For conservatives, this is a time without heroes.
It was not always this way. Conservatives have many heroes. But they belong largely to the past. We’ve recently lost some of them — Irving Kristol and William F. Buckley — and others of them we can’t seem to put behind us.
Reagan nostalgia is still ascendant in the Republican ranks, and there is a predominant instinct toward recovering the glory days of the 1980s, or 1994.
The future, too, holds some promise. Republicans have what is often called a deep bench. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, even Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — these are all plausible future national candidates.
If demographics are kind, if the current crop of famous Republicans don’t irrevocably ruin the conservative brand in the mind of the next generation and if the welfare state doesn’t careen so far out of control that future leaders can only be carried along by it, then there may be hope for conservatives yet.
But this vision of the conservative future, with its focus on national leadership and presidential dreams, some argue, ignores an essential tenet of conservative thought: Real change begins locally and travels to the states and then to Washington.
Too much national attention detracts from the valuable work of local and state officials and from the thinking and working that happens completely outside the government.
Most of this is true. And it could be a leaderless revolution that conservatives most crave.
But the danger is that good local work and intelligent policy thinking will be overwhelmed by the national perception of Republicans. And it won’t be because of their positions on issues. For all the hullabaloo about the narrowly averted government shutdown, the real failing of the conservative side in that debate was not on policy but in persuasion.
What conservatives need now is an effort to explain what they believe and why it can work, one that is focused in one visible leader.
To be sure, many in the conservative commentariat and talk radio are already doing what they can. But the nature of these media is to reach the already convinced.
The power to convince once held by talk radio and Fox News has diminished with the fragmentation of cultural attention into specific and non-overlapping spheres. The persuadable middle, in other words, awaits.
Here’s the truth about the persuadable: They don’t care about politics as much as we think they do. They have better things to do. Local issues matter, but only obliquely, to the politically casual. The national debate is the one that moves moderate votes.
Speaking to them, then, will require a national image and a national leader.
Leaders do still matter, and for conservatives, these past few years have been difficult without them. The almost instinctive urge to find them has led to Sarah Palin, to Glenn Beck and to short-lived and sometimes unseemly fixations with the untalented or the unready.
If the coming presidential race doesn’t produce a leader, the resulting void may continue to harm the best efforts of conservatives on the ground.
Reach Will at wmunsil@asu.edu
