Candidates abandoning small-government ideology
WASHINGTON - For most of the past year, almost every Republican presidential contender tried to present himself as the real Reagan conservative, without questioning whether Ronald Reagan's antigovernment message was applicable in 2008.
Now, after voting in three high-profile states, it seems that many GOP candidates might have miscalculated: Republican voters may still love Reagan, but his antigovernment message isn't playing well on the campaign trail. Iowans chose Mike Huckabee, who promised an administration that would do more for low- and middle-income people. New Hampshire chose John McCain, who promised a small government but one committed to activism against problems such as global warming.
Mitt Romney initially pledged his total fidelity to Reagan's "three-legged stool" of strong defense, low taxes, and a "pro-life" social agenda. But after losing two states and much of his credibility, he shifted gears in auto-crazed Michigan, promising government action to combat the loss of manufacturing jobs.
Romney's win in yesterday's Michigan primary leaves the fight for the party's presidential nomination as wide-open as ever, and the party's constituencies wrangling for advantage.
"Each candidate manages to strike a different chord in a different state, but there is no melody," said Linda L. Fowler, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.
But if one thing is clear, it's that the early-voting states have sent a clear signal in favor of activism over ideology, suggesting that the traditional Republican anti-tax, anti-spending message might not satisfy even some conservatives in a time of economic unease.
"I don't think specifically that an antigovernment message works," said David Carney, former White House political director under George H. W. Bush and an unaligned GOP consultant. "People aren't opposed to spending money on things like education. They're opposed to spending money on the bridge to nowhere."
Carney pointed to numerous recent state ballot initiatives in which voters, including Republicans, approved higher taxes for priorities like schools and hospitals.
"Our party is most successful when it talks about Main Street values and supporting small businesses and helping working people," Carney said.
But many Republican opinion leaders - including much of the conservative media - trace the decline of President Bush's administration to his support of the costly new Medicare drug benefit. That and other deviations from conservative orthodoxy - such as Bush's "No Child Left Behind" bill, which took some control of schools away from parents - have been cast by many traditional conservatives as undermining the GOP's small-government message.
Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, sensed a shift in appetite and warned his fellow Republicans that the country wanted more action on healthcare and education and that they could not afford to cede those priorities to the Democrats.
The returns from the presidential race suggest that Rove, who left the White House last year, might have been right. While Huckabee owes much of his surprising Iowa victory to his credibility on social issues, he has also repeatedly scolded fellow Republicans, alleging they are ignoring lower- and middle-class people. Huckabee carried that message to Michigan and South Carolina, where he is the leader in some polls.
Last weekend, he addressed the issue of education: "The upper classes don't have to worry about it, and the people at the bottom have all kinds of financial aid. But the real challenge is to make higher education available to the people in the middle."
Romney went further in advocating for government action on the economy, declaring to Detroit business leaders Monday, "If I'm president of this country, I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I'm in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, congressional and state leaders, and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America's automotive leadership."
"I am not open to a bailout, but I am open to a workout. Washington should not be a benefactor, but it can and must be a partner."
Romney's vision of government as a partner of industry is a far cry from Reagan's portrayal of government as "the problem" - the regulator whose interference hampers business growth. As president, Reagan decried "industrial policy," in which the government would invest as a partner in certain industries, comparing it to socialist economic planning.
Earlier in this campaign, after Romney declared Reagan to be his role model, the former Massachusetts governor consistently called for slashing corporate taxes and decried socialized medicine - while comparing Democratic economic policies to European-style socialism.
The goal was to establish his credibility as a Reagan-style conservative, but as the campaign progressed and the pitch failed to resonate, he moved away from it. Last night, he mentioned Reagan again, along with George H.W. Bush, as two of his inspirations.
But it might not make a difference. Voters seem far warmer to the new vision of Romney as a creative businessman who wants to use the powers of the presidency to "fix" American industry.
That vision runs counter to Romney's gubernatorial record in ways, but it connects to his very real success in building a lucrative business and turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics.
"His main appeal was as a can-do businessman, but he didn't campaign that way for most of the [past] year," said Fowler. "I think for him to talk about the economy plays to his strength." 