The right wing's deep, dark secret

One of the secrets of conservative America is how often it has welcomed Republican defeats.

In 1976, many conservatives saw the trouncing of the moderate Gerald Ford as a way of clearing the path for the ideologically pure Ronald Reagan in 1980. George H.W. Bush's 1992 defeat provoked celebration not just in Clintonite Little Rock but also in some corners of conservative America. "Oh,yeah, man, it was fabulous," recalled Tom DeLay, the hard-line Texas congressman, who'd feared another "four years of misery" fighting the urge to cross his party's too-liberal leader. At the Heritage Foundation, a group of right-wingers called the Third Generation conducted a bizarre rite involving a plastic head of the deposed Bush on a platter.

There is no chance that Republicans would welcome the son's defeat in the same way they rejoiced at the father's. George W. is much more conservative than George H.W., and he has gone out of his way to throw red meat to each faction of the right: tax cuts for the antigovernment conservatives, opposition to gay marriage and general abortion rights for the social conservatives, and the invasion of Iraq for the neoconservatives. Still, there are good reasons that, in a few years, some on the right might look on a John Kerry victory as a blessing in disguise.

First, President Bush hasn't been as conservative as some would like. Small-government types fume that he has increased discretionary government spending faster than Bill Clinton. Buchananite paleoconservatives, libertarians, and Nelson Rockefeller-style internationalists are all furious - for very different reasons - about Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq. Even some neocons are irritated by his conduct of that war - particularly his failure to supply enough troops to make the enterprise work.

A second reason conservatives might cheer a Bush defeat is to achieve a foreign-policy victory. The Bush foreign-policy team hardly lacks experience, but its reputation has been tainted - by infighting, bungling in Iraq, and the rows with Europe. For better or worse, many conservatives may conclude that Senator Kerry, who has accepted most of the tenets of Bush's policy of preemption, stands a better chance than Bush of increasing international involvement in Iraq, winning support for Washington's general war on terror, and even forcing UN reform. After all, could Jacques, Gerhard, and the rest of those wimpy Continentals say no to a man who speaks fluent French and German and has just rid the world of the Toxic Texan?

The third reason for the right to celebrate a Bush loss comes in one simple word: gridlock. Gridlock is a godsend to some conservatives - a proven way to stop government spending. A Kerry administration is much more likely to be gridlocked than a second Bush administration because the Republicans look sure to hang on to the House and have a better-than-even chance of keeping control of the Senate.

A fourth reason has to do with regeneration. Some conservatives think the Republican Party - and the wider conservative movement - needs to rediscover its identity. Is it a "small government" party, or does "big government conservatism" make sense? Is it the party of big business or of free markets? Under Bush, Western antigovernment conservatives have generally lost ground to Southern social conservatives, and pragmatic internationalists have been outmaneuvered by neoconservative idealists. A period of bloodletting might help, returning a stronger party to the fray.

And that is the fifth reason a few conservatives might welcome a November Bush-bashing: the certain belief that they will be back, better than ever, in 2008. The conservative movement has an impressive record of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Ford's demise indeed helped to power the Reagan landslide; "Poppy" Bush's defeat set up the Gingrich revolution. In four years, many conservatives believe, President Kerry could limp to destruction at the hands of somebody like Colorado Gov. Bill Owens.

When the British electorate buried President Bush's hero, Winston Churchill, and his Conservative Party, Lady Churchill stoically suggested the "blessing in disguise" idea to her husband. He replied that the disguise seemed pretty effective. Yet the next few years vindicated Lady Churchill's judgment. The Labour Party, working with President Harry Truman, put into practice the anticommunist containment policies that Churchill had championed. So in 1951, the Conservative Party could return to office with an important piece of its agenda already in place and in a far fitter state than it had been six years earlier. It held office for the next 13 years.

• John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, writers for The Economist, are coauthors of 'The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America.' © Los Angeles Times.