Steven Warshawsky, writing at the American Thinker blog, recaps the National Review Institute's Conservative Summit last weekend in the nation's capital, says the summit "offered a wealth of practical and philosophical insights from leading politicians, scholars, and policy analysts, from across the conservative political spectrum (although the 'paleo' perspective was under-represented, not surprisingly)."
His recap of the Summit is thorough and thought-provoking...
Here's a section I found most interesting:
[Laura] Ingraham emphasized that, to be successful, the Republican Party "must connect with the average American worker." I think her conception of politics as, in essence, a battle for the hearts and minds of the American worker is far superior to the usual Republican emphasis on the American consumer, which focuses more on what people are able to do with their money than on how they earn their money.
While each person in this country wears the hats of both worker and consumer, the two concepts are not identical. Most Americans think of themselves, indeed define themselves, in terms of where they work and how they earn a living, not where they shop and what they buy. Similarly, most Americans are more concerned about higher wages than lower prices, about greater job security than greater consumption. This is why reports of massive layoffs from brand name companies create so much public anxiety.
The upshot is that extolling the consumer cornucopia that exists in this country is less compelling politically than promoting policies that redound to the benefit of the average worker. I think there is deep significance, psychological and political, to the paradigm shift urged by Ingraham, which Republicans and conservatives would be wise to contemplate.
On a related note, Mona Charen argued that the traditional Republican emphasis on tax cuts is losing its broad-based appeal, paradoxically, because most Americans no longer pay much, if any, federal income taxes. Consequently, while further tax cuts may have a positive macroeconomic impact, they increasingly will be seen as benefiting the well-off and the rich (i.e., those who still pay income taxes). Republicans can rail all they want against the politics of "class warfare," but Charen is right that Republicans are making a mistake if they believe that tax cuts are as politically salient today as they were in 1980.
One other paradox of tax cuts: they don't shrink government, even though the Republican Party has often said it favors smaller government. Tax cuts, as the Reagan years showed, result in faster-growing federal tax revenues - revenues that result in larger government budgets.
Warshawsky addresses the "smaller government" theme in his piece, and also explains why he's now a bigger fan of Newt Gingrich than he was before attending the Summit:
As he put it, "Republicanism did not make conservatism a majority; conservatism made Republicanism a majority." When the Republican Party moved away from its conservative foundations, it floundered politically.
... Gingrich also was quite contemptuous of what he called the "political consultant culture" of the Republican Party, which he sees as not only antithetical to conservatism, but politically ineffectual.
Although Gingrich stuck to his guns about not announcing his presidential intentions until the fall, his speech clearly was a "campaign speech" -- and it was a darn good one.
The National Review Institute has made video of Gingrich's speech available online.
Warshawsky reports that in his speech Gingrich also briefly touched in immigration. "It sounds like Gingrich will be taking an 'enforcement-first' stance, which could boost his candidacy enormously," he says. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were less impressive, he says.
The overall message I came away with from the Summit was, have faith in the correctness of the conservative philosophy, but think creatively and pragmatically about how to implement that vision in 21st Century America. Sounds like Newt, right? I am going to be giving him a much closer look now than I would have before.
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