4.07.00
Conservatism Go Boom?

4.05.00
Begala's Baby-Boomer Blues

4.03.00
Hagel-ian Logic: Bush's Ideal V.P.

3.31.00
Back Stabbin' Games People Play

3.29.00
The Ink Is Black, The Page Is White

3.27.00
Pleased to Meet You

3.23.00
Diallo II?

oes the departure of Bill Clinton from the White House in January of 2001 mark the end of the conservative movement's problems? Or are they just beginning?

The question comes to mind following a recent appearance by Dan Burton on CNN's Sunday gabfest, "Late Edition." The chairman of the House Government Reform & Oversight Committee was there to discuss both the Elian Gonzalez custody case and the sudden discovery of White House missing e-mails. The Elian situation was up first. Host Wolf Blitzer asked about Burton's earlier subpoenaing of the young boy and more recent developments in the case — including the sudden accusation by the Miami family that Elian's father was "unfit." For the most part, Burton stuck to the specific details involving the Justice Department and the INS — but then raised the point that Gonzalez may have been an abusive husband and father.

Blitzer then ran some tape of Oklahoma Republican Steve Largent, who had taken the view that Elian should be reunited with his father.

Burton responded: "I have great respect for Steve Largent. He's one of the finest men we have in the Congress. But I will say this: I don't know if Steve's ever been in an abusive situation in his life. I lived with one for 12 years. I watched my whole family beaten half to death by a guy who was 6 foot 8. And all I can tell you is this: All the facts should come out in a family court."

This is, in my view, a classic baby-boomer television moment.

One can hardly imagine anyone more the opposite of Bill Clinton than Dan Burton. If anyone would happily take the title "Clinton-hater" (as the media call it), it would be this Indiana congressman. He was one of the first House Republicans demanding that Vince Foster's death be investigated. He has examined Whitewater, campaign finance, etc. He even got into trouble calling Clinton a "scumbag" a few years back.

But, remarkably, Burton's response to Wolf Blitzer was what can be considered "Clintonian," not, one must hasten to add, in the sense that there was something fundamentally dishonest about his argument. No, it was Clintonian in the apparent need to buttress constitutional or legal argument with a sentimental anecdote that gives the speaker an irrefutable amount of "authority" on the topic at hand. Whether Elian Gonzalez should be returned to his father or stay in America can be argued one way or the other — on the merits. The Miami family's charges of abuse, from an objective level, seem suspicious in that they were raised at the last moment. However, Burton's declaration that he had been abused by his father — thus somehow giving him a peculiar insight and authority — cannot be responded to in a logical fashion. It is meant to win the debate on the grounds of sentimentality and personal testimony.

It should be noted that Burton revealed his family life a couple of years ago. Burton has learned a major lesson of the Clinton era well: His status as a victim gives him an extra weapon. Personal anecdote and sensibility trump everything. Ultimately, as we saw during impeachment, personal failings can be used as an excuse for public law-breaking.

But, as the Burton story demonstrates, this is not unique to the president. There is a certain amount of evidence that suggests it may be a characteristic common across the baby-boom-generation politician. This is the cohort, after all, that declared in the 1960s that the "personal is political." This is problematic, considering the following three items:

The New York Times noted recently that George W. Bush, at 54, is the youngest Republican presidential nominee in 40 years and the first in nearly three decades to be about the same age as his Democrat counterpart (Al will be 53 at the time of the Democratic National Convention). He is also the GOP's first boomer presidential candidate.

The Washington Times pointed out at almost the same time, "Conservatives have no leader to follow." Author Donald Lambro noted that previous conservative leaders had either gone the professional-consultant route (a la Ralph Reed) or faded in influence within the movement for various reasons (Bauer, Quayle, Pat Buchanan, Forbes).

Right here at NRO, Chester Finn critiqued Bush's education program. While finding some measures acceptable, Finn was nonetheless aghast: "Bill Clinton's programmatic promiscuity has ruined politicians' ability to assert that a given education problem is none of Washington's proper business." Finn asked, reasonably, if the Texas governor's expanded government role for education means "The Clintonization of America."

The question all conservatives should ponder is "What if we are enduring not societal feminization or Clintonization, but the Boomerization of America? If so, does this portend, for the time being, the end of the conservative movement?"

