Frum on Obama's Socialism

David Frum offers a voice of reason in response to a "senior Republican's" email that decries "President Obama's 'march to socialism.'" Frum concedes that his GOP colleagues might find confirmation of such fears in all the talk of nationalizing some of the major banks, but, he asserts:

A federal bank takeover is a bad thing obviously. I wonder though if we conservatives understand clearly enough why it is a bad thing. It’s not because we are living through an enactment of the early chapters of Atlas Shrugged. It’s because the banks are collapsing. Obama, Pelosi, et al are big-spending, high-taxing liberals. They are not socialists. They are no more eager to own these banks than the first President Bush was to own the savings and loan industry – in both cases, federal ownership was a final recourse after a terrible failure. And it was on our watch, not Obama’s, that this failure began. Our refusal to take notice of this obvious fact may excite the Republican faithful. But it is doing tremendous damage to our ability to respond effectively to the crisis.

Reaching for the knee-jerk, cliche-ridden expressions of outrage doesn't help; it merely reinforces the ideological wall between parties. Of course, politicians on both sides of the aisle would find it more constructive to examine their party's role in our economic crisis (doesn't the party that held the Congressional reins from the early 1990s until January 2007 bear some responsibility?), map out how we got to this point, and then help to remedy our national crisis, but such examination would require acknowledging that mistakes have been made, and that to progress, we must adapt and change rather than continue applying old policies to new problems. But that would mean dissolving that wall of ideology--at least partially-- and then what would these folks base their campaigns on in 2010? Is politics truly nothing more than tribalism now?

Added: In an interview with The Washington Times, Jon Huntsman, Republican governor of Utah, has some choice words about the GOP's "gratuitous partisanship" in lieu of ideas:

[Hunstman] said his party is blighted by leaders in Congress whose lack of new ideas renders them so "inconsequential" that he doesn't even bother to talk to them.

[and on fiscal responsibility:]

"Our moral soapbox was completely taken away from us because of our behavior in the last few years. For us to now criticize analogous behavior is hypocrisy. We've got to come at it a different way. We've got to prove the point. It can't be as the Chinese would say, 'fei hua,' [or] empty words."

David Frum, Post-NRO

As he leaves NRO, David Frum unveils his plans for a new website, NewMajority.com, which will debut shortly after the inauguration. Frum says the site will feature a variety of opinions, and they won’t be simply Conservative or Republican; as Frum explains, “they - and people like them - are the people conservatives and Republicans need.” He elaborates further:

Over the past three years, I have been engaged in some intense rethinking of my own conservatism. My fundamental political principles remain the same as ever: free markets, American leadership in the world, and intense attachment to inherited moral and cultural traditions. Yet I cannot be blind to the evidence that we have seen free markets produce some damaging and dangerous results in recent years. Or that the foreign policy I supported has not yielded the success I would have wished to see. Or that traditions must evolve if they are to endure. There are new princip[l]es too that must be included in a majority conservatism: environmental protection as a core value and an unwavering insistence upon competence and integrity in government. (Frum)

Frum's site offers the potential for being an invigorating forum; let's hope it works out for him.

David Frum: "Save the Senators"

David Frum's dissatisfaction with the McCain-Palin campaign has been well noted in conservative, liberal, and neutral media alike. In his latest column, "Sorry, Senator. Let's Salvage What We Can,"Frum argues that, because NRCC and RNC fundraising has been lacking, and the discrepancy between Republican and Democratic warchests is impossibly vast, the RNC should lessen its contribution to the presidential contest and focus, instead, on senatorial races:

In these last days before the vote, Republicans need to face some strategic realities. Our resources are limited, and our message is failing. We cannot fight on all fronts. We are cannibalizing races that we must win and probably can win in order to help a national campaign that is almost certainly lost. In these final 10 days, our goal should be: senators first.

There's been similar mumbling amongst Republican commentators for a week or two now, but I'm unsure if anyone has been so direct in their assessment of, and recommendations for, the remaining days of the election. My guess? The RNC won't--can't--heed Frum's advice. To do so would be to "wave the white flag of surrender."