Alan I. Abramowitz on Who’s Afraid of Big Government? Not Us
Barack Obama has been pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. At least that’s what some conservative pundits are claiming. Despite his current popularity, commentators such as Michael Barone, Dick Morris, and Karl Rove are predicting that Mr. Obama’s approval ratings will come crashing down to earth once the public understands what he’s really up to: dramatically expanding the role of government in American society.
Notwithstanding the dire condition of the U.S. economy, the failures of some of the nation’s largest banks and investment houses, revelations of enormous salaries and bonuses paid to corporate CEOs who ran their companies into the ground and, of course, the results of the 2006 and 2008 elections, these pundits claim that Americans retain a fundamental faith in the virtues of the free market and a deep skepticism about the ability of government to solve the country’s problems. Therefore, they argue, President Obama’s attempts to use the power of the federal government to stimulate the economy, expand access to health care, improve the quality of education, reduce dependence on imported oil, and address the causes of climate change will eventually be his political undoing.
But if Americans are deeply suspicious of activist government, why has the Republican Party fared so poorly in recent elections, losing control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008? According to many conservatives, these defeats were caused by the Party abandoning its conservative principles and embracing big government. In their view, the GOP squandered its reputation as the party of limited government during the Bush years by supporting major expansions of programs such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit and No Child Left Behind and failing to rein in government spending. As a result, conservative voters had little reason to prefer Republican candidates to Democratic candidates.