The 2008 election is not one that Barack Obama won.  Rather, John McCain lost.   

Understanding why and how McCain lost is critical to rebuilding the conservative movement.  McCain’s strategy proved to be a failure not because he failed to execute it, but because the very premise of that strategy was flawed from the start.  Recent 20th century history provides some necessary perspective for locating this flaw.  

When Barry Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 Presidential election, a strange thing happened that shifted the political landscape for future decades.  The winner in that race, ironically, was not the Democrat.  It was the conservative movement.  In Senator McCain’s own words, Goldwater’s legacy was that he “transformed the Republican party from an Eastern elitist organization to the breeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan.” 

Goldwater shaped and redefined the conservative movement from the 1950s to 1964.  At the time, the Republican Party was split between principled conservatives on one side and moderate, socially liberal conservatives on the other.  Goldwater cast aside the party’s broad net and introduced a new brand of steadfast fiscal conservatism and aggressive anti-communism. 

In his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention, Goldwater borrowed the oratorical brilliance of Cicero and declared, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.  And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”  Goldwater planted the flag for the revival of the American conservative movement.  Republicans used that foundation to recover from 1964 and pick up 47 seats in the House of Representatives in the 1966 mid-term elections.  The blueprint was in place, and Reagan completed the resurgence in 1980.         

Nevertheless, McCain’s defeat in the 2008 election brings to light an epidemic that has plagued the Republican Party since 2004.  For some unexplained reason, many Republicans (most notably, McCain) abandoned Goldwater and Reagan’s conservatism.  Instead, Republicans who lost in 2008 and in the 2006 mid-term elections embraced something much more feeble: the appeasement of liberals.

“An appeaser,” declared Winston Churchill, “is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last.”  McCain was no appeaser in his Navy days, but, in his recent political career and during his failed Presidential bid, he lapsed into political appeasement with Democrats. 

The theme of the McCain campaign was reminiscent of pre-Goldwater Republicans.  He targeted moderates and independents by highlighting his own “bipartisan” record.  McCain repeatedly emphasized that he knew how to “reach across the aisle” to work with Democrats.  He pointed to his work with Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform, his efforts with Senator Joe Lieberman on climate change, and his struggle with Senator Ted Kennedy on immigration reform.  

This strategy-illustrating McCain’s appeasement and compromise with the left in order to attract a majority of independent and moderate voters-was thought to be the path to the White House.    

Then a surprising thing happened on Election Day.  McCain lost the independent and moderate vote, 60% to 39%, according to exit poll data.  In other words, McCain had reached across the aisle, but no one grabbed his hand.

Appeasing the left (as Republicans did in the 1940s and 1950s) had not worked.  But that’s not the whole story.

Reaching across the aisle and adopting a liberal stance necessarily required abandoning the rival conservative position.  As McCain agreed with Feingold to regulate the financing of political campaigns, he abandoned the conservative principle that favored preserving freedom of political speech.  When he sided with Lieberman on enlarging the government’s role in regulating carbon emissions, he abandoned the conservative principle of limited government.  So, too, did he abandon his base when he and Kennedy tried to pacify illegal immigrants.

This abandonment had consequences: McCain surrendered conservative votes to Obama.  Exit poll data showed that McCain received just under 80% of the conservative vote.  What might have happened if he had won closer to 100% of conservatives?

America remains a center-right country.  When voters in California (the most liberal state in the union) approve a constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage (Proposition 8), one can only conclude that conservative voters make up a majority of the electorate.  Similar bans passed in Arizona and in Florida.   

McCain’s recipe for success mimicked the Republican strategy that pre-dated Goldwater.  He wanted to broaden his base by compromising with liberals and assuming that conservatives would remain loyal to his cause.  Such a strategy, however, dilutes your own product.  Conservatism did not lose in 2008.  Rather, it was McCain’s new, diluted, and appeasing brand of conservatism that lost.     

You win an election with core principles and beliefs that you refuse to abandon under any circumstances.  McCain should have stuck with conservative principles.   

Those principles attract voters–Republican, Democrat, and independent–because they work every time they’re tried.  Goldwater’s blueprint still exists today: Reagan won a total of 94 states in 1980 and 1984 by emphasizing and championing conservatism.  George W. Bush won two elections by sticking to those same principles (for the most part).  When conservatism is clearly defined and contrasted with the left, people vote for it. 

If Republicans aim to re-capture the White House in 2012 and gain congressional seats in 2010, they must abandon this watered-down version of conservatism and go back to what works.

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