>> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community, and from the texas board of legal specialization. board certified attorneys in your community, experienced, respected and tested. also by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith. he's an author, blogger and cultural critic, now in his sixth year as an op-ed columnist for "the new york times," the youngest such columnist in the paper's history. he's ross douthat. this is overheard. [applause]. >> actually, there are two sides to every issue. >> so i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now. [laughter].

>> the night they win the emmy. >> being on the supreme court was an improbable dream. it's hard work, and it's controversial. >> so without information, there is no freedom, and it's journalist who provides that information. >> window rolls down and this guy says, "hey, he goes until 11." [laughter]. [music]. >> ross douthat, welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> nice to see you. you wrote a book that i loved at the time and have thought back on fondly in 2008 called "grand new party," about the republican party, and you had aspirations for the party to become something else or to expand its parameters to include more people. how did that work out for you? >> not -- i like to tell people it was a fantasy novel. >> fan fiction. >> it was fan fiction. >> right. it is a new party -- >> no. >> -- but maybe not the new party you thought. >> well, i think in a weird way the last six months in american politics have been better for the kind of ideas that were in that book than anything that had

happened in the previous five years. >> explain. >> well, basically, the book's argument was that the republican party needed to, in a sense, become on policy the party it had already become democrat graphically, that over the last 30 or 40 years, the g.o.p. has become much more of a middle and working-class party -- >> yep. >> -- that had sort of lost a lot of the upper and upper middle class, and -- but that it didn't have and doesn't have a kind of policy agenda to match. and that the issues that had won middle and working-class voters on, issues like crime, for instance, were no longer as salient. >> right. >> and so i and my coauthor, a guy named reihan salam -- >> right >> -- talked a lot about sort of what it would mean to have a kind of pro-family conservative economic, sort of ideas in that vein, basically. >> right. >> and what happened to the republicans after we wrote the book was pretty much the opposite, that the party after george w. bush looked at the bush presidency and said, well, what went wrong under bush was

that we became too much of a big government party, that we betrayed the true small government faith. >> right. >> and so the whole party swung in a much more sort of libertarian direction on economics. >> and it's not still there now as we sit here? >> well, what's happened in the last six months, again, this is a -- it's all very provisional, but a bunch of people in washington, d.c., at least, figures like marco rubio, who might just possibly be running for president next time around. >> yeah. >> mike lee, the senator from utah, some other figures like that, rob portman to some extent -- >> uh-huh >> -- have begun making speeches that essentially talk about economics in a light that's, i think, more like -- more like what was in our book >> i think of marco rubio and i think of rob portman in one category. i think of mike lee as a ted cruz style -- >> right. and that's -- >> -- flame-thrower, bomb-thrower, or a something thrower. >> and that is a big mistake and impression. >> mike lee is not ted cruz.

>> well, mike lee is certainly not ted cruz. and lee and cruz worked together on the government shutdown, which of course rubio and rand paul also supported it. it was something that you supported if you were a sort of younger -- >> ambitious. >> -- ambitious republican senator, but since then, lee in particular, has done a lot of stuff that cruz really hasn't. cruz has been a pretty much policy-free figure on the national stage. >> uh-huh. >> it's all sort of posturing and sort of getting to where, you know, the base seems to be on a particular controversy >> yeah. >> but lee has -- he put out a proposal for tax reform that basically sort of doesn't focus as much on cutting the top rate and focuses more on expanding the child tax credit. >> yeah. >> he's put out proposals on transportation, education, he's cosponsoring a sentencing reform bill with dick durbin, so he's sort of refashioned himself as less of a bomb-thrower, more of a policy guy. and rubio, i think, his impulses were always in that direction. and he -- i mean, he and lee, for instance, are working on a tax reform together right now. there have been republican

