The Limits of Compassion - compassionate conservatism as failed campaign slogan

IN the media's telling, compassionate conservatism was cruelly abandoned by George W. Bush in his lurch to the right in South Carolina, trampled underfoot on the endless red carpet of the Bob Jones University stage. But it's really the other way around: W. didn't fail compassionate conservatism; it failed him. Not since all the early Gore slogans- "practical idealism," "new horizons"-has a campaign theme flopped so utterly. The primaries have made it clear that Bush may yet win the White House, but only by running on the ideas and themes he developed after compassionate conservatism fell flat.

New Hampshire was compassionate conservatism's Water loo. The substance of compassionate conservatism-to the extent it has any-involves changing regulations and tax law to encourage charities and churches to care for the poor and the troubled. A fine, but picayune, idea. The real advantage of compassionate conservatism was always stylistic, and defensive: It would give Bush the same touchy-feely image as President Clinton. Early in the campaign, the media hailed this as a brilliant tactic, since they are so enamored of sensitivity in general, and of Clinton's caring in particular.

One problem: Republicans hated it. Both Bush and McCain reacted to Clinton's success, but in different ways. While Bush chose to feel our pain, McCain emphasized a tough plain-spokenness that seemed to challenge the feminization of contemporary American politics. In New Hampshire, this manly sensibility dovetailed perfectly with McCain's anti-Clinton rhetoric. W. peppered his speeches with references to "touching every willing heart" and "leaving no child behind," phrases that seemed deliberately evocative of Clinton. McCain talked of "raising a lot of hell" and famously pledged to "beat Gore like a drum."

Voters associated McCain's tough words with honesty, as well they should, since so much of today's sentimental cant in politics depends on evasions and half-truths. Bush routinely says that "single mothers" have the hardest job in America. Actually, many of them don't have jobs at all, but only Jesse Ventura and-on an exceptionally good day-his maverick cousin McCain might be insensitive enough to say it. Bush's compassion schtick also disarmed him in purely tactical terms in New Hampshire, as it dictated that he stay "positive."

So, in New Hampshire, compassionate conservatism had a road test. It made Bush seem Clintonesque, soft, and dishonest, while preventing him from hitting back against his opponent. Matched against McCain's patriotic reformism, Bush's compassion lost by 19 points.

There are other, deeper problems with compassionate conservatism, besides the fact that it doesn't sell. Collective entities, such as government, can't be compassionate; they don't have feelings. Sentiment is a rotten guide to public policy, and conservative ideas perforce have sources besides compassion. This is why so many of W.'s examples of conservative compassion seem so inapt. Letting families keep more of their tax money may be wise, it may be good economics, it may be just, but it is not "compassionate."

When it comes to a contest of compassion, liberals will always have an advantage. The liberal conceit is that government can set a desirable goal and directly mandate its realization. Help the poor? Write a check. Conservatives have a more complicated vision of the importance of institutions, rules, and virtues, which can't be legislated by well- intentioned policymakers. When it comes to the poor, for instance, all government can do is protect the necessary conditions for wealth creation-by maintaining order, freeing the economy for entrepreneurship, and insisting that people fend for themselves. Compassion simply isn't relevant.

As John O'Sullivan and Ramesh Ponnuru have noted in these pages, conservatism is naturally associated with sterner virtues such as patriotism, self-reliance, and duty. Indeed, sentimentality has roots deeply entangled in our culture of self-indulgence and cruelty. It's no accident that President Clinton is famous for two kinds of lip biting. The exaltation of feeling necessarily breaks down self-restraint and hence increases running room for sheer willfulness, for an ethic of personal convenience. So it is that our culture celebrates compassion at the same time it destroys 1.2 million children in the womb every year. If this is the result of a compassionate society, please, let's have more hard-heartedness.

In fairness to Bush, he wasn't alone in paying rhetorical obeisance to compassion. The mascot of John McCain's campaign after New Hampshire was an almost perfect token of feminized America: the crying Boy Scout, once ever prepared, now reduced to a long night of tears by a negative phone call. McCain's relentless attacks on "negative" campaigning were of a piece with the compassionate culture's fear of saying anything critical about anyone, its distaste for argument, its unwillingness to judge. So, it made sense that McCain would stake his campaign on denouncing the leaders of the religious Right as "agents of intolerance": Intolerance is one of the few things that can still safely be called evil.