Revitalizing Conservatism - Return To Principled Conservatism

This new brand of conservatism based on building a coalition of interests (the K-Street Project) as opposed to building a coalition based on principles and ideas has a created a Republican Party that sold its soul for the benefit of a few years of political power. The fact that there is even a discussion as to whether or not principled conservatism should be the foundation of the GOP is evidence of just how far conservatism has lost it's way.

What are the core principles of principled conservatism? Now that is a debate worth having and thankfully many conservative thinkers are engaged in this discussion.

First Principles - National Security / Smaller Government / Fiscal Responsibility / Personal Liberty

That's a pretty good list.

Michael Steele - Empowerment / Ownership / Opportunity

That's a good list.

Jeff Flake wrote a good article which appeared in the Washington Post the day after the election.

I suggest that we return to first principles. At the top of that list has to be a recommitment to limited government. After eight years of profligate spending and soaring deficits, voters can be forgiven for not knowing that limited government has long been the first article of faith for Republicans.

Of course, it's not the level of spending that gets the most attention; it's the manner in which the spending is allocated. The proliferation of earmarks is largely a product of the Gingrich-DeLay years, and it's no surprise that some of the most ardent practitioners were earmarked by the voters for retirement yesterday. Few Americans will take seriously Republican speeches on limited government if we Republicans can't wean ourselves from this insidious practice. But if we can go clean, it will offer a stark contrast to the Democrats, who, after two years in training, already have their own earmark favor factory running at full tilt.

Second, we need to recommit to our belief in economic freedom. Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" may be on the discount rack this year, but the free market is still the most efficient means to allocate capital and human resources in an economy, and Americans know it. Now that we've inserted government deeply into the private sector by bailing out banks and businesses, the temptation will be for government to overstay its welcome and force the distribution of resources to serve political ends. Substituting political for economic incentives is not the recipe for economic recovery.

There are, of course, other pillars of the Republican standard -- strong national defense, support for traditional values and the Second Amendment -- but these are not areas where voters question Republican bona fides. In any event, as we have seen over the past several months, economic woes tend to subsume other concerns. We shouldn't complain. We can now play our strongest hand.

In some respects, raising a new standard was made easier by yesterday's rout. The Republican Party is not bound by election-year promises made by its presidential nominee. More important, the party is finally untethered from the ill-fitting and unworkable big-government conservatism that defined the Bush administration.

At the end of the day, a return to principled conservatism away from big government big spending conservatism won't be enough by itself to win elections, but it is a great place to start.