Steve Benen catches Fred Barnes lamenting the massive political opportunity the GOP abdicated by abandoning Social Security privatization and tax reform. What's remarkable about Barnes' argument here is that it's entirely political: If the GOP had continued to push on these policies, they'd be poised for victory.
You really can't underestimate the degree to which that seems true to Fred Barnes. He wanders around a world of political elites -- from both parties -- where such things as a mortgage tax deduction and personal accounts are considered sensible, bipartisan compromises. Same on trade policy, on immigration reform, and all the rest. Argue over the policy merits as you will, but there's an elite consensus on an array of issues that tricks members into vastly overestimating the popularity of various proposals. It's like the apocryphal Pauline Kael comment that she didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon; Barnes doesn't know anyone who opposes entitlement reform.
This is the fallacy underlying all the dreamy imaginings of a third party ticket. Unity 08 and its various brethren are beloved by media elites for pointing out what the media elites believe to be true: No candidates are grabbing for the popular center. The entitlement reformers aren't socially liberal, the social liberals are insufficiently economically conservative. That this center has no serious constituency doesn't bother anyone because they don't notice. Statisticians call this a "first-order availability bias" -- when your actual environment is filled with a certain sort of thing, you'll extrapolate that outwards as a reasonably accurate illustration of the wider world. Barnes' world is full of folks who adore entitlement reform and think a flat tax is a fine and sensible idea. The wider world is not full of such folks.
I am pleased, however, to see the primary political reporter at one of the most influential conservative magazines so fully buying into this sort of error. If only more GOPers would take Barnes advice, the world would be a better place. Or at least a more Democratic one.
