Listen up, Dave: to care is not to do

11 November 2009

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David Frum on the lessons the Tories can learn from the original conservative moderniser: George W. Bush, whose progressive policies often just didn’t add up

Compassionate conservatism wanted both to grant some kind of amnesty to illegal aliens in the United States, and to continue the wage advances gained by African Americans during the Clinton years. Those two policies cancelled each other out.

Compassionate conservatism had promised tax cuts for middle-class wage-earners — and a huge new prescription drug programme in Medicare. Again: mutually assured destruction.

Compassionate conservatism praised the successes of faith-based groups in healing addicts and mentoring young people. It promised to invest large amounts of money enlarging and expanding these projects — without first studying whether these projects could in fact be successfully scaled up. (They couldn’t.)

To name a problem is not to solve it; to care is not to do. Those might seem obvious maxims, but they are not always apprehended by the political mind.

2. Grant your political team a seat at the table — but not the top seat.

George W. Bush fused politics and policy more tightly than any recent president, in the single person of his brilliantly brainy adviser Karl Rove. Michael Barone, the ultra-authoritative political observer, has written: ‘No other presidential appointee has ever had such a strong influence on politics and policy, and none is likely to do so again any time soon.’

Yet policy and politics often point in different directions. Choices must be made. And if your most important policy adviser also has the job of overseeing your re-election effort — well, no prizes for guessing which vector will receive the greater emphasis.

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ChrisX

March 25th, 2010 5:22am Report this comment

At least David Frum realized the lack of a Republican health care choice – but also the limitations and shortcomings (as there are quite a few) within the new health care bill, and though it's aims are laudable, it won't achieve the level of health care reform that could be better accomplished by other means. This is only going to mean we're getting more pay day loans from either the people (via taxes) or foreign banks to give to insurance executives because people have to buy insurance now, and only a lot of people can get subsidized care. UPS and FedEx do better than USPS for a reason.

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