0.cached.png
By Newsweek Editors
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
I knew this presidential campaign was getting a little weird when a fellow conservative accused me of worshipping Zeus. Marvin Olasky is the father of compassionate conservatism and an adviser to the Bush campaign. Last week he wrote an essay in which he said some journalists who don't like Bush have "holes in their souls." He chided three of us--my Weekly Standard colleague Bill Kristol, The New York Times's Frank Rich and me--for being pagans. If we paid more attention to the Gospels, he argued, we'd prefer Bush's supposed virtues, faith and charity, to McCain's, honor and duty. "Brooks has faith only in Zeus-like strength," Olasky declared. It reminds me I need to get to the gym more often, not only to get some Olympian pecs, but to defend myself against blows from my allies.
The 2000 race has revealed strange and sometimes bitter divides. Social conservatives have abused Gary Bauer since he endorsed John McCain. Meanwhile, Marshall Wittmann, formerly of the Christian Coalition and now of the Heritage Foundation, gets angry e-mails and scornful comments because he's a McCain adviser.
The split divides the GOP, but the gap is not about ideology. The presidential race sometimes gets depicted as a contest between Che Guevara and Francisco Franco, with McCain as the lefty and Bush as the hard-core conservative. But the fact is that both men are moderate conservatives, and if you can tell the difference between them on issues like abortion, school choice, federal spending, then you're probably able to count the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Instead, this rift runs much deeper than public policy: it's really a clash between two different world views. The people who support Bush have a movement mentality. They belong to the conservative movement that cohered around Barry Goldwater and hardened under Reagan and Gingrich. They look out over that GOP coalition--the gun lovers, the religious conservatives, the free marketeers--and they think that adds up to 51 percent of the electorate. The movement consciousness is based on the idea that we are a band of brave, beleaguered souls under perpetual assault from the liberal mainstream media. These people detest McCain because liberals don't hate him.
Read More on News
In one of the great ironies of modern political history, Bush is this movement's anointed candidate. His father felt he had to court conservatives to get elected, but you always had the impression he was holding his nose. Bush the Younger, on the other hand, enthusiastically wooed the Republican and conservative elites. He's got the governors, senators, as well as Rush Limbaugh, Ralph Reed and most of the major activists. Maybe Bush thought he could dominate these folks--but because W is so malleable, they ended up molding him.
The conservative McCain backers see themselves as rebels against the establishment. They believe it's just a fact that the old GOP coalition no longer commands a majority. Already this campaign has offered proof of that: Bob Jones has become the Willie Horton of the GOP. Just as Horton came to symbolize the excesses of liberalism, Bob Jones, or at least the university that bears his name, has come to symbolize a conservative movement that has lost touch with mainstream opinion.
Some conservative rebels admire McCain because he is the anti-Clinton, but he is also the anti-Ken Starr--at least the Ken Starr of popular stereotype. The senator talks about bringing morality back to the White House, but no one would call him a prude or a moralist. Once, after a rally, some reporters on the McCain bus were talking about a JOHN 3:16 sign someone had held up. It turned out that McCain couldn't recite the verse. He talks about morality in patriotic, not religious terms. He doesn't seek to expunge sin. He crusades against selfishness--by the tobacco lobby, special interests, pork-barrel spenders or Gore fund-raisers. His combative zeal would make him a fiercer foe against teachers unions, regulators and liberal activists. It's a different way to promote conservative civic values and policies.
The rebels sometimes describe themselves as Davids who in Michigan crushed the establishment Goliath. But it's now obvious the conservative establishment only looked imposing. There is one thing the McCain brigades are certainly right about: their man offers conservatives and the GOP a way to modernize their party and reach out to independent voters. The trouble is that no one will ever call the right opportunistic. Going down to noble defeat is attractive to many conservatives--but while that'll give movement conservatives a fresh Lost Cause, the anti-McCain push may give America a President Gore.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines