NRI Fellow John Chapman

In the run-up to the 2008 Presidential primary contests, the Republican Party was less settled on a candidate than at any time since 1952, the year a favored Senator Robert Taft (Ohio) lost out to eventual nominee Dwight Eisenhower, with General Douglas MacArthur and Governors Earl Warren (California) and Harold Stassen (Minnesota) also in the arena. Coincidentally, this was also both the last time an election was held without an incumbent President or Vice President on a major party ticket, as well as the last time a party convention required multiple ballots to nominate its standard-bearer (the Democrats drafted Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson on their third ballot). Prior to his recent ascension to the nomination, Arizona Senator John McCain, along with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson all enjoyed boomlets, either in leading polls, winning primaries, or in receiving intense media scrutiny as a momentum candidate.

Although the issue is now settled in favor of Senator McCain and lacks only final formality, a large percentage of the base of the Republican Party are not pleased with the outcome of the process. There are doubts about Senator McCain's philosophical predilections on a wide range of domestic issues, and questions as to his electability. And ultimately, the central question for Republicans is, will Senator McCain lead the party to such a crushing defeat that the hard won gains of the last thirty years are obliterated?

Two elephants no longer in the room--Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich--still cast a large shadow over these proceedings: one for what he was, the other for what he has done. As the leader and intellectual progenitor, respectively, of the two biggest Republican election wins in our lifetime (1980 and 1994), reflection about the Reagan vision and Gingrich's extension of it offers lessons on a way forward for Republicans in 2008, a year in which conventional wisdom is pointing to a rout for Democrats.

The Enduring Influence of the Reagan Revolution

President Reagan gave his last major public speech at the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992, and hence has now been removed from the American political scene for over 15 years. Yet as time passes he is seen to be one of the country's greatest Presidents, and is still a giant in Republican Party circles. Indeed, for almost 20 years now, Republican candidates at all levels of government have offered obeisance to Reaganism. In the current presidential primary contest, every Republican candidate invoked the name of Reagan repeatedly, and all have claimed to be his successor, including "foot soldier" to the Reagan Revolution, John McCain.

What incites the passion for Reagan two decades on? The Reagan Revolution was positioned as the antithesis of regnant Democratic policies stretching from the New Deal to Jimmy Carter,and was predicated upon five pillars of policy: (a) lower marginal tax rates to incite thrift, investment, and work effort; (b) lower spending by the federal government to lower interest rates and lessen the fiscal "crowding-out" effect, a burden which so worried Milton Friedman; (c) elimination or lessening of regulatory burdens, which can inhibit employment, profit, and productivity growth; (d) tightening of Federal Reserve monetary policy to lower inflation, which both hurts those on fixed incomes and distorts relative prices, causing entrepreneurial error and malinvestment of capital, and leading to eventual underutilized capacity and job losses; and (e) a heavy buildup of U.S. naval and military forces, to counter Soviet expansionism and protect our Western allies and vital interests around the globe.

Except for lower federal spending, the rest of the Reagan program was generally successful, and the economy and geostrategic stature of the United States improved dramatically. For Mr. Reagan, this was all the predictable result of a core governing philosophy which was well-summarized in his first Inaugural Address:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem [emphasis mine]. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay the price.

It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal.

In other words, for President Reagan, it was axiomatic that the federal government was too large, intrusive, and over-bearing, and should be downsized in absolute terms. For him, capitalism represented a system which was inherently superior to socialism, based on both economic efficiency and the moral superiority of liberty. As such, big-government programs should carry the presumption of waste and inefficiency, and should not be corrected so much as downsized or eliminated. This represented a remarkable shift in the tenor of the political debate extant since the New Deal, and created a sea change in American politics, including the basis for an eventual Republican majority.

While never fully understood by a media who assumed Mr. Reagan's popularity was due to his charisma and communications skills, in fact the underlying strength of his program was its appeal with the majority of American taxpayers who were long tired of the burdens, inefficiencies, and unfairness of the welfare state. And, contrary to the current received wisdom, it is a philosophy which still represents the majority of the free people of this Republic, who prefer the opportunities provided by a vibrant and dynamic market economy to the stultification of the welfare state. As such, Reaganism is still, therefore, a winning political program, when articulated well.

