RSS Feed MenuEvery reliable survey reveals a bell curve distribution of American political opinion. A solid majority of Americans, usually some 70 to 80 percent of the electorate, holds basically moderate views, center-left on social issues and center-right on economic issues. And yet, oddly, the overwhelming majority of elected officials represent the most extreme 10 percent on either side of the spectrum. Some of the reasons for this fundamental imbalance in the American political system can be seen in the career of William Frenzel, a Republican Congressman who represented suburban Minneapolis from 1971 to 1991.
A Dartmouth graduate, Korean War veteran, and successful businessman, Bill Frenzel fit the once-familiar profile of the Harold Stassen or Dwight Eisenhower variety of moderate Republican. He arrived in Congress as an opponent of the Vietnam War and a reformer willing to tilt with old Democratic dragons of the status quo such as the tyrannical House Administration Committee chairman Wayne Hays, who sometimes retaliated against his critics by shutting off the air conditioning in their offices during the broiling Washington summers. He joined the House Wednesday Group, a generally moderate association of non-ideological Republican pragmatists, and was willing to reach compromise agreements with his Democratic counterparts on the Ways and Means and Budget committees. But he was also an ardent fiscal conservative, described as “the only real free-trader in Congress,” who lived by Cicero’s 55 BC injunction that “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.”
The result was that Frenzel often found himself in political no-man’s land, strafed by both sides. Liberals disliked him for his tight-fisted approach to social spending, his skepticism towards welfare, and his unwillingness to bail out unsound financial entities such as New York City circa 1975 and the Chrysler Corporation circa 1979. Electoral reformers objected to his opposition to campaign spending limits and same-day voter registration schemes, and his defense of political action committees. Labor and consumer interest groups awarded him failing grades year after year. At the same time, his moderately pro-choice position earned him the enmity of evangelical Christian groups, who seized the Republican Party machinery in his district and crushed his allies on the state central committee.
The hostility toward Frenzel also revealed that the New Right was not, in fact, conservative – at least so far as fiscal conservativism was concerned. His opposition to agricultural subsidies and import quotas on textiles was anathema to Southerners like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, while his criticism of cheap, federally-subsidized electric power put him on the opposite side of Westerners like Dick Cheney. His votes against bloated defense appropriations annoyed conservatives who considered it unpatriotic to apply economic rationality to military spending.
Frenzel did not share the New Right’s fetishization of tax-cutting. Realism compelled him to admit that some level of government spending was necessary and would have to be paid for. But he was impolite enough to observe that some of the most avid tax-cutting conservatives outdid even liberal Democrats as earmarkers and free-spenders, and curmudgeonly enough to dwell on the deficits that supply-siders dismissed as irrelevant.
Ultimately, Frenzel was punished for refusing to go along with his colleague’s appropriations requests, and his fiscal conservatism likely cost him a leadership role in the House. He took a resigned view of the devolution of Republican conservatives into big spenders, knowing that they worried about reelection just like the Democrats. And, he observed, “Once you become an appropriator, you get used to spreading the goodies around. You’ve been in Santa’s workshop for a long time, and you know how to send out the electric trains and the sleds and the dolls. And you learn how to go along to get along.” The back-scratching struck him as one of the worst aspects of Congress, and he noted that “If you’re a moderate Republican, you get the worst of both worlds, because you get punished both for being socially liberal and for being fiscally conservative. You’re doubly handicapped.”
The Republican Party has succeeded in purging itself of irritating moderates like Frenzel, but at what cost? Christian conservatives in Minnesota have been able to dominate the Republican Party but have proved incapable of attracting what Frenzel called “potential Republican voters who would vote in a primary but who wouldn’t come to a caucus and sit through hours of talk about killing babies.” Ideological enforcers like the Club for Growth have knocked off Frenzel-type Republicans in parts of the country including the Northeast, West, and upper Midwest where only a socially moderate and fiscally conservative Republican would have a chance of winning. And the Republicans’ swinish spending during their years in power has bankrupted their claim to be an alternative to Democratic budget-busting; so far as the public is concerned, the GOP is merely awaiting its turn back at the trough. The Republicans may enjoy greater internal cohesion without the likes of Bill Frenzel in their ranks, but making room for moderates once again may bring both majority power and a return to true fiscal responsibility.
