Reagan vs. Buckley? – An Urgent Lesson

The following piece was originally published by and is the sole property of NewMajority.com

 

The specters of both Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley have been summoned over the past week to offer two examples for Republicans facing the distresses of minority status. In actuality, the models contradict, not compliment, one another. But there is a unifying lesson to be learned.

In last week?s Weekly Standard, Naomi Emery presented Reagan the Republican who used his ?unfailingly gracious tone? to bring the right, the middle, and remnants of the old left into what he saw as a must-be big tent Republican Party. In the June 1 Wall Street Journal, Richard Brookhiser reminded us of Buckley the Conservative who employed the same weapon to do just the opposite. Instead of party recruitment, Buckley used his brainpower as a battery to energize the magnetic pull of conservatism so that more Americans were attracted to the movement, regardless of which party they belonged to.

Ronald Reagan, ?unlike William F. Buckley, who urged his followers to shout ?stop!? to the onrushing currents of history,? Emery reminds us, ?thought history would be on his side.?? Buckley, whom Brookhiser says ?helped create the climate of opinion in which Ronald Reagan was elected president,? was unsure of such inevitability. Thus, both men?s immediate priorities were demonstrably different.

Whereas Reagan yearned for a robust and powerful Republican Party, Buckley was interested in nurturing a sacred and safely fortressed conservative movement. Emery?s Reagan wished to use a strongly populated GOP to torpedo his conservative message into the halls of the federal government. Brookhiser?s Buckley focused on keeping an increasingly popular American conservatism alive and pure by staying on the lookout for imposters or moderates, and thereby preventing its host party from fatal infection.

Both Reagan and Buckley were conservatives. Both were Republicans who had at least the general wellbeing of their party in mind. And they each shared the common goal of deterring and defeating what had come to be known as modern liberalism. But, according to Emery and Brookhiser, their ways of going about doing so (and thus the models they?re asking us to emulate) were quite different.

In Emery?s piece, ?Reagan in Opposition,? she details how Reagan refused to campaign for Jeffery Bell, his former aide ?who mounted a conservative primary challenge in the 1978 midterms to Senator Clifford Case of New Jersey.? Reagan?s reasoning was similar to that of President Bush when he supported Sen. Lincoln Chafee over his far more conservative primary opponent in 2006: Party first. (Sen. Case lost to Bell, but Reagan was somewhat vindicated when Bell eventually lost to former Sen. Bill Bradley.)

In his column, ?Bill Buckley and the Future of Conservatism,? Brookhiser recalls how Buckley ?was married to the GOP, but ? never expected it to be faithful to his ideas, and ? fought it when it strayed.? Such was the case when he challenged Republican John Lindsay for Mayor of New York in 1965 as a candidate for the state?s independent Conservative Party. Buckley ?went even further in party disloyalty? when he backed a liberal Democrat named Joe Lieberman in a 1988 Connecticut Senate race over the even more liberal Lowell Weicker, the Republican incumbent, helping cost Lowell the seat.

Clearly, we?re told, Reagan and Buckley viewed the relationship between the GOP and the conservative movement in different lights.? Reagan ?was a conservative and a Republican,? writes Emery, ?who understood the two roles of a movement and party, and how the two roles can converge.? However, she also claims that Reagan ?understood that the Republican Party has no obligation to present the conservative movement with a nominee to its liking.? This starkly contrasts Buckley?s position, which Brookhiser summed in no uncertain terms: ?The party should, as much as possible, support the movement, not the other way around.?

Two conservative icons, two different arguments to contemplate.

Assuming these recent analyses of Reagan and Buckley are faithful to the men?s actual political outlooks, the conflict of which example to follow back to prominence can appear daunting. Nevertheless, middle ground can be found.

Emery?s piece (subtitled, ?The Lessons of 1977?) brings us back to times like today, after the 1976 election when, as Robert Novak put it, the ?long descent of the Republican Party into irrelevance, defeat, and perhaps eventual disappearance? was becoming a (foolishly) accepted reality. In the face of a liberal Democratic majority in Washington and a country swollen with malaise, there stood Reagan?sunny, bright, and ardently right?using his words and wit to tug the American center towards his side of the yard.

Through his lecture circuit, columns, and radio broadcasts, Reagan sought to ?reframe conservatism in his own image? and make the Republican Party its home. In order to do so he needed to shake the dead skin of Nixon and Ford off the GOP and cloak it the antique armor of happier warriors like Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. A former FDR/Truman Democrat himself, Reagan believed a party that reflected his view of America and his ideology could and would become a national party.