1994 and Its Echoes: An Extension of the Reagan Revolution

Over time no one has better understood the implications of Reagan's formula than Newt Gingrich, who crafted the massive Republican electoral victory in 1994 via the Republicans' "Contract with America" as being an extension of the Reagan philosophy. As the most forceful and effective messenger of Reaganism from the political arena, Mr. Gingrich understood both the resonance and the effective packaging of the Reagan program. In contrast to the big-government nostrums of the Clintons, best exemplified by an abortive attempt at socialist health care in 1993, Mr. Reagan's philosophy of limited government, lower taxes and entrepreneurial incentives, less bureaucratic regulation, and a renewed general zeal in favor of the taxpayer (and against the crime, waste, fraud, and inefficient unfairness of the federal bureaucracy) is superior as a comprehensive policy architecture. This was all packaged in Occam's Razor-like fashion into ten core policy proposals, for immediate congressional votes in 1995 (while nine of the ten dealt with government operations reform or domestic policy, there was even allusion to Reagan's belief in a strong, America-first national defense posture, with a legislative proposal to disallow U.N. command of U.S. troops, and a formula for NATO integration of former Warsaw Pact powers). Beyond a reinvigoration of core Reagan themes, the idea was to restore accountability, trust and common sense back into government, negating the arrogance of the ruling party of the prior forty years.

Hence the "Contract with America" was not revolutionary in content, calling instead for implementation of many of Mr. Reagan's common sense-based proposals, such as a line item veto, "loser-pays" tort reform, or work-inciting welfare reform, in addition to more transparent government operations. What was unique about the Contract was an element of political strategy that the peripatetic former House Speaker apprehended before anyone else: the possibility of nationalizing Congressional elections around Reaganite themes, in direct contrast to the long-held maxim that "all politics is local."

For Mr. Gingrich understood then, as he continues to preach today, that in fact, a voting majority of the American public is sympathetic to Reagan's worldview. A keen student of history, he sees the current era as a moment of world-historic inflection, based on global challenges and dangers. More clearly than any current candidate, he has described the nexus between events in Pyongyang, Tehran, and Caracas, and the panoply of challenges posed by militant Islamists, a revanchist Russia, and a China still ruled by Maoists. Similarly, there has been no more articulate critic of the ineptitude of government bureaucracy, from health care delivery to the war; the former Speaker peppers his speeches with commonsensical (and humorous) tales of being able to use an ATM machine or track a Fed-Ex package globally, in contrast to the enervating frustration of dealing with governmental bureaucracies.

Parroting Reagan, Mr. Gingrich explains that government has not kept up with the entrepreneurial dynamism and speed of innovation in the private sector, and in a word, both our government bureaucracies and political processes are "broken". Governments at all levels in the U.S. must either radically change to confront current dangers and challenges, or the nation will suffer an inevitable decline, if not terrorist disaster leaving millions dead.

Yet Mr. Gingrich offers hope in his vision and solutions. He states that scientific and technological advance will happen at a rate and amount some four to seven times greater in the next 25 years than in the last, and the greater productivity afforded in the coming era confers the possibility for dramatically improving life quality and wealth. Further, again borrowing from Reagan's majorities, beyond the carping of "red versus blue"-focused Beltway politicians there is a shared set of "red, white, and blue" values resident in the populace, which affords the basis for comprehensive solutions to vexing problems. A substantial majority wants victory in Iraq, for example, or according to the Speaker, 93% of the American people want to know about the price and quality of healthcare before making decisions. 78% of Americans, meanwhile, believe the death tax should be abolished, and so on. Like Reagan, Mr. Gingrich's vision calls for rallying this "silent majority" to the sublime cause of limited government, making government more "entrepreneurial" via incentives, metrics, and accountability, and developing support for energetic strong-defense responses to global threats.

What Then Do 1980 and 1994 Imply for 2008?

For students of political economy who assert the superiority of free markets, limited government, and a strong national defense in a dangerous world, the Reagan Revolution and Gingrich's extension of its themes offer the prescription for winning elections. Why then, in a primary campaign in which every Republican repeatedly invoked Reagan's name and memory, have none of them, including Senator McCain, lit the fire of the Party's base? And as a corollary, why are the Democrats favored this coming Fall, when their party elders uniformly offer policy prescriptions so antithetical to Mr. Reagan? What can be done about this?

