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

It’s often said that ‘good policy is good politics’. Over the longer term, that is surely true. But political people live by the 24-hour news cycle. They want to be up, up, up today and every day — and they often flinch from decisions whose pay-off time is measured in months or years.

3. Elites matter.

Right-of-centre governments get bad treatment in the press, the academy and the para-government: NGOs, policy professionals, and the like. It’s very human to dismiss the importance of these hanging judges, to try to talk past them to ‘ordinary moms and dads’. Tempting — but dangerous. Elites may be hostile, but they are also powerful. They pay closer attention than the larger public and they care more. They sometimes actually know things worth hearing. Plus, although eggheads are not unanimously beloved, utter disregard for them can be costly too.

Henry Kissinger used to joke that in the Clinton administration, the arguments were always better than the policies — while in the Bush administration it was the other way around. But if you lose the argument in a democratic society, you usually lose the policy too.

4. Don’t disdain small ball.

Small ball is a strategy in baseball. Instead of attempting the big home run, a small ball coach encourages his players to hit singles and move methodically around the bases. President Bush famously preferred Babe Ruth’s style of play: ‘I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big.’

Again and again the president swung big: amnesty for illegal aliens, privatisation of Social Security accounts, Medicare reform, a sweeping energy plan, and of course the war in Iraq. Sometimes he hit big: tax cuts, education reform. But more often he struck out. At the end of it all — what enduring conservative accomplishments did the president bequeath? Especially after his tax cuts expire in 2010?

Compare that record to one small technical change forced by conservatives in Congress in 1980: requiring every new federal regulation to pass a cost-benefit analysis test. That one small boring technical change, still in force three decades later, has probably killed more misguided initiatives than all presidential vetoes combined.

Gordon Brown and Tony Blair understood this trick well. Their most left-wing actions were always buried in the fine print. Learn from your opponents’ best moves as well as from your friends’ mistakes!

David Frum is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of NewMajority.com. His book, Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again is published by Doubleday.

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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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