Champion wanted: No experience necessary

By Lawrence Henry
web posted February 25, 2002

We've got Dan Quayle. We've got John McCain. We've got a
Bush and a Dole. And we've still got conservative bickering over
issues, leadership, and "greatness," which indicates one thing to
me: We have no champion. I do not mean "leader." I mean
"champion."

Consider: No mere leader could have uttered the phrase, "The
Evil Empire," let alone made it stick. Certainly no conservative
leader now could unfurl a banner like that without making himself
(or herself) a laughingstock. Thus the nostalgia for Ronald
Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, thus the desperate longing in the
last pre-election cycle for the low-rent Eisenhower, Colin
Powell.

So how do we get a champion? What will he (almost certainly
not she) espouse, believe, and do?

To the first: We can't create a champion, morph him from
existing models, or construct him piece by piece from focus
group data. Champions emerge, spring full-blown from the head
of some political spirit, are anointed, appear, then define
everything around them. Nobody really understands how it
happens. The Bible itself tells three different stories about the
appearance of King David.

So we can't make it happen. We can only wait and make ready.
Take heart, however. We will recognize it when it does happen.
That's part of the definition.

As to beliefs, positions, issues, all the things we argue about
now, imagine yourself a candidate contemplating the following
Chinese menu of conservative stands. Choose one from Column
A and two from Column B. Be ready to run on these issues and
to talk intelligibly about the rest. But make your choice.

In a campaign, there is simply no room for any more than three.

Column A: Social 
Limit immigration/free immigration 
Ban partial-birth abortion 
Support a Constitutional amendment to reverse Roe vs. Wade 
Establish official English 
Restore school prayer 
Enact school choice 
Pass a new Religious Freedom Restoration Act 
Limit judicial activism

Column B: Economic 
Support free trade/support some form of protectionism 
Lower taxes 
Replace the current income tax with a flat tax 
Replace the current income tax with a consumption tax 
Eliminate Federal agencies 
Reform the tort system 
Reform Social Security 
Reform Medicare/Medicaid 

I have not even included all the issues, as you see. That doesn't
matter. No one can run and win on all of them, not even on most
of them -- only on no more than three.

A champion, however, could run on almost any three issues and
make them work. Plus, he could quiet conservative grumbling
about the rest, because he'd win. Then we could get a lot of
other things done.

What has brought us to this pass? Two things: Newt Gingrich's
success in getting a conservative Congressional majority elected,
and Bob Dole's failed Presidential candidacy.

Mr. Gingrich, for all his brilliance, is much like an inspired garage
entrepreneur who brings a wonderful idea to market, then finds
himself incapable of running the company that sells it. In business,
he'd be replaced by a competent and trained manager. In our
current situation, he should go back to another garage and have
another wonderful idea. We could use it.

Bob Dole, a fine and decent man, ran for President as the last
lineal descendant of old-style Republicanism. His candidacy was
a purge. The Republic Party has now become a conservative
party. We've paid our dues.

All non-conservatives (of whatever stripe) had just better get out
of the big tent. It's big, but it's not that big, and we've got
business to do.

So bicker away, conservatives, but realize what we're doing.
Call it a nostalgia for Morning in America, call it Next Year in
Jerusalem, but know what's going on. We're waiting for a
champion. And, when he comes, we'll know him by some
defining action. In Mr. Reagan's case, there were two: In the
campaign, his pithy challenge, "Are you better off today?" took
President Carter right between the eyes. In office, he busted the
Professional Air Traffic Controllers' strike and showed foreign
and domestic Philistines that he really didn't care what they
thought or said.

When he appears, a champion will make us smile. We all have
our fantasies.

Here are some of mine:

"The United States will not attend the upcoming conference on
climate change. There is no such thing as global warming."

"I have today issued an executive order instituting a temporary
peacetime draft, with the aim of enlisting a million men -- and I
mean men -- in our armed forces."

Or (firing up a stogie in the Rose Garden), "My fellow
Americans, the smoking lamp is lit."

Lawrence Henry is a senior writer for Enter Stage Right.

Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com