David Frum does some party soul searching and some hand wringing over the candidates. Yet in his brief post he manages to continue to peddle a falsity about Mitt Romney: that Mitt has somehow abandoned his healthcare program from Massachusetts. Apparently Frum did not see the debate:

Labels: David Frum, healthcare

Ramesh Ponnuru has a follow up to some criticisms of Romney by David Frum (as rebutted here about a week ago). Ramesh had this to say in rebutting Frum also:

David Frum is criticizing Mitt Romney for not being tough enough on spending. "For a candidate to say that he wants to cut 'non-defense discretionary spending' is to say that he wants to leave 80% of the federal budget off limits." But that's not true. Romney talks about getting entitlements under control all the time. Granted, he has been less specific about how to do that than about cutting non-defense discretionary spending. But he has been more specific about both than any of the other candidates, which makes it kind of odd to single him out for criticism on this front.

Frum's second criticism is that Romney is backing away from his health-care plan. That's an overplayed story. From the beginning, Romney acknowledged that the Massachusetts legislature had altered his health-care plan in significant ways; and he did not, to my knowledge, ever say that he would use the legislation as a national model. But as recently as three weeks ago I heard him make a speech using the plan as an example of how health care can be reformed.

Labels: David Frum, Ramesh Ponnuru

The American Enterprise Institute has an article written by David Frum. He says that the Reagan Revolution is over. Why? He explains:

In some shrewd instinctive way, the Republican party is sensing that the United States has changed. And just as the Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Grant eventually ran out of Civil War generals to nominate to the presidency, so perhaps time has run out for the old Nixon-Reagan coalition that came together to vote against the social upheavals of the 1960s and the 1970s.

So what does this have to do with Mitt Romney? Frum explains after extolling the virtues of Rudy Giuliani:

Mitt Romney had an equally compelling story of executive leadership to tell. He chose not to. He chose to run as Bush's heir in a year when even Republicans are looking for Bush's opposite. That choice is looking more and more misguided. It may soon look fatal.

Frum’s complaint is essentially that, in spite of Romney’s executive leadership abilities, Romney is a social conservative. He laments that Romney “has given short shrift to his breakthrough health-care achievement,” that he “chose the George H. W. Bush presidential library as the site of his first major foreign policy address,” and that Romney “dropped hints that if nominated, he would choose Florida governor Jeb Bush as his running mate” (although he mentioned at least 4 other names in that same conversation). For these unforgivables Frum declares the end of the Reagan movement.

Frum’s complaint seems overly dramatic. Does Romney’s social conservatism REALLY mean the end of the Reagan revolution? It hardly seems to be the case, since EVERY GOP candidate (including his beloved Rudy) has invoked Reagan and is attempting to follow in the footsteps of the Great Communicator. Rather it seems that Compassionate Conservatism has experienced an untimely demise. There is little doubt that conservatives feel burned by the Bush administration, but it is not because of Bush’s social conservatism. Indeed, one of the high points of his administration has been Bush’s nomination of Justices Roberts and Alito. The frastration with Bush is because he has failed to follow Reagan’s lead to shrink government and competently fight our enemies abroad. Had Bush been able to accomplish these goals, he would be universally praised. However, Bush has not competently pursued these goals, allowing government to bloat and our enemies to fester.

Thus, Romney’s social conservatism hardly connotes the end of the Reagan Revolution. Moreover it indicates the return to conservative principles across the board. Romney would be a return to Reagan’s principles where Bush deviated. Rudy’s candidacy would patently discard an important part of Reagan’s legacy. Romney, however, accepts all of Reagan’s principles: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and, yes, social conservatism.

Labels: American Enterprise Institute, David Frum, Reagan Revolution, social conservatism