Peggy Noonan, columnist for The Wall Street Journal and former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, recently addressed a John Locke Foundation Headliner event in Raleigh. She also discussed the 2008 presidential campaign with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: You wrote recently that 2008 has produced the “most exciting and confounding election cycle” in your lifetime. What did you mean by that quote?
Noonan: It is true that nobody who covers politics or talks about politics, observes politics, or who has experienced politics in the past 30 or 40 years has seen an election cycle like this. Nothing that was supposed to happen is happening. On the Republican side, the race was all over the place, and the guy who was ahead in the polls for an entire year went nowhere. He didn’t have a gaffe or a scandal. Rudy Giuliani just sort of started to disappear. Nobody knows why. Nobody knows exactly. Everybody is saying, “Oh, he had the wrong strategy.” Well, maybe, but it was just so interesting to me and to others — his collapse, the rise of John McCain. John McCain was over in the autumn; he was the victor in the winter.
On the Democratic side, it was supposed to be an easy glide for Mrs. Clinton to the nomination. It has turned out not to be an easy glide. She is in the fight of her life, which it appears at the moment she will lose. If that is not exciting enough for you, then you don’t really like politics. This is an exciting year. I don’t mean it’s the most satisfying. I mean it’s simply the most exciting.
Kokai: Let’s delve into both of those races. First, the Republicans. What do you think this campaign says about the current state of the Republican Party?
Noonan: I think the Republican Party is in some flux. It is working out each day what it stands for and what it believes. It has broken up into various factions. The old coalition that held together from the time of just before Reagan is gone. It has been sundered, I think, by the current administration. It is going to have to re-collect itself, and that is the sort of thing that takes time and effort. It will sort of have to, the coalition, I think, have to reconstitute itself with time.
Kokai: So what will this election mean for the future? Will it set a course for the future of the Republican Party?
Noonan: Well, all elections are important. You know, I have friends who every four years say, “Peggy, you don’t understand. This is the most important election of our lifetime.” Somehow, it’s always the most important election of our lifetimes. In America, the federal government has a lot of power, so it matters who runs the federal government, so of course it’s important.
Kokai: How about for the Democrats? After the 2006 election, a lot of people thought because Democrats had major gains in Congress the way was paved for Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. That storyline is not necessarily playing out as planned. What is this election saying about the Democrats?
Noonan: I think what this election is saying about the Democrats is that they are hungry. I think I am correctly observing that there is a rising tide of something. I never know what to call it — liberalism, left liberalism, progressivism. People are voting in Democratic primaries. Obama has become a man with support that almost looks like the size of a movement. There’s a lot happening there. The Democrats came to play this year. They want to win this presidency.
So there’s a lot of excitement on that side. You can see it on TV, if you put on the news. The news wants, essentially, to put on the story that they think will grab you most easily with its drama and its ability to interest you. They lead with the Democrats; that’s where the excitement is this year. Republicans, I think, are feeling a little discouraged, and they have to get themselves together. The Democrats think, in an odd way, they already are together. I mean, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are fighting it out toe-to-toe, but they don’t really disagree on much. They’re not a party looking for their meaning. They are sort of satisfied with whatever it is they are — left liberal, liberal-progressive, or whatever. The Republicans are not so.
Kokai: Republicans would probably be more excited about this election if they had another Reagan, but is that possible?
Noonan: I think the Reaganism thing has gotten to the point of silliness. There is a point when nostalgia can become crippling, and I think some people in the Republican Party have reached that point, with the encouragement of the mainstream media, which is always interested, in its way, in discouraging Republicans. So mainstream media loves to walk up to people and say, “I’m an interviewer. Is John McCain Reagan? Is Giuliani Reagan? Is your Uncle Moe Reagan?” Mr. Reagan has left us. It will soon be — it will be this coming January, 20 years since he walked out of the White House and circled it in a helicopter. And he and Nancy looked at the White House and then went over to the airport and took a plane back to California. Life moves on. Reagan was great. Greatness is something that bubbles up in America. There will be other Reagans, only their names will not be Reagan; it’ll be Joe, Bob, and Sally, and that’s fine.
Kokai: As a person who worked with Reagan and remembers how things really worked, not just the nostalgia for that time, what should conservative leaders of today emulate?
Noonan: I don’t think conservative leaders today should try consciously to emulate Reagan. Reagan was not trying consciously to emulate anybody. Jack Kennedy was trying to be the best Jack Kennedy. FDR was trying to be FDR. Be yourself. Did Reagan have particular qualities that we would desire in all of our leaders? Of course he did. He had a great personal equanimity. He had wisdom. He respected the views of the American people, which is something important, something I think we haven’t seen in the past few years from the Bush White House. He had a deep respect for the views of the American people, and he knew how far he could push something that he wanted but they did not. You know, he knew where the boundaries were, where the barriers were. He knew how to persuade. He knew how to bring people along with him. But he didn’t put the “bully” in the bully pulpit. You know, he was not much of a bully. But the biggest thing about him, of course, was that he had a very special kind of political courage. And it was the political courage of one who swims against the tide. That’s an exhausting, daily, labor-filled thing.
Kokai: 2006 was obviously a big year for Democrats. Turnout numbers in this year’s primaries and caucuses suggest more voters are interested in the Democratic race than the Republican race. Do you think American voters are still as receptive as they have been in recent years to basic conservative principles and ideas?
Noonan: I don’t think the American people have heard basic conservative principles and ideas in a while, on the national level. Locally, they have that conversation. Locally, things are bubbling. There are many young conservative leaders coming up, and there’s much happening. But, look, sometimes movements get tired or lose their way.
There were two generations of conservative leaders who went to Washington, and some of them tried to do big things, but many of them tried to simply self-perpetuate, and they took on the ways of Washington. They became big spenders, government control people, bullies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They have made the political philosophy that they sprang from appear to be somewhat discredited. Well, it’s a big and vibrant thing. It can’t be discredited by them. They are mere punks. But it’s not looking so good at the moment, you know, and you’ve got to be frank about that. Can it come back? Of course it can.