Jonah Goldberg and Happy Warriors

Last night, Carolina hosted a speech by Jonah Goldberg, conservative pundit and author of the bestseller “Liberal Fascism.” Say what you will about Goldberg, but he gives a darn good speech. The crowd interrupted him with applause more than once—especially when he declared that “the GOP needs to stop being pro-business and start being pro-market.” Everyone in the crowd, especially the libertarians, went nuts.

One of Goldberg’s lines really stuck with me. He said that conservatives need to be “happy warriors.” I think he’s right. For the past couple years, the prevailing mood on the right has been an unpleasant mix of bitterness, grimness and self-pity. No wonder the party’s in trouble—if the people already in the party seem to hate it, why would anyone else want to sign up?

The GOP has always been the anti-government party—or, at least, the not-quite-as-big government party—so it’s no surprise that its elected officials are a little ambivalent about their jobs. They return to their home districts, rail against Washington, and then go back to their offices in DC. No wonder there’s some cognitive dissonance. That doesn’t mean, though, that they have to hate their jobs.

The most successful Republican in modern history, Ronald Reagan, projected a spirit of optimism. He was Hope and Change while Barack Obama was still in college. He was the ultimate Happy Warrior. That’s what the GOP needs, I think. They don’t necessarily need to go back to the policies of Reagan. What they should be wishing for is someone with Reagan’s smile, his charm, his sense of confidence. Only then will the Republicans have any chance of recapturing the White House.

WILL SCHULTZ