Personalities and individual communications styles offer partial answers, but the deeper insight goes to the essence of Reagan, as exemplified in his 1981 Inaugural Address quoted above. To wit, denizens of the Beltway will never fully appreciate how often their machinations are ridiculed by voters elsewhere. It is why Americans love outsiders, and why "politician" is essentially a term of opprobrium. Republicans, especially, feel contemptuous of contemporary Washington, and see those who have made peace with the welfare state and its discontents as part of the problem. This is why, in fact, congressional approval ratings are at historic lows. To state this colloquially, Rush Limbaugh, who is not the political but rather the intellectual heir to Reagan, is far more popular among base Republican voters now than any elected official--such is the boundless depth of GOP frustration with Washington insiders.

More directly for the present, therefore, what is missing from Senator McCain's message is the one philosophical plank that would propel both him and his party, via linkage to Reagan: genuine antipathy for government. As in 1980, many government programs do not need to be reinvented so much as shut down, but it is telling that in the late campaign not one federal program or department was earmarked for elimination by any Republican candidate except for Ron Paul (although Mr. Huckabee and his FairTax proponents would technically eliminate the IRS, though replace it with an alternative tax regime). This is the core reason for Republican voter apathy and lack of energy on the eve of the 2008 general election season, and it is now a more severe problem for Republicans than the 2006 election cycle.

To say this differently, Messrs. Reagan and Gingrich have bequeathed a key lesson to modern Republicans, if they will but use it: Republicans win elections when there is clear separation and distinction between the two parties in terms of philosophy and policy prescriptions. With the Democrats being the party of big government, foreign policy accommodation, and moral relativism, this implies Republicans can win when they champion limited government, free markets, a strong national defense, and traditional values rooted in faith, family, personal responsibility, and a belief in the moral superiority of liberty. Which is to say, when they are aligned with the majority of voters and taxpayers in this country.

What is needed, then, is incorporation of the Reagan vision in Republican messaging, as espoused above, and a nationalization of this theme this Fall. This is, indeed, a time of historic challenge. In such times, as Virgil wrote, fortune favors the bold: corrupt or failed institutions must be eliminated, rather than reformed. Instead, at the moment Senator McCain, like Alexander Hamilton before him and like many current Democrats, sees utility in energetic government; global warming, campaign finance, taxation, federal oversight of business, and many other of his previous positions underscore his belief in a considerable role for the federal government in the economy.

Thus the Senator would be a disappointment to President Reagan, whose core philosophy, combined with the success wrought by the effective nationalization of the elections in 1980 and 1994 (the latter explicitly so thanks to Mr. Gingrich, the former in a de facto sense thanks to Mr. Reagan's framing of the contest), offers a roadmap to victory. Mr. Reagan would argue for an enumeration of specifics about a genuine downsizing of the federal government, adoption of the five pillars of the Reagan program in 1980, and bold (as opposed to marginal) change in federal spending priorities, operations, and organization, as a way to defeat Mr. McCain's statist opponent in a general election--in other words, an election contest based on stark contrasts.

Defenders of Mr. McCain assert that government grew under Mr. Reagan, he was forced to raise taxes, and the times and challenges are different and more complex. But this misses the point. Mr. Reagan did not get the fiscal budget priorities he wanted, but the force of his core argument, and its consistent enunciation, changed the tone of political discourse in this country, and pressured big-government proponents, for the first time since the New Deal was checked at the margin in 1938. Limited government solutions became intellectually respectable again, and are both abundantly available and part of any policy contest now. The lack of any energetic exponent for these in recent years was behind the Republican debacle in 2006, as well as the lethargy of the party faithful now.

The November 2008 election falls in a time of war and global economic uncertainty, and Americans would rally, as they did in 1980, to a candidate who genuinely articulates a policy program in consonance with what are in fact the taproots of our Founding. For as Mr. Reagan understood, only the free and prosperous economy can provide the means to rise and meet the historic challenges of our time. Whether Mr. McCain comes to fully apprehend this in the coming months is, alas, an open question.

John L. Chapman is an NRI fellow at AEI.