healthcare proposals floated. so, again this all -- >> attempts to get something done. >> it may be -- it may be temporary, but it's certainly better than where the party was in the 2012 campaign >> and you know the rap on the party has been for the last, let's just say 18 months, it's the party of no. >> right. >> and these senators, many of the ones you named, no-birds, are essentially they are to prevent things from happening rather than to enable things to happen. >> yeah. >> is that not an accurate description? >> i think that's a pretty fair assessment of a large chunk of the house republican caucus. >> house republican caucus. >> yeah. and figures like cruz in particular have sort of allied themselves with what you might call the more intransigent wing of the party. >> right. >> and that basically means that you're unlikely to see major domestic legislation passed for the rest of obama's -- >> so how does it -- >> so it's about basically republican reform right now is about 2016, and it's about what happens if there's a republican president. >> so we should all take an ambien for the next two years, is that it? >> wasn't that already obvious? >> i --

>> well, look. >> i don't disagree with you >> the shut- -- the aftermath of the shutdown -- >> yeah. >> -- meant that you probably aren't going to have any more shutdowns, so you're going to have what you actually just had this week, where a continuing resolution passes the house with some stuff attached to it. >> right. >> in this case, authorization to launch air strikes in syria, which -- >> nothing significant -- >> -- i don't think anyone expected a year ago. >> right. >> well, actually a year ago we were debating different air strikes in syria. >> different syrian crisis >> different bad guys in syria. >> yeah. >> and that will probably continue, that you'll sort of have -- you won't have the kind of confrontations that you had in, i guess it was 2013. >> yeah. >> and you'll have maybe -- you know, maybe there'll be something done, but probably not and the margins, but mostly it's just going to be -- >> right >> -- sort of whatever the government is spending money on now, it's going to continue spending money on, and you aren't going to have tax reform. if something happens on immigration, it will be because obama does it unilaterally. >> an executive order. >> right. and -- and then -- but, look. this is not -- this is partially

because of the intransigence of house republicans. it's also because we're in a second term. obama's approval ratings are terrible. george w. bush wasn't -- >> worse than george w. bush. >> well, have they gotten that bad? >> i -- >> i think you should check them again, because there's a talking point i need. >> let's fight it to a draw that they're close. they're close. >> close. >> within the margin error, right. >> and, you know, i mean, this -- this happened to bush, not with the sort of pyro tech not with the sort of pyro technics of the shutdown, but you just stopped doing stuff legislatively. and bush -- >> right. >> -- in the second term -- >> was that the case with bill clinton in the last two terms -- >> no. >> -- last two years of the second term? >> well, it was once the lewinsky scandal hit. >> yeah. >> and so there was -- there were deals, but they weren't -- again, they weren't -- they were budget deals, they weren't sweeping -- the big stuff. and welfare reform was the end of the first term. >> end of the first term, right. >> should we just make them leave after six years? isn't that -- >> well, i think -- there's actually a case that there's a four-year term -- you need them to get reelected so they have an incentive to get something done in their first term, but maybe you could have sort of a two and a half year second term. >> yeah. >> but the other problem is the

presidential campaign, it's not either party. it's just, you know, we're all already talking about hilary clinton, right? i mean the presidential campaign starts the instant this midterm campaign is over. and at that point, nobody has any incentive to make deals, because everybody's looking forward to the landscape after the great hilary versus jeb bush, hilary versus rubio tilt in 2016. >> right. >> so it's just -- it's just not a good atmosphere for reasons that go beyond republican dysfunction. >> have we in the press, by which i mean not you on the op ed pages -- >> of course not. >> -- but we in the working press have reported on -- you see what i did there? [laughter]. >> all right. we in the working press have developed a cottage industry out of reporting on the civil war in the republican party. you're a republican, you're a conservative, you consider yourself -- >> conservative, yeah. >> not a republican? >> i don't think it's appropriate to identify with political parties. >> well -- >> as a -- >> are you -- >> as a -- >> are you a conservative democrat? i mean, that's -- >> no. i'm a political conservative -- >> political conservative. >> -- who is more likely to support republicans, because i'm

