Flirting with Liberalism Again

Once again the American electorate is flirting with liberalism. It has been a long time since we have done a mating dance with liberals, and the flirtations have been tenuous at best. Since the end of World War II, there has only been one liberal (re: progressive) President as we currently define it.

John Kennedy was not “liberal” in the modern sense. He cut taxes and believed in a strong defense. A military man himself, he was not afraid to use American power. He learned his lesson in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and after naively meeting with Nikita Khrushchev without an agenda. Khrushchev believed Kennedy to be weak, which led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis. But Kennedy understood the military and the use of American power, and the rest is history.

Lyndon Johnson was the first modern president that could fit the “progressive” mode, with his Great Society programs and Civil Rights legislation. But on defense, he was conservative. One can debate the Vietnam War forever, but in my humble opinion, the war was lost not on the battlefield, but here at home. Ho Chi Minh stated overtly that American politics was his strongest weapon. Johnson, and subsequently Nixon, was forced to fight the war with one hand tied behind his back, never allowing the full force of the American military to do its job.

That gave rise to Eugene McCarthy, who almost defeated Johnson in New Hampshire. Eugene McCarthy was the first modern progressive to gain a foothold in American politics, not Bobby Kennedy, as the latest television docudrama would have you believe. Kennedy was late to the party, only entering the race after McCarthy destroyed the chance for a Johnson second term, and when Kennedy was sure that Hubert Humphrey could be beat at the Democratic Convention, something McCarthy could not do.

Jimmy Carter was the first true modern progressive president. It was a failed presidency. Those of us old enough to remember the Carter years try to block out the misery index, more commonly known as stagflation. Income tax rates were high. So were interest rates, choking off the housing industry, industrial expansion, and just about everything else. Inflation was rampant…and Carter lusted in his heart while complaining about American malaise. Then came the beginning of the escalation of problems in the Mideast from regional distress to a world class crisis. We are still paying the price for Carter failing to deal with the Iran hostage situation, which cost him the presidency.

The country shifted dramatically back to the right under Ronald Reagan. Then George H.W. Bush violated his pledge of “read my lips, no more taxes,” and the country once again shifted to the left and elected Bill Clinton, who learned a hard lesson. His election wasn't a mandate to shift to the left, but rather a repudiation of the first President Bush’s broken promises. Two years later, Bill Clinton was forced to govern from the center after the country rejected the progressive policies implemented when the Democrats controlled of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. The electorate switched control of both Houses to the Republicans.

Now we are flirting with progressive liberalism again, or are we? Since the 1932 election of President Roosevelt, America has NEVER voted “for” progressive liberalism, but only against the failure of the incumbent conservative President to deliver his conservative promises. Richard Nixon soundly defeated George McGovern’s progressive liberalism in 1972. Jimmy Carter was elected as a result of Watergate and Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Nixon, only to be defeated soundly by Ronald Reagan 4 years later. Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush on the basis of broken promises about taxes, only to be neutered by the electorate two years later after a failed attempt to nationalize health care as the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. George W. Bush defeated two progressive liberals, Al Gore and John Kerry.

I don’t think that this year will be any different. George W. Bush has failed to deliver on his promises of fiscal conservatism. He failed to deliver on his promises relating to partial birth abortion. He failed to deliver on his promises relating to illegal immigration. You can debate the merits of the Iraq war, but had it been managed better, it would not be an issue today. Proper military tactics have all but removed it from the front page of the newspapers.

As bad as the Bush numbers are, the popularity of the Democratic controlled Congress is even less, by almost 50%. What does that tell you? It tells you America doesn’t buy the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid agenda. If Obama should be elected President, he should know that a repudiation of George Bush is not a repudiation of the center/right ideological base of the American electorate. If Obama is elected President and views it as a “mandate” for a left wing political agenda, he will meet the same fate as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

America’s flirtations with liberalism always remind me of Jimmy Carter just a tad. We may lust in our hearts…but at the end of the day, we don’t touch.