a man who is a “uniter, not a divider” for the sake of unity alone. And as many of us had feared, Bush’s use of principles of utility (like embracing the education and immigration policies of Ted Kennedy) were flawed at best.

So, let us commit to demanding that at the state and national level that our leaders not only know the issues, but can effectively and extemporaneously argue their merits!