What Conservative?

There has been a lot of debate on who the "real Republican" or who is "more conservative" than the other. It is a truly complicated discussion because it is hard to exactly define a conservative. The nature of the discussion, including yesterday's debate on Fox, has to do with social conservatism--positions on abortion, gun rights and gay rights (among others). There has even been a little bit of discussion regarding some tax and spending aspects of conservatism (i.e. the ongoing tiff primarily between Romney and Giuliani regarding who cut spending more or who cut taxes more--on increased either of those less).

Ruben Navrette of the West Central Tribune points out another area of conservatism that has not been addressed: trade policy.

The Republican candidates are having the right argument about the wrong issues, while going after the wrong people. True, there are Republicans running for president who, on some issues at least, sound like Democrats. But it’s happening in the areas of trade, protectionism and economic competitiveness. And that’s where Republican voters should be concerned, not with the litmus tests imposed by the social conservatives.

You only had to spend a few minutes watching the recent GOP presidential debate from Dearborn, Mich., to pick up on this dynamic. Centered on economic issues, the forum was filled with the sort of doom-and-gloom class warfare that we usually hear from Democrats who cozy up to organized labor.

Navrette points out the Republicans that sound like Democrats:

But the Democratic impersonators must have found it a constituency worth addressing. Ron Paul, a libertarian, condemned what he called a “transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy” and the fact that “you have more billionaires than ever before.” Duncan Hunter, a hawk on national security, lamented the “1.8 million jobs that have moved to communist China from the United States,” which he attributed to the fact that “we’ve fractured the great industrial base of this country and we pushed it offshore with bad trade deals.” Tom Tancredo, who rode his opposition to illegal immigration into the presidential race, complained about those countries that aren’t “playing by the rules” and “undercut American products around the world.” And Mike Huckabee, a favorite among religious conservatives, insisted that, for many Americans, the economy is “not doing so well” and they’re not sure that “the next day is going to necessarily be a great and prosperous one.”

He then pointed out that several candidates did not share that opinion, specifically Fred, Rudy and McCain while he points out that Romney plays both sides of the fence.

Here is my take: he is absolutely correct about the poor record on economic conservatism on the part of some of the candidates. But they are primarily second teer candidates--I think because of their positions on these issues. For me, you need to take both parts (or all three parts) of conservatism into account: who is a social conservative as well as a fiscal conservative as well as a trade and foreign relations conservative.

My scorecard is: Rudy, poor on social, fair on fiscal and very good on at least the foreign relations part of the trade and foreign relations. Mitt, fair on social, fair on fiscal, and who knows on foreign relations and trade.

Fred is good or very good in all three areas. Some may gripe about shades of meaning or people that he has worked with in the past, but when you look at what he proposes and what he has done, his record is solid. He will work for socially conservative ideals. He will pursue a conservative fiscal policy--and he is willing to talk about tough choices up front. He will work for a conservative foreign and trade policy. And he is the only candidate about which that can be said.