The Occasional Observer

DaveG (a Rudy supporter) has written an interesting piece at Race 4 '08. It expands on David Brooks' article in the NY Times concerning the rise of Huckabee and McCain, and treating it as a possible turning point in the core principles of the GOP. Here's the concluding portion of Dave's post:

...the national Republican Party may also be ready for its Pete Wilson moment, i.e., for an election that transforms the party from one that adheres to the Reagan model of supply-side economics, limited government, a quiet social conservatism, and a hawkishness on defense to something other than that. In California, the evolution was towards a new liberal Republicanism. But nationally, we may be seeing the beginning of the Party of Pawlenty.

If John McCain wins New Hampshire next Tuesday, this will mark the first time ever that both the Hawkeye and Granite States have given their respective top spots to culturally conservative economic pragmatists without any real philosophical opposition to government action. Mike Huckabee and John McCain are far from the same candidate, but on domestic issues, both seem to be cut from a similar cloth, which is also the formula embraced and perhaps embodied by the current governor of Minnesota. This is why all three men are viewed suspiciously by the increasingly irrelevant conservative establishment, which, in an almost Pharisaic manner, demands only that candidates check very specific boxes without concern for new, inventive approaches to running government in a changing world.

As Brooks notes, though, the differences between McCain and Huckabee are real, and they seem to represent dueling, if imperfect, prototypes for a post-Reagan Republicanism. But both seem to emanate from the Pawlenty formula, which consists of a non-ideological economic policy with a focus on problem-solving and a post-culture-war cultural conservatism that emphasizes the human dignity side of social issues and that comprehends the overlap between social policy and other sorts of policy, such as the relationship between single-parent homes, poverty, and crime. This sort of real-world, hands-on conservatism seems to be the form of Republicanism that is catching on along the Mississippi River. Should the race for the GOP nod come down to Huckabee and McCain on Super Tuesday, we’ll be looking at a very different set of Republican philosophies battling to lead an ever-evolving Republican Party. In that sense, perhaps 2008 is not the year in which conservatism will be condemned, but fulfilled. Perhaps the Republican Party won’t go the way of the Whigs, but will instead be born anew.