Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, one of the big-government-conservative columnists who are all the rage with the Establishment Media, denounces Barack Obama for having "the ideology of Walter Mondale" and then calls on John McCain to adopt the ideology of Walter Mondale. Here's his prescription for a winning acceptance speech:
McCain needs to announce new and unexpected reform proposals. Perhaps he should courageously follow the logic of his health plan and promise health coverage as a universal right guaranteed by subsidies for the purchase of private health insurance. Perhaps he should embrace the goal of getting all American electricity from renewable and non-carbon sources by some ambitious but realistic date. Perhaps he should offer guaranteed funding of higher education in exchange for national service.
With Republicans like that, who would need Democrats? If you want the big government of Walter Mondale, you might as well elect Walter Mondale, or his contemporary successor. And of course it's not at all clear that such a program would distinguish McCain from the Bush-Hastert-Frist Republicans who have become so unpopular. Ever since Gerson wrote for Bush the words "There is another destructive mindset: the idea that if government would only get out of the way, all our problems would be solved. An approach with no higher goal, no nobler purpose than 'Leave us alone,'" the Republican party has been eagerly embracing openhanded government. Taxpayer funding for prescription drugs. Subsidies for every form of energy. Huge increases in federal education funding. How would Gerson's proposed agenda for McCain be "the right address for a rebel?" It would in fact confirm the Bush-McCain alliance to destroy the remnants of Goldwater-Reagan conservatism.