Letter from Washington

In the postelection analyses, conservative leaders in Washington, especially those of the New Right, were crestfallen, and not wholly without cause. Strategy is what irks them. Ronald Reagan adopted a cutyour-losses strategy in the election, not a strategy of victory. He played the game entirely on his twenty-yard line, and any effort to make the election a grand realignment was abandoned. The game plan was sharply limited: prevent the opposition from scoring too often. Therefore, conservative activists and militants weren’t needed.

Every major component of the coalition that helped conservative candidates in 1978 and 1980 was cast aside in 1982. In the earlier years, defense was a referendum issue, symbolized by the Panama Canal Treaty, which mobilized the American Legion, the VFW, and others. Conservatives in those years wanted tax cuts and worked to get them, as did those concerned about the full spectrum of social issues. Conservative activists and militants who battled their liberal opposite numbers in 1978 and 1980— which is what elections are all about— took a vacation this year. Moral Majority held a convention in the Bahamas almost on election eve, as though it had no stake in the outcome. Its estimate of the election was Mr. Reagan’s saying unemployment was not his fault. The incumbent President had come to town as an anti-Washington candidate, Moral Majority felt, and now it saw him as the candidate of Washington, playing the Washington game, engaging in Washington arguments, and missing an historic opportunity to change the political landscape of the nation.

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In the postelection analyses, conservative leaders in Washington, especially those of the New Right, were crestfallen, and not wholly without cause. Strategy is what irks them. Ronald Reagan adopted a cutyour-losses strategy in the election, not a strategy of victory. He played the game entirely on his twenty-yard line, and any effort to make the election a grand realignment was abandoned. The game plan was sharply limited: prevent the opposition from scoring too often. Therefore, conservative activists and militants weren’t needed.

Every major component of the coalition that helped conservative candidates in 1978 and 1980 was cast aside in 1982. In the earlier years, defense was a referendum issue, symbolized by the Panama Canal Treaty, which mobilized the American Legion, the VFW, and others. Conservatives in those years wanted tax cuts and worked to get them, as did those concerned about the full spectrum of social issues. Conservative activists and militants who battled their liberal opposite numbers in 1978 and 1980— which is what elections are all about— took a vacation this year. Moral Majority held a convention in the Bahamas almost on election eve, as though it had no stake in the outcome. Its estimate of the election was Mr. Reagan’s saying unemployment was not his fault. The incumbent President had come to town as an anti-Washington candidate, Moral Majority felt, and now it saw him as the candidate of Washington, playing the Washington game, engaging in Washington arguments, and missing an historic opportunity to change the political landscape of the nation.