Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Economic Populism Rightly Understood

Yuval and Ramesh (with cool first names like those there’s no need to say more) have a great article on the right Republican view on economic populism in THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The Republicans have to admit that the middle-class is anxious or insecure and has good reason to be. Nobody with any astuteness worries that we’re slouching toward soft despotism any more; even prosperous Americans experience themselves as more on their own than ever. Huck is to be praised for seeing that fact clearly, and McCain and Giuliani are to be blamed for not facing up to it. Any Republican who’s going to be even competitive in November is going to have to be credible on being able to reduce health care stress, ease the middle-class tax burden, and really enforce immigration laws.
Only Huck and Romney, so far, seem up to the job. Huck, of course, may be weak on the specifics. And Mitt is very weak, so far, on focusing his message with the right kind of passion and purpose. He does have I’m too rich and perfect to feel the pain of the average screwed-up guy problem. Huck, of course, makes it easy to see how screwed up he is in some ways.

Discussions - 5 Comments

Here you go.

The man-love for Huckabee on this website is astounding. Except for the fact that he is religious, he is basically just a standard, big-government Democrat. I'm not happy with any of the choices right now, but he is pretty close to the bottom of the list. If I wanted to vote for a Democrat, I would have joined that party.

Seems to me Peter you're looking for ................................................................................................. GINGRICH!

But you derided him as a "bourgeois technocrat." Amazing that at this late date you see the wisdom of what he was proposing all along. Gingrich was out there on health care long before the issue was broached in this campaign.

Of course what I wanted to see was a Giuliani/Gingrich ticket.

Maybe Rick Santorum will jump in the race....

It's nice to see some conservative pundits losing their obsessive focus on the war. I've been getting the impression that a lot of them would cheerfuly accept communism in America if only it meant victory over Islamofascism.

Having read the article, I'm convinced that the GOP really missed the boat in not getting behind Hunter. He could have covered all these bases and satisfied each constituiency the GOP needs to reach. And he would not have dishonest in doing it.

He combined McCain's toughness on the war with appeal to Huck's social conservatives and the working class. He really was the all around conservative everyone says they are looking for.

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