IF there is any silver lining in Tuesday’s gloomy elections it is this: whatever congressional Republicans have been selling for the past two years, the voters have declared they don’t much want it. One thing is certain: if the GOP spends the next two years offering up to voters the agenda of mush they did in 1997 and 1998, Nov. 5, 2000 will be a catastrophe.
The GOP’s near-death experience now requires some soul searching for not just the party, but for the conservative movement. For thirty years conservatives—from Goldwater, to Reagan, and yes to Gingrich—labored mightily to build a Republican congressional majority. But it’s time to ask: to what end? Conservatives may be responsible for the GOP’s command of Congress, but they certainly in no way direct or control it. In fact, on a multitude of issues the Washington Republicans often show all the ideological impulses of Rockefeller, not Reagan.
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