a conservative. >> i like that. >> but that's -- you know -- >> so those of you who are more likely to support republicans because you're conservatives -- >> yes. >> -- have taken out after those of us in the press for reporting on this supposed civil war between the tea party wing of the republican party and the traditional business establishment -- >> right. >> -- institutional -- or institutionalist wing on the party. is that an exaggeration? is that a fiction? >> no. >> a figment of our imagination? >> no, it's absolutely not a fiction. it's becoming less significant -- >> because? >> -- than it was. because -- i mean, two things happened. one, you had a lot of -- you had a lot of grassroots energy, basically in 2010 that in certain ways was a kind of hangover from the bush years >> : yep >> where republicans said -- i mean, the bush years sort of gave republicans a kind of nervous breakdown. it was like you had the most -- you had sort of the heights of political achievement, you had the most popular president and -- in modern american history, approval ratings off the charts, the sort of wartime atmosphere, and then, you know, bush went from that to being the

least popular president since harry truman basically -- >> right. >> -- and that sort of whiplash sort of has to have some kind of aftershock, i think. and 2010 was the aftershock, and you had to just sort of throw the bums out attitude that was manifested in the tea party wave, and that took out a lot of incumbents, and that has continued, but it just inevitably with those kind of grassroot surges, it just gets more attenuated, and the establishment has adapted. and you saw this with mitch mcconnell and his primary campaign, you saw it, you know, in -- what happened in mississippi. >> chris mcdaniel and cochran -- >> the establishment has gotten -- right. the establishment has gotten smarter, more machiavellian maybe, more cynical, less surprised. >> right. >> but -- but -- so there's been -- there's been a sort of petering out of that energy, and then at the same time, you aren't in this kind of atmosphere of confrontation with obama anymore, which was a big

driver. it was this sense that we need to get people in there who will stand up to obama, who will just say no. >> now the president's -- >> now the president's stopped in his tracks. >> kind of irrelevant >> the second term, he seems almost irrelevant on domestic issues. >> right. >> and so, again, there isn't that same kind of energy. and then finally, you know, the combination of the loss in 2012 and the shutdown going so disastrously in 2013, i think created space, again, for this kind of policy rethink that we were talking about earlier. >> resurgence of serious people. >> right. i mean, but what's -- what's striking is that -- and this is where i do think the media gets it wrong. the media is right that the civil war exists, it's real, it's important. >> yeah. >> but the media's tendency is to say here are the serious establishment republicans who want to do serious things and here are these wacky tea partyers, and of course there are many wacky tea partyers, christine o'donnell, sharron angle and so on -- >> right. >> -- but the reality is -- is that most of the policy energy in the party right now -- >> yeah >> -- is coming from rand paul, marco rubio, mike lee, figures elected in the tea party -- >> self-identified. >> -- wave. >> well, in fact, i would -- >> right. >> in fact, i would actually say

something slightly different and pose this to you. i think the tea party -- the reason that the fight is kind of over-ish or -- because the tea party one. and that the establishment people you named, mitch mcconnell and whoever else have essentially, they've gone over to the other side. you know, they've -- they've -- they're not still the same establishment figures who were reviled by the tea -- they've kind of had to become more like the tea party to be -- >> they learned to speak the tea party language, i think. mitch mcconnell and john boehner at heart are still washington deal makers -- >> right. >> but, yeah. they -- they learned to be more intransigent and to talk a good game and so on. but it's also that -- so the tea party won in a sense by swinging the party to the right. >> right. >> but then when the party having swung to the right lost with romney and then lost with the shutdown, there was room to sort of almost swing not to the left, but to the center, in the sense that you could take some of that tea party energy and say, okay, guys, you want to change washington, you want to throw out the incumbents. >> yep. >> you want to clean up corruption, that's great, but

you also have to have an actual policy agenda. and that's -- that's sort of the best-case scenario for the party right now, that you have, basically, figures who can find this sort of sweet spot that partakes of the tea party's contempt with an exhaustion with washington, d.c., but also a little more, sort of, seriousness about how politics and policy actually works. >> but, of course, for every thad cochran who survives or every mitch mcconnell who survives, you have eric cantor -- >> right. >> -- right, who has defeated for exactly the reasons that you say incumbent members of the establishment wing of the party have been defeated for the last several years. >> but it's -- yeah, but, again, in certain ways was -- eric cantor had been a leader of the republican party in d.c. for a long period of time, and he had very few significant accomplishments -- >> accomplishments. >> -- to his name. so, again, from the point of view of at least people like me, who are interested in reforming the republican party -- >> right >> -- or something, having --

