ReviewA leading figure in the American conservative motion for over 40 years, Mickey Edwards was a prominent Republican congressman, a former national chairman of the American Conservative Union, and a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation. When he speaks, conservatives listen. Now, in this highly provocative and frank volume, Edwards argues deafening and clear that conservatives today have abandoned their principles and have become champions of that which they once dire most.
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Read a letter from Mickey Edwards, author of Reclaiming Conservatism.
Dear Amazon Reader,
Having been repudiated even in states they had long dominated, Republicans woke up on November 5th faced with the challenge of rebuilding a political party that had been transformed for the length of one night from powerful to pitiful. They ought to have seen it coming. In my book, Reclaiming Conservatism, I describe precisely how Republicans in the White House and in Congress became the foes of the principles they once stood for, a threat to constitutional government, and a party exhaustively deserving of the rebuke it has received. I explain specifically how conservatives may again earn the public’s confidence.
Now Republican leaders are attempting to find the way back. In the process, they are continuing to look in the wrong direction, unwilling to face the reality of the disastrous selections that led to their defeat. So-called conservatives, they have abandoned unfeigned American conservatism–which is in the right manner concentered on fixed (not small) government, person liberty, and prudent governance–and have rather become the champions of wiretapping, government secrecy, federal deficits, questionable wars, and a nasty kind of politics that even questions the patriotism of those who disagree with their policies.
The Republican Party long stood for the principles at the heart of the American Constitution, including a faith in the fantasti possiblenesses of self-government (instead of the anti-government rhetoric it has since embraced). It celebrated ideas rather of the rabid anti-intellectualism it has come to cherish. It celebrated diversity (Barry Goldwater argued that there was no such thing as a merely mutual man) rather than demanding matching in religion, values, and beliefs. The Republican Party does not need to re-invent itself–it merely needs to do not forget what it once was.
Sincerely,
Mickey Edwards
From Publishers WeeklyThis book is a cri de coeur by former Republican congressman Edwards, a veteran conservative founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation who once rated as the national chairman of the American Conservative Union. Edwards believes that conservatism has abandoned the ideas of fixed government that once inspired it. This has been, he argues, the paradoxical price of conservative electoral success, and the procedure of winning and holding back this power has brought it is own temptations. Taking Washington required coalition forming with neoconservatives, the religious right and former supporters of George Wallace who all owed little to the Goldwater-style conservatism in which the thing being ‘conserved’ was the liberal revolution embodied in the Constitution. According to Edwards, these other views have intensified as the Bush administration presides over an evolving security state, and the motion Edwards once kept sacrosanct is now unrecognizable. This is a critique with strength and eloquence, but it is author is better at defining what has, from his perspective, gone wrong, than supplying persuasive suggestions as to how conservatives of his mindset are meant to win elections today. (Mar.)
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Review
“This is a critique with strength and eloquence.”–Publishers Weekly
“With erudition an passion, Edwards presents his case for reclaiming the former conservatism and ends with eight steps, e.g., ‘Reread the Constitution.’ First read this book. For all collections.”–Library Journal
“Readers from throughout the political spectrum will care when it comes to the issues Edwards raises.”–Booklist
“Edwards has issued a passionate plea for a return to the kind of conservatism that cared with regards to people, not power. His argument is that it is the Constitution that matters, not partisan advantage, and that true conservatives care in regards to equality of opportunity, not privilege.”–The Honorable Jack Kemp
“This is an magnificent book, lucid and compelling, and it sounds a clarion call to all Americans to unite and protect that most cherished of documents, the United States Constitution. A marvelous work.”–William S. Sessions, Former Director, FBI
“A long-time leader amidst conservatives, Mickey Edwards minces no words in this stinging indictment of the men and movements that he blames for betraying conservative principles. This is a courageous crusade to help regain his resourcefulness of conservatism.”–David Gergen, Harvard University
“This book reminded me again why I am a Conservative. It is a great wake up call and a plan to action.”–Ed Rollins
“Mickey Edwards is a rarity–a long-time professional politician with a deep sense of history and philosophy, someone who combines a psychological result of perception learning and reasoning of politics and policy with an intellectually sophisticated framework. This book will have to be read by each politician, and exceptionally each presidential candidate, who pontificates on the American political scheme and the U.S. Constitution.”–Norman Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
“Mickey Edwards has written a book that rings as clear as the Liberty Bell. His unflinching assessment of our endangered political order ought to be read by each American citizen.”–Sean Wilentz, Princeton University
“Edwards’ analysis is a case study in the old axiom that ‘power corrupts’–it is a critique that deserves to be read.”–David Keene, National Chairman, American Conservative Union
“Writing with passion, wisdom and lucidity, Edwards provides a scathing critique of the Congress’s acquiescence in the dangerous and unexampled concentration of power in the Bush presidency. Reclaiming Conservatism is a tour de force.”–Thomas E. Mann, The Brookings Institution
Important book for the future of this country