What about the Corporate CEOS?

books:

	• The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party Ryan Sager Wiley, 2006 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Illuminating

Wow, it's so clear to me now! An unpopular war wasn't the half of how the Republican leadership self-destructed.

This book presents a stunningly eloquent exposition of the current state of the Republican Party, from the perspective of 'before the fall'. Essential information for voters on the motivating ideas of US federal leadership. This book will make the Republican half of the story strikingly clear.

The writing is entertaining and an 'easy read' while covering what could be a dry subject. The book is of modest length but impressive depth. It reads like a conversation with a master of the subject conveying a rich scope in a terse 250 pages.

I can understand Kristen's review below but it hardly seems fair to criticize a book for doing what it promises, explaining the battle for control, so well that the reader wishes there was an easy answer. Sager could have given us one, as we are so accustomed to hearing from political candidates. I'm glad he did not. It would have encouraged readers to consider the `problem solved' and slip back into our daily complacency. Having seen and understood the Republican dilemma I feel motivated to address it and armed with the clarity to push through pat answers for real actions.

Now where's the book that will explain the Democrat malaise, including why their leadership seems to hate the central values of the American Experiment?

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What about the Corporate CEOS?

Everything is accurate in the book and the commentaries on it except the fact that both the book and everybody here is overlooking >> there is a third and extremely powerful faction in the Republican Party that straddles both Libertarian and Big Government factions. And they are the faction in power. That is the Corporate CEO big money bigwigs who get far more of their agenda enacted than either the social conservatives or the libertarians. And they do it by having it both ways. Huge tax cuts aimed at them? Why that's 'libertarian', isn't it? Big subsidies such as the medicare drug plan, which shuts out any 'free market' competition while at the same time granting new entitlements forever? Why that's 'compassionate (social) conservatism'! Gigantic No-bid contracts for Halliburton, Bechtel, etc? That's Republicans 'Strong on defense'! No regulation for pollutors? No increase in mileage standards to free us from oil dependence on our enemies? Libertarian! Both libertarian and social conservatives are played for suckers by these guys, and they are the ones (literally) running the White House and controlling the actual Republican agenda.
The deep contradictions in the Republican 'coalition' have been there all along. It's corporate 'big government socialism for the corporations and the rich, capitalism for the poor and middle class' Privatize social security to pump billions of taxpayer money to Wall Street con artists? Libertarian AND big government compassionate conservatism at the same time! Huge tax breaks for the world record breakingly profitable oil companies >> NONE of which is passed on to the consumer (about as likely to reduce oil dependence on our enemies as tax breaks for alcohol production would end alcoholism) ? Strong on defense! That's been the real 'social engineering' that's been going on in the last 10 years. A giant Amazon river of public money for these guys, and a $500 tax 'break for the rest of us". A piece of red meat thrown to one side or another has kept this unholy alliance alive as improbably long as it has. The dustbin of history is sweeping the whole mess away, since the American people more and more realize whose agenda is REALLY being brought to life by the monied elite that actually runs the party.

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Superb!

Before coming across this book, I had never heard of Ryan Sager. What a pleasant surprise when I began reading! I will definitely keep my eyes out for anything else published by him.

Mr. Sager has written -- excellently, by the way, and often with laugh-out-loud humor -- all the things that I'd been thinking (and often getting frustrated & angry about) politically for the last 6+ years. It was like reading my own nebulous thoughts and feelings on the hijacking of conservatism by big-government Evangelicals, only done in a much more articulate and well-researched way than my own ramblings could ever have managed.

His primary thesis is that the alliance between 'social conservatives' (those concerned primarily with 'values' issues rather than individual rights or small gov't, and who are often Southern & evangelical) with 'libertarian' or 'fiscal conservatives' (those focused more on small gov't and individual rights, more likely to be from the interior West), is in danger, primarily as a result of the Bush Administration and the 2000-06 Congresses, combined with historical changes. According to Sager, this alliance, first begun in the 1950s, first brought to national prominence in the Goldwater campaign ('64), and brought to electoral victory by Reagan in the '80s and Gingrich in the mid-90s, was a marriage of convenience. The two strands of 'conservatism,' which in fact seem contradictory when you think about it, allied first against communism (and the aftertaste of the New Deal), and then, in the '90s, against the Clinton administration. Now, however, without a foe both strands recognize (libertarian conservatives tend to be less hysterical about the Islamic threat than social conservatives), the marriage is on the rocks.

As a former registered Republican, turned off from the Party by the Bush Administration's and the Hastert/Lott/Frist Congresses' big spending (they made Clinton look like a fiscal conservative!), religious pandering, government enlargement(NCLB, Prescription Drug entitlements, anyone???) and Wilsonian interventionism (make the world safe for democracy!), I have now been a proudly registered Libertarian for several years.

It is here that I differ with Mr. Sager (and agree with several other reviews of this book) because I don't share the author's optimism that the alliance between libertarian and social conservatives can (or, even moreso, should) be fixed. Instead, I think the Republican party may well be on its last legs if it continues to pander to Southern Evangelicals at the expense of the rest of the party. Many people like myself don't like the fact that the two options in major parties today are a big government party that takes the Bible literally (GOP) and a big government party that doesn't (Dems). If these trends continue, I think we can expect more Democratic electoral victories. Whether the Libertarian Party or some other option will take the place of the GOP if it does indeed disintegrate(like the Whigs in the 1850s) remains to be seen......

Still, this book is excellent, very well-written, and I think vital to anyone who wants to understand what's going on in the Republican party & conservative movement today. I couldn't put it down and read it very quickly. This is the best book on current politics I've read in a while.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Praise for The Elephant in the Room

"This funny, sobering, smart book reminds Republicans that having beliefs isn't good enough. You have to act on them. Winning isn't enough; you have to win with a purpose in mind. Ryan Sager sounds a real call to arms. The party would be wise to hear it."
--Peggy Noonan, columnist, The Wall Street Journal

"An insightful and eminently readable account of the current conservative crackup. Anyone who wants to understand American politics today needs to read Sager's chronicle of the ongoing civil war in the conservative ranks."
--Paul Begala, coauthor of Take It Back

"Two feisty American factions are at daggers drawn. No, the fight is not conservatives versus liberals. Rather, it is libertarian conservatives versus 'social issues' conservatives. In this illuminating examination of the changing ideological geography of American politics, Ryan Sager suggests that the conservatives must choose between Southern and Western flavors of conservatism. He prefers the latter."
--George F. Will, syndicated columnist

"Sager picks up where Bruce Bartlett left off with Impostor. The Elephant in the Room tells us how libertarians and the Christian conservatives are at swords' point over Bush's 'big government conservatism.' Anyone who wants to understand this important debate should get a copy of Sager's book."
--John B. Judis, coauthor of The Emerging Democratic Majority

"Ryan Sager offers an eloquent, elegant argument that the GOP has lost its way--an argument that even those of us who disagree with many of his criticisms and object passionately to many of his characterizations must take with the utmost seriousness."
--John Podhoretz, author of Can She Be Stopped?

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