having cantor lose, it's not necessarily ideal, maybe he would have evolved -- >> yep >> -- into a substantive leader on policy. i think he had some good instincts, but it's not the end of the world to have this kind of throw the bums out atmosphere still around if you're getting some good figures emerging as party leaders for the future. now, you know, they may all just be steam rolled by hilary clinton, but, at least, i think -- >> well, let's -- >> -- you're in a different place than you were. >> let's go there. so here we sit in the end of 2014. we're at the very beginning of -- arguably, the campaign's already started. >> arguably. >> but let's just take your point, that the campaign's about to begin. the democrats are almost certain to nominate hilary clinton and do so enthusiastically with only a nominal challenge of bernie sanders or somebody else, mark o'malley were to get in this race, it would just be -- well, it would be -- >> right. >> -- for no end. whereas, your party, or the party that you tend to vote more with, however you said it -- >> i appreciate the qualification. >> -- so eloquently, it's kind of a jump ball, right? we really don't see as was the case with george w. bush in '94, we don't really see an obvious

choice. it's a little bit more like the previous two cycles where -- >> yeah, you know, you're going to have to fight it out and we'll see where we end up. >> yeah. >> and what tends to happen in republican politics is that you nominate the most moderate candidate who can reassure the conservative base. >> how does that work out for you guys the last two times? >> not -- >> not so well, right >> not so well. and that will be -- and that will be the argument that ted cruz will make when he runs for president. he will say, look, we tried nominating these -- >> twice. >> -- moderate tremors -- >> right >> -- these mccains and romneys, it didn't work, vote for me. and maybe that will appeal to people, but i think there's a reason that the party ends up nominating these figures, and it's because the balance of power in republican primaries is still held by sort of moderate conservatives who aren't necessarily tea party activists. >> but that gives the light of the idea that somehow the loudest and the angriest in the party are the ones who make those decisions, you know. >> they aren't. not at all. >> yeah. >> mitt romney would never have

been -- >> had a -- >> they had -- what -- what conservative activist have is veto power over certain positions, certain policy issues and so on, and in exchange for that, they tend to allow the moderate, but sort of moderate conservatives -- >> by comparison. >> by comparison. >> yeah. >> -- pick the specific nominee. and that hasn't just been true in the last two cycles. it was true of george w. bush. george w. bush was not at all the sort of activist darling in 2000. that makes you assume that the republican party ends up nominating a figure like marco rubio, who is clearly conservative, who is -- sort of has lots of friends and admirers -- >> yep. >> -- in the more ideological part of the party, but who is also sort of not a purely ideological figure. >> is he not suspect on immigration based on the little -- >> he is. >> -- face plant he did a year ago? >> and that's his big weakness. >> yeah. >> and he probably needs to come

out with a somewhat different immigration plan. >> yeah. >> than the -- than the bill that died in the house. >> right. >> but, you know, john mccain was suspect on immigration and he won the nomination. i think that picking -- mitt romney, as you may recall, designed a healthcare bill that looked a lot like obamacare. >> romney -- >> and he won the nomination. >> romneycare. >> yeah. >> that's what we heard. >> so -- so i don't think you should assume that a single issue -- >> yeah. >> -- suffices to take somebody down if they're in that sweet spot. >> yeah. >> now if jeb bush gets in the race, i don't know what happens to rubio, because their donor bases overlap. >> in florida, right. >> there's still -- i -- i tend to think he's been fatally damaged, but chris christie still has some claim on that -- >> yep >> -- sort of position. and then there are various governors >> scott walker. >> i don't -- i don't see it, but -- but maybe. >> so who's your guy? who is your guy? who is the douthat candidate? >> it is a bizarre love child of rand paul and marco rubio. >> rand paul. is rand paul enough of a normal kind of guy politically to -- >> no. >> i mean, seriously, because -- >> to be president? >> to run -- >> to win the nomination? >> to win the nomination and to be president? >> probably not, no. >> he's matured significantly in

