fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Short Memories

Ben Smith notes that 44% now say they would prefer to have Bush as President according to a recent PPP poll. At first, that seems startling because of the tremendous improvement in Bush’s approval numbers that this represents, but it is more interesing as evidence of how quickly people forget their complaints against an earlier […]

Ben Smith notes that 44% now say they would prefer to have Bush as President according to a recent PPP poll. At first, that seems startling because of the tremendous improvement in Bush’s approval numbers that this represents, but it is more interesing as evidence of how quickly people forget their complaints against an earlier government and how ready they are to edit their memories of that time selectively to make them seem much better than the present. It is also a product of a partisan reflex for people to insist that the President from their party was better.

After all, McCain won 47% of the vote, and as far as policy was concerned he was as close to a Bush clone as could be expected under the circumstances. Clearly, when most voters expressed dissatisfaction with Bush during his second term most of the Republicans and right-leaning independents among them did not really disagree with the substance of what Bush had tried to do, but rather they were dissatisfied because of the administration’s repeated failures and blunders. In the end, by supporting McCain these Republicans and independents voted to continue virtually everything Bush had done, even though the failures of the same policies were what had soured them on his tenure.

Speaking of short memories, for some reason Rick Santorum is apparently being taken seriously as a national Republican figure again. It is unlikely that Santorum could have prevailed in 2006 even if he had not run the most tone-deaf campaign in recent history. The anti-incumbent and anti-GOP sentiments around the country and especially in Pennsylvania were probably too strong for him to have survived, but he made sure that his defeat was overwhelming by obsessing about the dangers from the Venezuelan air force and Iran, the leader of the so-called “Islamic fascist movement.” At that point, all Bob Casey had to do was show up, demonstrate an ability to speak English, and he was in.

The frustrating thing about Santorum is that he is at his worst when he talks about national security issues and he has nonetheless chosen to make national security alarmism his central and overriding message for the last three years, and he shows no signs of stopping. The conventional view is that Santorum’s strong social conservatism is his greatest liability with the public if he were to pursue a presidential bid or another attempt at statewide office, but this is exaggerated. What was disastrous for Santorum in 2006 and ever since is his obsession with foreign threats that do not exist or which he grossly exaggerates. Not only did this make him seem hard to take seriously three years ago, but it meant that he spent most of his time fixated on problems about which most voters knew little and cared even less. For the last three years, he has made his role as alarmist his full-time job, so we have to assume that this would figure prominently in any future political campaign.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here