Who You Calling Conservative?

Bush has been slipping in the polls. And Glenn thinks he knows why:

The Democrats' weakness is that people worry that they're the party of Jane Fonda. They tried -- but failed miserably -- to convince people otherwise in the last election.

The Republicans' weakness is that people worry that they're the party of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They tried, successfully, to convince people otherwise in the last election, but they're now acting in ways that are giving those fears new life. Add to this the fact that the war is going well, weakening the national security glue that holds Bush's coalition together, and a drop is natural: People who reluctantly backed Bush because Kerry was just unacceptable on national security are now seeing their worries about domestic issues as more credible.

Jeff Jarvis refined that thought:

I think it's more than that religion is a distraction from the nation's business. I think Americans get scared when they confront people who are too religious -- especially when they do that on the other side of the church/state wall. This doesn't mean the Democrats should be godless; they should just be religously moderate (read: sane). ... [I]n the general election, a religious mainstreamer can win over a fringer.

He advises Bush to "Concentrate on energy and health care." He advises Democrats to "Concentrate on energy and health care." And, I would add, Iraq, Afghanistan, and terror. Leave religion in the pulpits, and in the homes, where it belongs.

So I'm finding much of what comes from the GOP administration distasteful these days. Am I sorry I voted for it? Not a bit. I knew what it was; I waited for the other side to offer me a better choice; it never did.

Ever since I wrote my brief story about leaving the comfortable coccoon of "liberal" certainties, and put it online here, I've gotten occasional e-mail rants from present-day progressives demanding that I justify every "conservative" perfidy and hypocrisy that crosses their minds.

My favorites are the ones from old veterans of the '60s "movement" that castigate me for my relative youth. Like this one:

I'm 69. That you are young is merely an observation. Whether one lives through an era directly or knows it only by reputation makes a difference.

Many things might be observed. A writer choses to observe some and not others. Presumably, there is a method and a purpose to that. Perhaps, then, this writer remembered the reactions of the "elders" who were alive in 1967, and their constant reminders to the impetuous youth of that day about the wisdom and perspective that only a long experience in life can bring.

I tell them that being "no longer a liberal (as self-described liberals define it)" is not at all the same thing as "being a conservative (as self-described liberals define it)."

As I said right at the top of my piece, I don't know what sort of political animal I am, in the modern American zoo. But that book only has four pages: each side's view of itself and its caricature of the other. I think a lot of people don't connect with that.

I don't know what a real conservative is any more than I know what a real liberal is. I think I can cobble together a very good "conservative" argument for legal abortion and state permission of homosexual marriage. But those positions are ones no one seems to associate with "conservatism." At the same time I think I can make a real liberal argument for protection of the unborn and for the right to bear arms. But, ditto.

These labels lack meaning anymore, either historically or etymologically. Sans meaning, it's impossible to separate "real" anything from "fake" anything.

It's likely that someday soon I'll find myself voting for candidates touted by the "liberals" who snipe at me now. I'm not side-oriented. I'm voting for who convinces me. But you've got to convince me. And I'll tell you the things I care about. They're all over these pages. Then you try to win the vote. You don't get it just for "not being the other guy."