There are good reasons to fear the answer. The baby-boom generation perpetually exhibits two impulses: The need to be loved and catered to on the one hand, and the need for rebellion and revolution on the other.

The first impulse produces, in addition to the characteristic sentimentalism, a fundamental belief in government. Why not? They have benefited from the best big government has to offer. The boomers’ parents came home from World War II and went to college on the G.I. bill. The expanding suburbs of the 1950s were safe and filled with public schools that worked. In their 1996 work, The Fourth Turning, boomer authors Bill Strauss and Neil Howe note that "Boomer kids were made to feel welcome not just by their own parents, but also by their communities. They became the targets of libraries, recreation centers, and other civic entities….Surrounded by such open-handed generosity, child Boomers developed what Daniel Yankelovich termed the 'psychology of entitlement.'"

As discussed in the previous "Thot," a quick look at the last 40 years demonstrates that Boomers, from that privileged upbringing, proceeded to overturn every societal convention or institution in which they came in contact. That reflects the second, revolutionary impulse of Boomers. Whatever the issue — sex, drugs, war, etc. — nothing is ever the same in their wake. Politics is no different.

"First in his class" boomer Bill Clinton took over the Democratic Party in 1992. Regardless of what we know now, Bill Clinton initially ran as a centrist. Tired of Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis, the Democrats wanted a winner, someone who would take off the sharp edges of liberalism. And, giving other Democrats of his generation the benefit of the doubt, they joined the Democratic Leadership Council to create a suburb-focused agenda. Pure ideology was tossed out the window in favor of a mild, yet winning, pragmatism.

In 1994, boomer Newt Gingrich preached "revolution" and engineered the GOP takeover of Congress. The tension between the boomer impulses of revolution and love (i.e., "compassion" or "anti-mean-spiritedness") subsequently played out between Clinton and Gingrich in the post-'94 period. Reading the temper of his times a bit more accurately and mixing in generous mixes of sentimentality and spin, Bill Clinton came out on top in these battles. Gingrich — the symbol of the political-revolutionary boomer impulse — left the stage after the '98 election.

Today, George W. Bush runs under the flag of "compassionate conservative," a marketing phrase which, in and of itself, repudiates the belief in pure conservatism: Conservatism as an ideology must be blunted to be presentable to the boomer-heavy electorate at large.

Sure enough, the candidates identified at the beginning of the primary season as the "pure" conservatives in the Republican race — Gary Bauer, Dan Quayle, Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes — either never got out of the starting gate or failed miserably in the contest. There are a variety of reasons for this, but one of them was that overwhelming desire in the Republican Party to have a "winner." The money flocked to the candidate who was the most electable — that man was George W. Bush. The pragmatic-boomer instinct has taken over the GOP.

None of this analysis necessarily means that Bush is not conservative enough, but it does mean that conservatives may likely be frustrated for many years. Boomers are not the only voting bloc in America, but with the majority of them now having homes and children, they are the ones most likely to support the concept that the government should "do something." Thus Bush presents an education-reform plan with a significant federal component. And why be surprised that the Republican response to Bill Clinton's State of the Union boasted of spending more money on schools than the president? Thus, we should expect some form of "Patients Bill of Rights" — prescription drugs in particular. I mean, haven't they always believed in better living through chemistry?

Conservatives thus face the daunting challenge of attempting to govern the nation at a time where the age group most likely to vote believes in its own sense of entitlement, in the importance of government, and in a reliance on sentimentality over rationality. These are hardly the building blocks upon which to construct a conservative majority.

Nonetheless, this reflects on many levels the way boomers have always been. It is a fundamentally "liberal" group. For the time being, conservatives may have to hold out for the time when Gen-Xers get married and have kids.

Corrections
Thanks to those who have written to comment on various and sundry points that pop up in this pseudo-literary exercise. You are all appreciated — even those who disagree. Especially those who disagree!

A quick thanks to those who pointed out that, though UCLA produced many Olympic swimming and gymnastic medal-winners over the years, Mark Spitz was not among them as he attended, ahem, Indiana University. I plead for forgiveness from all the Hoosiers out there!

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