Robert D. Novak has been a fixture on the Washington political scene for over four decades now. As a syndicated columnist and CNN talk show host, both with his recently deceased partner Rowland Evans, and first a member of the McLaughlin Group and then a founding member of CNN's Capital Gang, he has written and spoken volumes on American politics. But it has been twenty years since he wrote a book, and those prior efforts were mostly journalistic accounts of the presidencies that he and Evans covered. Completing the Revolution , though it still has its fair share of reporting, particularly on the exhaustion of the Republican Revolution of 1994 and the confrontation with Bill Clinton, is something quite different. What Bob Novak essentially gives us here is a kind of a throwback to the old campaign biography/manifesto, exemplified by Barry Goldwater's great Conscience of a Conservative, where candidates used to lay out their political philosophy and a rough blueprint for what they intended to do if elected. In fact, in a weird sense, Novak's book is a campaign book in search of a candidate (which seems serendipitous since George W. Bush's campaign bio was widely recognized as the worst book of its kind in modern memory.)
This book was motivated by what Novak saw as a rather massive miscalculation by the Congressional Republicans, their belief that they could govern from the Hill, despite not having the Presidency. He does an effective job of showing how Bill Clinton and Dick Morris utilized the unique powers of the modern presidency to demonize much of the GOP agenda and of showing how hard it was for the Republicans to respond, because they had a harder time commanding public attention and because, with a large group of individuals whose ideas and interests were often at odds with one another, they naturally hard a harder time deciding on, explaining, and sticking to directions. The result was two really catastrophic defeats in budget negotiations. First, in 1995, the GOP blinked first during the government shutdown. This was disastrous not merely in policy terms, where sticking to their guns would have vindicated party principles and couldn't have done any additional political damage, but also in psychological terms, in that it made them scared of Bill Clinton. This intimidation led directly to the second budget fiasco, when even though they had Clinton on the impeachment ropes, they cut a budget deal in order to go home and campaign for re-election in 1998. The cumulative effect of these defeats was that the Revolution lost all of its momentum, Clinton was revived, and subsequent battles ended up being fought, if not on ground of Clinton's choosing, at least on neutral ground.
Novak thus felt it imperative for the Republicans to win the White House in 2000, in order to be able to complete the Revolution. His premise for how they could achieve that end was simple :
If the Republican Party is to reach its full potential
as an engine of conservative reform, it must
embrace its own principles--despite the discomfort
this may bring the congressional leadership--and
it needs to articulate a true vision for victory
in 2000.
True to this vision, he laid out a program calling for a return to first principles and requiring the Party to demonstrate the courage of its convictions :
Tax Reform. The courage to scrap
the Internal Revenue Code even though the alternative system
will be savaged as favoring the rich against the
poor.
Diminished Government. The courage
to cut back on the bloated federal Leviathan, even though
the popular Education Department and the special-interest
favored National Endowment for the Arts
would be endangered.
Enlightened Nationalism. The courage
to stand for a strong national defense, free trade, and a
nonbelligerent foreign policy while averting the
temptation to serve as a policeman for the entire
world.
Equal Rights. The courage to
stand against racial quotas and for educational choice, amid
accusations of racism.
Government Reform. The courage
to stand for term limits and campaign finance reform, even
though in the short run they may seem to be to the
disadvantage of the Republican party.
Privatized Social Security. The courage
to end, not mend, the existing Social Security system
for the future, so that the protracted Ponzi scheme
is replaced by a privatized pension plan.
Right to Life. The courage to
oppose abortion as a moral question, even at the risk of losing
Republican supporters.
Individual Freedom. The courage
to return governmental emphasis to the freedom of the
individual to do the unwise--to spend his own money
as he wishes, to own guns, even to smoke
cigarettes.
With the exception of his advocacy of campaign finance reform, this a pretty classic conservative agenda. What's most interesting is that, other than Novak's failure to include much discussion of school vouchers, it is also pretty much George W. Bush's agenda. In fact, though it seems that the book was written in part to warn against the nomination of a candidate as moderate as Novak perceived Bush to be, in the end, not only did George W run on much of this agenda, he is governing on it, and as a result has a chance to be the most conservative president since Novak's favorite : Calvin Coolidge.
Near the end of the book, there's a quote from Phil Gramm, a man who in many ways represents the very best of the Republican Party in terms of ideas and the very worst in terms of appealing to Soccer Moms and pundits :
The longer I live the more convinced I am that there
are only two ideas in history: government and
freedom. When government is the answer, the
Democrats are in the ascendancy. When freedom is
the answer, we are in the ascendancy.
He could not be more right. And what gives Bob Novak's message
a sense of urgency is that this is a historical moment when freedom is
clearly the answer. This is a moment when the Republican Party has
to act on its core beliefs, even if it means being savaged by the press
and by the Democrats. The opportunities to extend human freedom are
too few and far between to let this one slip away while politicians try
to stay popular and get re-elected. The time has come to complete
the revolution. Tis a consummation for which Bob Novak has devoutly
wished.
(Reviewed:11-Apr-01)
Grade: (B+)