Buckley?s belief was equally confident and ambitious. Brookhiser describes his early postwar political vision:

The new president, Dwight Eisenhower, despite his conservative instincts, was unwilling to pick ideological fights. ? Germany, Japan and (it seemed) the Depression had been beaten by great collective efforts. The world had moved into a new era, and conservatives should recognize the fact.

Buckley would have none of it. He wanted a conservatism that stood for capitalism and freedom. The Cold War required another great mobilization, which Buckley supported wholeheartedly, but he would not lose sight of his individualistic goals.

Both Reagan and Buckley eventually got what they wanted: a national conservative Republican Party. Thanks to that entity, the Cold War ended in America?s favor and a new conservative consensus was solidified at home. Ultimately, their different approaches to their party and their movement did not matter as much as their similar tactics in winning over the hearts and minds they needed to turn their dream into a reality. It was the common method with which they fought for their common cause as political minorities that eventually lifted them atop the tidal wave that hurled them into majority rule.

According to Emery, Reagan ?was optimistic, inclusive, positive, disciplined, and focused on large issues.? So was Buckley. According to Brookhiser, ?Buckley thought it was possible to change climates of opinion, he knew it was futile to try to change certain facts about human nature? He was always trying to apply those great principles [first articulated by Burke] to the problems of the day.? So did Reagan.

Thus, it was Reagan?s willingness to allow anyone?ex-Democrats, moderates, single issue voters?into the Republican fold that made the party grow. But these new voters had to be at least comfortable with the GOP?s foundational philosophy if they were going to be pulling its lever in the voting booth. Thus, it was Buckley?s tolerance for an evolving conservatism that enabled the Republican Party to wrap itself around the conservative movement and remain palatable to voters for a generation.

Neither man ever ?opposed for the sake of opposing.? They always maintained a certain ?tone of voice? with which they offered their alternatives, often ?bringing in large blocs of ex-Democrats? in the process. Reagan, like Buckley, ?understood that his role was less to attack than to persuade,? especially as a candidate for higher office.? Thanks to the maturity and civility of both men, the GOP and the conservative movement benefited exponentially.

But Reagan?s unique ?tone of voice? and Buckley?s ?hyperarticulate defense of ideas? were not entirely what gave conservatives their time in the sun. Ultimately, the right came to respect and appreciate the need for the Republican Party as the only real means to advance their goals. Despite Buckley?s ?turbulent relationship? with the GOP, Brookhiser argues, he still ?never believed in trying to replace it with a new national party.? Wisely, Emery says, Reagan ?rebuilt the Republican Party around [the conservative movement], as a large and a national force.? Overall, the movement and the party, with full focus on their common adversary, more or less told one another, ?I?ll have your back if you got mine.? Majority status awaited them.

Those days are now over. Reagan and Buckley are gone and the Republican Party hasn?t had the uncomfortable relationship it now seems to have with the conservative movement since long before 1980. It doesn?t have to be like this.

Now back in minority status, many conservative activists are antsy and distrustful. Yes, much of their anxiety is understandable. But there lays a risk that their angst will only damage the GOP and prolong its time in the political wilderness. Such will be the case if certain conservatives (and you know which ones) keep telling themselves that party purity is more important than a party victory.

The time to be frank is now. A selfish ?take it or leave it? attitude by the base of the conservative movement towards the Republican Party is nothing less than a gift to the Democratic Party. Conservatives should not tell themselves, ?Well, as long as it?s Republicans the voters hate, we?re fine!? Nor should they believe for one minute that ?protest-voting? (which I witnessed far too much of here in DC last fall) is noble or commendable. All those who voted for Bob Barr to ?stick it to the Republicans? because ?John McCain wasn?t a real conservative? didn?t ?teach the party a lesson.? They simply voted for a lunatic and helped Barack Obama.

All successful relationships require commitment and effort from both sides. Emery is right when she says that ?the conservative movement has the obligation to lay out its case in so convincing a manner that it persuades most Republicans, most independents, and even some Democrats to follow its banner.? Living in a happy bubble is unacceptable. Meanwhile, Brookhiser reminds us that Buckley was in fact not a ?complete ideologue? and ultimately understood that ?the political vehicle of a late 20th century conservative movement was bound to be the Republican Party.?

The same goes for the 21st century. The days of disgruntled conservatives treating the GOP as little more than a quaint political organism to be considered for electoral use each November but free to threaten afterwards must end now. The purity tests and RINO hunting should cease and desist; the name of the game should be convincing others, not convicting our own. The common legacy of Reagan and Buckley would be honored, and those Americans wishing for a Washington without Obama would be grateful.

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Tom Qualtere?currently serves as research assistant to the president of The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. This column among many others can also be found at NewMajority.com.