Colin Powell and the Failure of Moderate Republicanism
By Jeffrey Lord on 5.26.09 @ 6:09AM
Colin Powell doesn't get it.
Neither do moderate Republicans, which is why there are an increasingly fewer number of them left.
Let's start with Powell's recent statement on Face the Nation that his late friend Jack Kemp "was as conservative as anybody" and believed in "reaching out." So far, so good. Correct on both counts. Kemp was a proud conservative and did indeed believe in reaching out. He not only believed these things, he lived them. A generation of passionately inspired conservatives are part of the Kemp -- and Ronald Reagan -- legacy.
Then Powell added this: Jack Kemp believed in "sharing the wealth of the country not only with the rich, but with those who are least advantaged in our society."
Stop right there, General. Respectfully, this is as false as it can be. It's like describing the 90 degree heat on the Fourth of July as a February blizzard with temperatures of 50 below freezing. Jack Kemp believed no such thing.
As anyone who worked for Kemp can tell you (and I, along with many others, had the chance), Jack Kemp was a tireless proponent of what he loved to call economic opportunity. Never, in any way, shape or form did he ever espouse the idea that "sharing the wealth" was anything but harmful -- to the country, to society and, most particularly to the least advantaged among us. He disdained the approach Powell seems to be repeatedly advocating these days as "bread slicing" versus "bread baking" economics.
Kemp was a "bread baker." Powell the Obama-supporter has put himself on the side of the "bread slicers."
Specifically, Kemp said things like this:
• "Opportunity, the chance to make it and to improve your life, that's what the American Dream is all about. What poisons the dream is when government stands in the way, throwing up more roadblocks that are really unnecessary. More and more people sense along the way that they're not going to fulfill their potential not because of a deficiency in their ambition or ability, but because of a deficiency in the political structure. Their honest ambitions are frustrated. They believe, often rightly, that somehow the flaws of government have held them back or cut them down. What really gripes is that we also know it is not a case of an individual sacrifice for the good of all….Our government is the other team -- and it's winning!"
• "The sad truth is that for too long Republicans beat a mental retreat from leadership….After Barry Goldwater went down to defeat as the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, the 'moderates' and 'progressives' in the party stepped forward with a host of ideas on how to rebuild the party.…it seemed to me that the Republicans were giving in to the idea that what the voters wanted from the Republicans was not more competition but less…Republicans would try to be more like Democrats, which meant more spending, more taxes, more government standing between the individual and the American Dream. …"
• "If one political party concentrates on increasing public spending (Democrats) and the other party concentrates on decreasing public spending (Republican moderates) who is left to concentrate on economic growth, on the expansion of opportunities that can only come from such growth? Who is left to prevent the American Dream from becoming a distant memory in an increasingly segmented, selfish, Europeanized politics -- the kind of which Jefferson was so fearful? This is why a Republican revolution is so important, and why it can only come as the GOP increasingly focuses its intellectual resources and political skills on generating a climate for economic growth. Republicans must commit themselves boldly and relentlessly to real economic expansion, to the growth of opportunity, and with that a return of hope."
And what is Colin Powell's response?
"Americans do want to pay taxes for services….Americans are looking for more government in their lives, not less."
In short, this is the same -- the very same -- quintessential response that Republican moderates have been urging as the path to victory every single time they wound up losing the latest election, a period that begins with Dewey and hopefully ended with McCain. They believe being "inclusive" means copying Democrats with policies of more taxes and higher spending -- just a bit less than the other guys. As Kemp never tired of pointing out, moderates were forever "cloaking Democratic ideas in elephant suits."