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March 6, 1997

Theodore Windt

In summer 1982, the Conservative Digest ran a major article accusing Ronald Reagan of abandoning the social agenda of conservatism. Reagan moved to quiet the publication's criticism with a speech to the Conservative Caucus. The speech was so successful that for the remainder of Reagan's two terms and into George Bush's term, the American people thought they were encountering a monolithic conservative movement.

"Some feared it. Others cheered it. But they believed that this monolithic movement was there," said Theodore Windt, chair of the Department of Communication, during his Founders Day discussion on "The Rhetoric of the Conservative Crack-up in '96." Pat Buchanan provided the first crack in the conservative movement in 1992, when he challenged George Bush for the presidency. Last year, according to Windt, that crack split open with a number of challenges to the supremacy and definition of conservatism that resulted in the appearance of four distinct types of conservatives.

The first type of conservative was personified by Phil Graham. Windt said the Texas senator represented the Newt Gingrich Contract-With-America conservative and made the mistake of basing his campaign on the contract.

According to Windt, the Contract With America worked to elect conservative members of Congress in 1994 because it was a legislative agenda. It was not a presidential agenda, so did not work in that arena.

Windt said Graham's other mistake was to run and be defeated in the Louisiana Republican caucus. If Graham, who is originally from Georgia, had been a native of Texas, as Windt is, he would have known that people from Louisiana hate people from Texas and would never vote for one, the Pitt professor explained.

"That shows something about political judgment on Graham's part," Windt added.

The second type of conservative evident during the 1996 presidential campaign was the Reagan conservative represented by Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander. According to Windt, Forbes represented Reagan's anti-tax stand and Alexander his anti-federal government stand.

Buchanan represented the third type of conservative and drew his strength from three areas, Windt said: the anti-immigration element that has long been a part of American history, the America-first tradition of the 1930s and the Christian Coalition.

"And he got labeled by the Republicans themselves as an extremist," Windt noted.

The crack involving the Buchanan element of conservatism grew even larger when Pat Robertson announced that the Christian Coalition would no longer have anything to do with Reagan Republicans because they were more concerned about economics than religious and moral issues.

As for the fourth element of conservatism that emerged during the election, it was personified by Bob Dole, who represented the Robert Taft, Midwestern conservative tradition based mainly on a hatred of the New Deal and opposition to deficit spending.

"Unfortunately," Windt said, "Bill Clinton stole those two issues in his state of the union, leaving Dole nothing to run on in the campaign." Dole tried to court the Reagan Republicans by selecting Jack Kemp as his running mate and proposing a 15 percent tax cut. Windt said Dole took the approach he did because he thought the Gingrich Republicans would remain loyal no matter what and that Pat Buchanan voters had no where else to go, since they would never vote for Bill Clinton.

"What he forgot was that many of the Pat Buchanan voters had another choice, and that was not to vote," Windt pointed out.

According to Windt, 1996 was a rerun on the conservative side of what liberals went through in 1968, when the Democratic Party was torn apart by competing factions. Windt said it took the Democrats 25 years to redefine their party in a way that was successful.

"The question for the next four years is whether conservatives within the Republican Party will also take 25 years or if they can start to reconcile the very, very deep divisions and differences represented in 1996 within the conservative movement," Windt concluded. "If history is a suggestive guide to anything, I suggest they won't be able to do so."

–Mike Sajna


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