Reducing the size of the federal government is the most fundamental principle of conservatism from which all other elements of our ideology originate. For instance, conservatives support lower tax rates as a method of limiting the government’s ability to grow further through extorting additional revenue from its constituents. We support traditional values to protect familial institutions so that individuals do not have to rely on a larger federal establishment instead. Every aspect of truly conservative thought derives from the desire to shrink the federal bureaucracy and its impact in the daily lives of American citizens.
One might assume that proponents of a smaller federal government would vote overwhelmingly for more conservative candidates. The most recent Presidential election, however, tells a different story. Indeed, an electorate that favored reducing the size of the federal government by a 12-point margin, according to exit polling (53%-41%), gave President Obama 51% of the popular vote and over 300 electoral votes.
Considering that President Obama and Governor Romney were only separated by 3% nationwide, failing to secure more votes from this reliably conservative bloc of voters no doubt cost the Republican Party the presidency and probably control of the United States Senate as well. If our party is to once again become competitive in federal elections, we must discover what about our message is repelling those would-be conservative voters.
I believe the answer is two-fold. First, although voters generally agreed with our conservative principles, they resented the lack of inclusiveness that supposedly characterized the Republican Party. “Small government” can mean many things to different people, and the party was not viewed as accepting that variety of opinion. Instead, right or wrong, to many voters the Republican Party resembled an elite club where only citizens who fit numerous prerequisites were allowed to join or even considered welcome.
This stereotype of our party was most explicitly communicated through the debate on social issues. Knowing that an electorate favoring smaller government would never endorse this administration’s regulations on private business or expansion of federal authority, President Obama’s campaign intelligently refocused the crux of the campaign toward the one area where Republicans were perceived to be more authoritarian.
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