As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, intra-conservative conflicts over the proper Republican approaches to the “fiscal cliff” debate and the “debt ceiling” impasse have ultimately come down to a broader question: what should conservatives realistically expect from Republicans in President Obama’s second term?
During the primaries and throughout the general election, my position was always that conservatives should try to elect as many small government Republicans to the House and Senate as possible, in the hopes that they could push a Republican president to actually govern as a conservative. In fact, after Mitt Romney won the nomination, I wrote an ebook based around this premise. Had Romney become president, I argued, the goal of conservatives should have been to pressure him to overhaul the tax code, reform entitlements and repeal and replace Obamacare with free market reforms. If he didn’t make progress on these fronts – even with a GOP Congress – I would have been part of the chorus of voices blasting Republicans for abandoning small government principles and being all around useless as a political party.