danbmil99 // May 6, 2009 at 4:53 am
cb55: your points about federalism are interesting. This is an aspectt of the ideological divide that doesn’t get talked about much.In general, I think liberals do not believe in “states rights” in any real sense. So when it comes to something like abortion or gay marriage, they will not be happy with them being legal in NY but illegal in AL. They feel it’s a moral issue to protect the women and gays of Alabama from oppression. (Of course, many pro-lifers feel it’s their duty to save babies everywhere, so the whole ‘let the states decide’ thing doesn’t really hold water when you feel strongly that someone’s rights are being abused).Now the irony: liberals, by and large, are not nearly as aggressive as conservatives (well, neocons) about the idea of extending democracy to places like Iraq. They complain about the treatment of women and minorities, but they also have this weak-kneed morally relative sensitivity to ‘local culture’.Of course, true conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan, avoid this hypocrisy by rejecting the neocon idea that the US is the world’s policeman.I think the truth is that people bend their ideology to suit their bias. Examples such as Terry Schiavo, and the SCOTUS overrulling Florida in 2000, make it hard to take the GOP’s supposed belief in federalism seriously.
sinz54 // May 6, 2009 at 9:53 am
danbmil99: I support the right of states to set their own marriage laws. If the Vermont legislature wants to legalize civil marriage for gays, that’s fine with me. I absolutely oppose the passage of a Defense of Marriage Amendment, as the current GOP platform advocates. Such an Amendment is wrong on many levels–moral, legal, constitutional.But I’m still opposed to “hate crime” laws. And it’s a violation of principle to vote to extend a bad law even further, just because you don’t have any hope of getting it repealed at the present time.If I were in Congress, and a vote came up on whether to extend hate crime laws to cover gays or or any other new group, I would just vote “Present.”
sinz54 // May 6, 2009 at 9:57 am
danbmil99: The Christian evangelicals have told me, to my face, that they do NOT believe in federalism, if federalism means they must turn a blind eye towards dangers to Christianity in other states. They told me that they agitate against the Federal Government when they believe that Government is doing things detrimental to their practice of Christianity. But that their goal remains the spread of Christianity. And if the Federal Government can be turned toward support of that goal, they would be happy to use the Federal Government for that purpose.Hence their advocacy of a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, which would ban abortion nationwide. They don’t care that it’s inconsistent with federalism. It’s consistent with Christianity.
cb55 // May 6, 2009 at 5:23 pm
sinz54 and dandmil99: I believe that an Evangelical who ignores things such as federalism, and limited federal government are not conservative either. Just as much as I believe a pro-choice or pro-gay marriage advocate who is willing to ingore the same prinicples are not really conservative either. But consevatives, moderates, social conservatives, libertarians, etc, need to find common ground in some areas. There is no way we can agree on everything- so the common ground needs to be the approach, and manner which things can be attained. Too much central and federal control leads to everyone being unhappy at some point. While I am not a fan of these type of Ammendments- they are a legitimate option for the American public. The process is allowed and in the Constitution. I think when courts ignore States rights, that is a tool to combat it. But at the same time, it is almost impossible to get through, so a super-majority of people would have to really support it.But different states having different laws gives people options. You may not like the marriage institution in your state- but another might be more to your belief system. The gay marriage debate is not a big deal to me. The state either has a vested interest and reason in an institution like this, or it does not. At this point in time, I no longer see what an individual state’s interest is. I know it might sound radical, but let’s just end the argument, and not have state marriage. It does not bother me if gay people want to get married. But if they are included, what point does marriage serve for the state. And if it is about including everyone, why does the state still have an interest in denying other domestic set-ups?
danbmil99 // May 6, 2009 at 5:55 pm
sinz54, re Evangelicals and politics: “They don’t care that it’s inconsistent with federalism. It’s consistent with Christianity.”Then anyone who promotes this line of thinking should not have a strong voice in the GOP. I guess by my own sword, I would have to agree that Roe v Wade might be overturned, and leave it to the states.Note that as of today, the GOP supports a “right to life” amendment, and a “sanctity of marriage amendment”. They also oppose any local ordinance that restricts gun ownership, even if it means cops get killed by drug dealers with easy access to weapons.No attempt at federalism there — it’s one-size-fits-all. If the liberal states don’t like our nation-wide platform, they can go fly a kite. Well, that’s why they’re in the minority, and are going to stay that way until they can walk their walk as well as they talk their talk.No one wants to vote for a pack of hypocrites.