I’m a former state legislator and, prior to the work I now do with the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a middle and high school teacher. MHPC is a state-based public policy think tank that, to borrow from our mission statement, “formulates and promotes conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise; limited, constitutional government; individual freedom; and traditional American values.” Among other things, I work on education policy for the Center.
MHPC is non-partisan, but I am a Republican and served two terms in the state legislature representing two towns on the coast of Maine, Camden and Rockport. I would have served longer had I not lost a re-election bid by a hundred votes in 2006. The Republicans lost 15 House seats in that election, similar to the kinds of losses sustained by Republicans in State Houses all over the country. The Republicans just lost another half-dozen House seats this past Election Day. Democrats now have an almost two-to-one majority in the Maine House, up from a one-seat majority four years ago.
These losses would not be surprising, given GOP misrule in Washington over the past few years, were it not for the fact that Maine has been so poorly governed by the Democrats for all these years. For a generation, the other party has more-or-less run the state, raising taxes, growing government, fostering dependency, and otherwise doing those things Democrats do. As a consequence, the state has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation, has almost a quarter of its population on Medicaid, is watching its creative and productive classes pack up and leave, and has seen virtually no economic growth since the late 1990’s.
So Maine is a mess, yet Maine voters continue to re-elect the same people that are making the state worse with each passing day.
Why? And what can we do about it? How can we restore the conservative movement, both here in Maine, where it once reigned supreme, and across the nation?
Developing answers to those questions is the purpose of this blog.
I have been trying to answer these questions for myself over the past year and half or so by doing some reading on conservative thinking. I started off with some of the giants: William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell. Eat the Rich, by P.J. O’Rourke, is a masterwork of economics, and though Mark Steyn’s America Alone is ostensibly about the rise of Islam, it really has more to do with self-destruction of modern nanny-state Europe. I’m currently working on Upstream, by Al Regnery, a history of the rise of conservatism
I have also been reading about the struggles of the modern Republican party, by authors such as David Frum and Michael Gerson. I’m soon starting on Douthat and Salam’s Grand New Party as well.
Lately, I’ve become fascinated by the ongoing debate about the future of conservatism that is taking place in the blogosphere. A quick glance at my blogroll will give you some indication of where I come down in the ongoing debate between the “reformists,” who want the movement to broaden its message and its base, and the “retrenchment” side, which feels that the conservative movement’s biggest mistake is not being conservative enough.
I would place myself in the David Brooks, Ross Douthat, David Frum, Ramesh Ponnuru, wing, which is to say the reformist side of the debate. Yes, we need to be far more conservative, but we need do it in a more thoughtful way than we have in the past, a way that broadens the appeal of our fundamental governing philosophy.
I live in Maine, which, in defiance of national trends, continues to send two Republican senators to Washington; Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Collins just won reelection by absolutely crushing an ostensibly well-liked six-term Democratic Congressman. Moderate Republicans can win in blue-state Maine, which leads me to believe they can win elsewhere. I’m not thrilled with everything “the ladies from Maine” have done, and would certainly count myself as far more conservative than either of them. But, as David Brooks recently told a crowd at a Young Americans for Freedom event, you can’t serve if you don’t win. There are many in my party who would prefer to lose than to vote for a moderate Republican, but I am not one of them.
So if we are going to reform our message and try to have something to say that will bring more people into the tent, what is it that we want to say? What are the new approaches and new ideas we should embrace? What is our strategy for getting this new, more hopeful message out there? How do we rebuild this great political and philosophical movement?
Welcome, and stay tuned…