office, but he still has his -- >> well, and he -- >> -- rough edges, right? >> and his maturing, i mean, there was a lot of talk about it this week. his maturing has meant sort of shifting his positioning around a lot without admitting that he's doing that, and he also -- his weakness right now is that on foreign policy with everything that's happening with isis and the middle east -- >> yeah >> -- the republicans are swinging -- the median republican voter is swinging in a more hawkish direction. >> yeah. >> paul is less of an interventionist -- >> an outlier within his -- >> -- even though -- an outlier within his party. >> right. >> but you were asking me personally, and personally, i am probably closer to where paul is on foreign policy -- >> right >> -- than where the rest of the party is, because i -- you know, i'm -- the experience of the iraq war made me -- >> right >> -- very skeptical of military intervention, and i opposed the libya intervention. i will probably go write a column questioning this intervention. >> yep. >> but then paul is at least right now too much of a sort of -- i don't even want to say

too much of a libertarian, because i think libertarianism can introduce a lot of interesting ideas. it's more that he's just -- he doesn't have sort of things to say about domestic policy that are either where i am or where i think the country is, and rubio, i think, is much closer to that, but rubio right now seems more hawkish than i'd like. >> so if you want to -- >> so if you could somehow combine the -- >> if you could somehow -- >> somehow combine the two, then i'd -- i'd -- >> you would take it. >> i'd -- >> speaking of outliers, we have a few minutes left. you are a conservative opinion columnist for "the new york times." it's a little bit like jumbo shrimp, isn't it? [laughter]. >> it's like you're a walking oxymoron. >> so many -- so many jokes. >> well, you know. the jokes practically write themselves. you're a conservative opinion columnist. what can be said about you is you're not bill crystal, who you succeeded on the opinion page, right? >> this is true. >> but you're younger and you're more of a contemporary conservative in that you don't set up naturally in a series of positions. you know, you do have some things about you that make you a little bit different, it seems, than some other -- >> well, or i haven't been a columnist during a republican presidency -- >> is that what it is?

>> -- so i'm not -- well, i -- i have a sort of rough theory of columnists that holds for liberals and conservatives -- >> yeah. >> -- that you sort of end up getting defined both with your readership but also in your own positions by how you relate to presidents from your own side. so there's a sort of set of conservative columnist -- >> yeah >> -- who were stamped by the reagan experience, a set of liberal columnists stamped by the clinton experience, and so on. so assuming that i remain a columnist, i think sort of my -- my profile is sort of undefined in part because i've only existed as a critic -- >> you've only known president obama? >> yeah. >> right, yeah. that's actually -- what is a generational issue also made mention also -- >> right. >> -- the fact that you're 34? >> 34. >> 34. you started this column when you were 2- -- >> -- -9. >> -- -9. 29. >> it was a little terrifying. >> a little young for this. but is your brand of conservativism as much a reflection of your age relative to some other conservatives who

write opinion columns? >> to some extent. >> yeah. >> but i'm also -- i mean, it's a reflection of my age in the sense that there are certain views i have, like a skepticism about military intervention -- >> yes >> -- that were shaped by the bush experience that i think a lot of conservatives my age have and conservatives older than us are less likely to have. at the same time, you know, if you took the sort of media profile, which isn't totally inaccurate, of, like, young conservatives right now, they're more likely to be libertarian, probably culturally liberal -- >> social issues, yep. >> -- and, you know, certainly supportive of same-sex marriage and so on, whereas i'm a reactionary catholic social conservative. so in that sense, i don't think i can claim to be all that representative of -- >> yeah >> -- my generation, whatever my generation may be. >> well, what's it like being a conservative at "the times"? now, "the times" is often tagged, i think, a little unfairly as being this sort of pravda on -- you know, on the hudson kind of newspaper, but the reality is, there aren't many like you. >> well, you know, "the times" has a very liberal readership.

