Town halls, tea parties won't get the job done

Conservatives need to stop complaining - and start offering specific solutions
by Kevin Leininger

According to most media reports, the conservatives packing town-hall meetings from coast to coast are an angry, humorless lot. But the fake Secret Service agents and cardboard cutouts of Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh at Tuesday night's event were a hoot.

Despite stories about gun-totin' yahoo protesters, no firearms were visible in the crowd of about 500 at the Guesthouse - although I didn't frisk anybody to make sure.
Unlike an idiot Arizona pastor named Steven Anderson, nobody prayed out loud for President Obama's death, although many made it clear they seek an end to his policies.

Heck, except for a comment blaming most of America's financial problems on the Federal Reserve, I didn't even hear any wacky conspiracy theories.
So why do I - and more than a few card-carrying conservatives I know - think the town-hall protests, like the round of tea parties before them, are nearing the end of their useful lives?

Because as therapeutic as it may be to vent pent-up frustrations, it's not enough simply to rail against abortion, massive deficits, big government, internationalism, secularism or anything else. Lasting political and cultural success demands that, sooner or later, a movement must be for something, too.

With all due respect to Bryan Brown, master of ceremonies at Tuesday's "Patriots Town Hall," his "let's restore the U.S. Constitution" stance articulates a broad and worthwhile mission but lacked the specific strategies and goals needed to define and achieve it. Without them, this movement, for all its virtues, will be just another temporarily appealing but ultimately futile exercise.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, 40 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative compared with 21 percent who describe themselves as liberals. And yet, when it comes to political activism, conservatives are at a distinct disadvantage for one simple reason: They are, by definition, less inclined to look to government for help. If you want government to leave you alone, you're probably not going to spend a lot of time trying to influence it.
The fact that the current wave of protests is largely a conservative, white, Christian phenomenon is important precisely for that reason. As Brown noted, groups that formerly felt empowered are feeling threatened - and are responding as other "disenfranchised" groups have in the past.

But even if they succeed in booting Obama and the congressional Democratic majority out of office, what then? George W. Bush and the Republican-dominated Congress didn't exactly demonstrate consistent conservative principles when they had the chance. When it comes to spending and bloated, wasteful government, Obama and today's Democrats are worse only in degree, not in nature.

You don't like Obama's health care plans? Fine. But it's hard to defend the current system, either. What's the conservative \pard softlinealternative? How do you pay for it?

Robbed of an intelligent, informed and coherent strategy, populism - on the left or right - is just a synonym for obstructionism and chaos. That can be necessary at times, but is no substitute for action.

Brown acknowledges that the coalition present Tuesday night is not unanimous in its goals. The libertarians, for example, favor small government but are not generally pro-life. Can the fledgling town-hall movement really bridge that gap, especially when some conservatives are loath to compromise?

It certainly can't happen if conservatives don't spend at least as much time planning for the future as they do complaining about the recent past.

As I look at the political landscape, few likely Republican presidential candidates inspire optimism, enthusiasm or confidence. Maybe that's why Brown said his ideal outcome would be the election of a third-party president along the lines of Theodore Roosevelt, whose presidential campaign on the "Bull Moose" ticket in 1912 actually received more votes than incumbent Republican William Howard Taft - but fewer than Democrat Woodrow Wilson. It's worth remembering, however, that Roosevelt was by then a well-known former Republican president, and not exactly a conservative one at that. Do the town-hall protesters want to reform the GOP - or split it further, ensuring more Democratic victories?

It's relatively easy to rally people against something. It's much harder to campaign positively and govern effectively. If the conservatives hope to convince Americans they deserve another chance, they'll have to prove they can do more than complain.

Now's the time to start.