The Bellwether

With Missouri poised to lose its title as king of the bellwether states — likely to certify a belated vote count for John McCain today — James Poulos spoke with Missouri Governor Matt Blunt about the aftermath of the election, the future of the Republican party, and the pragmatically principled sweet spot.

HOTSPOTS: ideological overreach, modesty, school choice, culture wars plus, emopolitics, smart citizenship, Obama’s free will, federalism, country mice vs. city mice

Until Bobby Jindal came along, Matt Blunt was the youngest governor in America, elected at age 33. Though not running for reelection, Gov. Blunt is as suggestive of the crossroads facing the Republican party as any public figure. His name was bandied about in the speculative veepstakes before Sarah Palin, that other governor, came along; his tenure in office won him the lone gubernatorial A grade from the Cato Institute’s 2006 assessment. In the aftermath of Election ’08, with many on the right looking back to the states for figures of leadership, Blunt’s take on where the present meets the future is frank but upbeat.

After all, he says, “in the nineties, leaders in state government really rebuilt the party.” Yet, while there’s no shortage of popular and well-known governors and former governors on the Republican scene, Blunt takes care to point out Jindal as “probably the best example” of a state-level leader who’s offering “something we can point to as conservatives and say ‘that’s real conservative leadership.’”

The natural question is what that something is. Blunt elaborates with reference to three key idioms or visions: federalism, pragmatism, and modesty — the third of which he refers to in terms of fighting “overreach,” on the right and the left.

Though “it’s very unlikely” that we’re “going to see any strengthening of federalism” throughout the Obama administration,” Blunt insists that federalism ought to remain a conservative principle — specifically, because “it makes sense to people.” As he will do time and again, Blunt joins principle to pragmatism. The message that “we’re going to push dollars and ultimately power and authority down to the local level,” where” people most familiar with local problems can develop solutions,” rings true, in Blunt’s estimation, on a gut level for average Americans.

The concern, of course, is that America faces structural problems of a size and scope that many fear can’t be competently controlled at anything short of a national level. And while Blunt is keen for Republicans to find “good examples” of how and why government can deliver “dollars to a local community or a state government in a more efficient manner,” he’s willing to concede that — “over the next two to four years,” at least — state and local federalist Republicans will likely have to rely on their own initiative and ingenuity, rather than expecting national leaders to break up Washington power for their own decentralized use.