“Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon. . .

"If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.” That's the rest of this great quotation.

The shorter but less memorable version: a candidate who hates government will be incompetent (or, per your audience, "do a poor/crappy/shitty job") running it. We’ve made this comment before (see http://scatablog.blogspot.com/2006/03/inherent-incompetence-of-right.html and http://scatablog.blogspot.com/2006/03/republicans-incompetent-by-nature-or.html ), as have others, especially in the context of approaching voters with the right message: it’s not just about Bush and his arrogance and incompetence, or Cheney and his arrogance and fascistic tendencies, or Rumsfeld and his arrogance and incompetence – actually, his incompetence arising from his arrogance.

Democrats get taken down the wrong path when they are tricked into making it a contest of character, intelligence, charisma or any other personal characteristic. Thus, an extremely capable candidate, Al Gore, had to contend with earth tones, lies about his supposed lies, and a press that preferred the beer-drinking buddy and was more than willing simply to make up stuff – and that refused to see any policy issue, like preserving Social Security or progressive taxation as anything other than boring. Another capable candidate who annihilated his opponent in every respect in the debates, John Kerry, had to contend with wind-surfing as an elite pastime, and questions about his military service. Understanding the danger in a contest of personalities is more critical than ever when an apparently likeable, charming and courageous hero, McCain, but one who in fact is very, very conservative, is likely to be the GOP candidate in 2008.

If you haven’t seen it already, an article in the Washington Monthly, “Why Conservatives Can't Govern,” by a Boston College Poli Sci professor, Alan Wolfe, is a superb, terrifically-written review of conservatism as an ideology that inherently is incapable of governing competently. That’s the message we must keep pounding on every hour until November 2008: John, you’re a great guy, a true American hero, but your political philosophy is simple wrong for America. George Bush – actually, take your pick of George Bush’s for this purpose – proved that Republicans simply cannot govern competently.

Here are excerpts, but go and read the whole thing.

Search hard enough and you might find a pundit who believes what George W. Bush believes, which is that history will redeem his administration. But from just about everyone else, on the right as vehemently as on the left, the verdict has been rolling in: This administration, if not the worst in American history, will soon find itself in the final four. . . .
Eager to salvage conservatism from the wreckage of conservative rule, right-wing pundits are furiously blaming right-wing politicians for failing to adhere to right-wing convictions. . . . Through all these laments there pulsates a sense of desperation: A conservative president and an even more conservative Congress must be repudiated to enable genuine conservatism to survive. Sure, the Bush administration has failed, all these voices proclaim. But that is because Bush and his Republican allies in Congress borrowed big government and foreign-policy idealism from the left.

The collapse of the Bush presidency, in other words, is not just due to Bush's incompetence (although his administration has been incompetent beyond belief). . . . This conservative presidency and Congress imploded, not despite their conservatism, but because of it.

Contemporary conservatism is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government. This mission, let us be clear, is an ideological one. It does not emerge out of an attempt to solve real-world problems. . . . One thought, and one thought only, guided Bush and his Republican allies since they assumed power in the wake of Bush vs. Gore: taxes must be cut, and the more they are cut--especially in ways benefiting the rich--the better.
But like all politicians, conservatives, once in office, find themselves under constant pressure from constituents to use government to improve their lives. This puts conservatives in the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions--indeed, whose very existence--they believe to be illegitimate. Contemporary conservatism is a walking contradiction. Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government. . . .


Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.
Political parties expend the time and grueling energy to control government for different reasons. Liberals, while enjoying the perquisites of office, also want to be in a position to use government to solve problems. But conservatives have different motives for wanting power. One is to prevent liberals from doing so. . . Conservatism will always attract its share of young idealists. And young idealists will always be disillusioned by the sheer amount of corruption that people like Gingrich and DeLay generate. If yesterday's conservative was a liberal mugged by reality, today's is a free-marketer fattened by pork. . . .It is a characteristic trope of political journalism to blame both parties equally for any malfeasance. But the partisan zealotry of the current U. S. House of Representatives has shocked such fair-minded, long-term observers of Congress as Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann; their book, The Broken Branch, is a lament for a time when Congressmen put the needs of their institution before those of their party . . . . [I]t is worth asking where their approach came from. And the answer is the same place where bad governance comes from: Partisanship this vindictive is part and parcel of what it means to be a conservative today.


Behind the surge in right-wing criticism of the Bush presidency is the hope that après le deluge, Americans will give conservatism another chance. But even if Americans were inclined to do so, what kind of conservatism could be offered to them? If it somehow defied all laws of political gravity and carried through on its promise to shrink government, conservatism would add considerably to the level of misery at home and abroad--and lose whatever majorities it may have had in the process. . . . The conservative dilemma, omnipresent in the past, looms over conservatism's future. It can reveal its true face and consign itself to oblivion or it can govern without conviction and produce unending incompetence.
There are ways out of the conservative dilemma. American conservatives could, for example, take away from the Bush years the lesson that they must change their ideology if they are ever again to make the Republican Party a serious party of governance. This is not beyond the realm of possibility. . . . There exists . . . a modernizing version of conservatism in contemporary Europe, where conservatives recognize the inevitability of government but try to tailor its objectives and improve its competence. . . .
Admittedly, not much evidence exists in America today that conservatives are prepared to move in such a direction. If anything, they seem to have reinforced and strengthened their determination to govern as incompetently and unfairly as they can. The fact that they will leave behind a public sector in roughly the same condition that strip miners leave hillsides would cause nothing but pain to yesterday's patricians, for whom ideals such as responsibility and soundness were watchwords. But today's conservatives have no problem passing on the costs of their present madness to future generations. Governing well would require them to use the bully-pulpit of office to educate and uplift their base. But since contemporary conservatives get their political energy from angry voices of rage and revenge, they will always blame others for the failures built into their ideology. That is why conservatism so rarely makes for a good governance party. As far as conservatives are concerned, it is always someone else's government, one reason they can be so indifferent to their own mismanagement.