THERE HAVE BEEN three national elections in the modern era in which conservatives made massive gains. In 1980, a conservative won the presidency. In 1994, conservatives became a majority of the party that controlled Congress. The 2002 election is another such advance. It is more surprising, and in that sense more impressive, than the others were. Conservatives were likely to do well in 1994, if not quite as well as they did, since a Democratic president was in office. In 1980, Ronald Reagan had a stagflationary economy to run against. This year, Republicans overcame both a weak economy and the midterm curse. No president has ever led his party to control of the Senate in his first midterm - until now. ...
Primary credit for the victories must go to President Bush. The president's hectic campaigning paid off in spades. The 2002 vote has to be seen as a vote of confidence in the president and a ratification of his victory in 2000. Democratic complaints about the Florida recount, which sounded tinny after September 11, are politically irrelevant now. Conservatives will continue to disagree with the president on some important matters - such as immigration, racial preferences, and steel tariffs - but we must acknowledge that our fortunes are largely tied to his, and that he has earned our gratitude.
Credit must, however, be shared with others: Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, Bill Frist, and Tom Davis, who made sound strategic choices; Ralph Reed, who led the Georgia Republicans to victories up and down the ticket; and Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay, who have held the House Republicans together for four years, sometimes with bubble gum and rubber bands. Republicans seem finally to have created a decent turn-out-the-vote operation.
The most obvious interpretation of the election results is probably the correct one: Voters were concerned about national security, and they trusted President Bush and the Republicans on the issue. Security was not the only issue; the economy was also on voters' minds. But Democrats had at best a slight edge on economics, while Republicans owned the security issue. On Iraq, the Democrats offered clever and shifting positioning where the voters wanted a clear pro-security stand. On homeland security, they obstructed the president's proposals to curry favor with their public-sector union supporters. The natural Republican advantage on the issue was augmented by the Democrats' frittering away of their credibility.
The war on terrorism wasn't the only winning Republican issue, though. Especially in the South, Republicans were effective in making the case that Senate Democrats were wrongly blocking the confirmation of conservative judges - and in no region did Democrats appear to have made their obstruction a reason to vote for them. Everywhere, President Bush and Republican candidates talked about making the tax cuts of 2001, above all the end of the estate tax, permanent. Almost everywhere, Democrats were on the defensive about the issue. They were also defensive about guns, and wisely so. In the race where they figured most prominently - the governor's race in Maryland, a relatively anti-gun state - gun control flopped. And while definitive judgments must await more data than we currently have, it appears that to the extent abortion was an issue in the elections, it helped pro-life Republicans.
The conservatism that won in 2002, in comparison to the conservatism of 1980 or 1994, is a chastened one. This president is not likely to overreach, as Newt Gingrich did on Medicare. The more pressing danger is that Bush and the Republicans will find it hard to deliver on their promises - to voters in general, and conservatives in particular. (Note that the one Senate seat that the Republicans lost this year went Democratic because Tim Hutchinson lost support from his conservative base.) Conservative voters should adopt realistic expectations, but Republican politicians will have to show that they are trying. The first priority for Republicans should be to ensure that Bush has the ability to fire and reassign people in anti-terrorism agencies. If the election is a mandate for anything, it's that unions' demands should not trump national security. Second, Republicans should confirm conservative judges. They should seek a ban on cloning, an issue where the polls favor them and the danger of inaction grows daily. On taxes, the limits of the possible have moved rightward.
Republicans might be able to win enough votes to make tax cuts permanent and should certainly try. More important, they should press an investors' bill of rights containing a tax cut on dividends and a major expansion of IRAs and 401(k)s - including a liberalization of the rules to allow people to withdraw money from their accounts to pay for health-care costs. These policies would pave the way for a reform of Social Security based on private investment. Although we do not support new prescription-drug subsidies in principle, public demand for them is too strong for Republicans to ignore. Those subsidies should be coupled, if possible, with reforms to Medicare. With the state attorneys general looking to transform the pharmaceutical industry, effectively, into a regulated public utility, the need for tort reform is greater than ever. Finally, President Bush has an opportunity to insist that when federal welfare programs are re-authorized, work requirements are strengthened rather than weakened.
President Bush's political victories have been enormously impressive. But we think he understands that those victories are worth winning only to the extent that they pave the way for improved public policy. He invested his political capital in the elections and earned a handsome payoff. The biggest dividends, however, lie ahead.