Conservatives Need to Show Leadership

We have now had 10 days to reflect on Election Day results and an agreement can certainly be reached:  conservatives running for office throughout the country, particularly in the Midwest, did very well.   The candidates, staff and volunteers all deserve a pat on the back for a job well done.

However, to get caught up in the moment for more than a brief period of time, which has now since past, is to ignore the political realities on the ground.  As Peggy Noonan mentions in her piece in the Wall Street Journal today, conservatives didn’t win on election night because the people had fallen in love with their ideas and solutions.  Instead it was a reflection of what voters didn’t want, a continuation of a liberal agenda, where more government and spending seemed to be the answer to every problem we faced.

Yes, conservatives running for office at every level, shared similar principles they articulated on the campaign trail:  lower taxes, reducing our debt and limiting the government’s control over our everyday lives.  However, the weeks and months ahead will be critical, as conservatives, who are now in charge in Congress and throughout our state capitols, will need to implement these broadly agreed upon principles into action-oriented legislative measures.

We can all agree that those in the center of the political spectrum, as they always are, were the decisive factors in this year’s races.  Yet, the key to making conservative’s “temporary” victory an ultimate success and getting those in the center firmly behind conservative solutions is through the art of persuasion, not compromise.   As Noonan points out, “But to win and hold the center you have to make your case, you have to show you’re philosophically serious, you have to show your logic, and connect it to a philosophy. You don’t sit around saying, “I like centrists so I compromise,” you say, “Here’s what we believe, here’s how we think and why.”

As we move into the next legislative cycle and calendar year throughout this country, conservatives need to step it up a notch.  They need to get past the campaign mode and into the legislative mode.   The American people are looking for leadership, they are looking for real solutions and if they don’t like what they see and hear, well, we know what happens next.