On Tap

So, reading the latest issue of NRODT, I came across two comments in two articles that I’d file away in my mental back pocket as we discuss what could unify conservatives the way the Contract With America unified the right back in 1994…

(By the way… let me point out that IF the Republicans lose the White House in 2008, and fail to win back either house of Congress, the bad news politically could be good news for some very motivated, energetic, skilled movement of conservatives eager to set the agenda. As much as we mock the netroots, they moved astoundingly fast after the 2004 mess to get control of the Democratic party. They figured out what it would take to get their hero, Howard Dean, as chair of the DNC and did it. Two years later, not only did they get to take partial credit for the gains in Congress, but look at the other signs of their political influence: There are no more pro-Iraq-war Democrats left besides Lieberman, no Democratic presidential candidate wants them as an enemy (even Hillary), and no Democrat will appear on Fox News. We can argue whether these are worthwhile uses of newfound political power and influence, but the netroots figured out how to go from an easily-dismissed fringe often compared to the bar scene in Star Wars to a force that commands respect, even deference, in Democratic party circles.

On paper, if the GOP is in the same sad shape in 2008 that the Democrats were in 2004, a right-root movement could jump in and start steering the party in its preferred direction…)

First, in Jim Manzi’s cover story, “Game Plan: What Conservatives Should Do About Global Warming”:

The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize to anyone who demonstrates a device that removes carbon from the atmosphere; what if the U.S. government upped the ante to $1 billion and pledged to make any resulting technology freely available to the world? That would hold the potential for solving any global warming problem that might develop, for a one time cost of less than 0.01 percent of U.S. GDP.

By the way, science may not be that far away, if this article in the Economist is correct:

That does not mean that lateral thinking about the problem has no place. And the idea proposed by Alfred Wong of the University of California, Los Angeles, at last week’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in Acapulco, is about as lateral as they come. Dr Wong reckons the problem is not so much that CO₂ is being thrown away, but that it is not being thrown far enough. According to his calculations, a little helping hand would turn the Earth’s magnetic field into a conveyor belt that would vent the gas into outer space, whence it would never return.

Could you imagine that? Our friends on the left, hip-deep in planning carbon taxes, SUV bans, light bulb police, licensed and regulated carbon offset dealers… and we come along and say, “never mind! We just figured out how to flush our excess CO₂ out beyond the atmosphere!”

Second line, a comment from Brink Lindsey, quoting David Frum: “And just as the Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Grant eventually ran out of Civil War Generals to nominate to the presidency, so perhaps time has run out for the old Nixon-Reagan Coalition that came together to vote against the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1960s and 1970s were, after all, a very long time ago.”

Yup. I’d rather see conservative leaders coming out with some off-the-wall ideas that I’m not sure I agree with, instead of offering up the same agenda that was hot stuff back in 1982…

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at June 14, 2007 - 6:07 pm and is filed under 2008 Presidential Campaign, Conservativism, Environment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.