>> yeah. >> and obviously -- >> is the paper liberal or is the readership liberal? >> the readership is certainly liberal. i -- >> is the journalism liberal by your estimation, because that's often the criticism? >> no. i mean, i think that, you know, "the new york times" editorial page is a liberal editorial. page. and "the new york times" writes for an audience of, you know, cosmopolitan liberals in new york, and like every newspaper, every major newspaper in america, most journalists working for "the new york times" are probably politically left of center. >> a reflection of -- yeah. >> so in that sense, but i don't think that's -- i don't think while all of that adds up to some of the things that my fellow conservatives like to complain about with "the times," i think it doesn't make "the times" a liberal newspaper in the sense that, like, "the guardian" is a liberal newspaper or something. >> >>: right. >> it's a newspaper that does amazing reporting that sort of, you know, doesn't fit into any kind of partisan box. >> with no ideological cast or tinge to it. >> right. but the audience -- i think it was jerry maserati maybe that --

>> yeah. -- "the times" -- one of "the times" magazine editors gave an interview once where he just -- he talked about sort of the dynamic of, you know, what -- who "the times" writes for, what it covers and where it is and how that sort of shapes things. and i think that's sort of what you have to think about when thinking about the politic of the paper. it's a cultural politics. it's a politics of, you know, the sunday style section and -- >> yeah >> -- and, you know, just sort of that. and that is -- that cultural politics is liberal, but it's not liberal in some preplanned programmed -- >> power to the people kind of thing. >> i mean, you know, there's a little of that after you get a few beers in paul krugman -- >> oh, is that right? >> no. i kid. i've never -- i've never seen paul krugman with a few beers in him. >> i would say paul krugman sober is probably just not -- [laughter]. >> yeah. and so they're hospitable to you despite your -- >> oh, yeah. >> -- your apostasy in the -- >> no, i -- and -- and this is the other point. i wouldn't be working at "the new york times" -- >> yeah >> -- and again we were talking about my social conservatism

that makes me probably more alien to the culture of part of "the times" readership than a more sort of just purely economic conservative would be. >> yeah. >> and they like that. and, you know, they, i think, wouldn't have hired me if they didn't want that kind of diversity, if you will -- >> right. >> -- on -- on the page. and, yeah, i mean, people ask are they -- you know, is, you know, maureen dowd sort of hazing me in the hallways or something. >> between -- >> i can assure you -- >> between even pot brownies -- >> -- everyone -- everyone has always been very nice and it's been a wonderful place to work. >> well, that's good. you have your -- >> and i have to say that because there's an electrode tied to my -- >> one of those halfway house monitors on your ankles that just direct [bzzzz] that goes... [laughter]. >> what are you going to do next? are you going to keep writing for the paper until they -- >> until they haul me out the door. >> -- realize that you're -- >> well, i don't want to be the youngest columnist ever fired by "the new york times." [laughter]. >> right. i mean, having -- >> that would be the first line in the obituary, wouldn't it? >> actually, it probably would, yeah. and -- but, yeah, i mean, i'm -- i guess, you know, maybe some day there will be a republican president and it would be

interesting to write about that. i think -- you know, i -- i think like any writer, you -- ideally you want to broaden your gambit -- >> yeah. >> -- sort of american politics which can be fairly depressing. >> and you're still a film critic for the national review? >> i'm still in -- one of my colleagues and i, frank bruni, have just started up a sort of online once-a-month conversation about the movies, so, you know, things -- things like that, i guess. that sort of -- that's sort of the hope. a future where, on the one hand, maybe i get to write about a president of a party that i might possibly consider voting for, and, two, a future where i don't have to write about american politics all the time. >> well, let's hope that you're able to get to that place soon. ross douthat, thank you, it's great to see you. appreciate you stopping by. >> absolutely. thank you guys so much. [applause]. >> we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q and a's with our audience and guest, and an archive of past episodes.

>> not on sort of state of the economy issues, but if you go sort of issue by issue, the democratic agenda, as stale and pathetic as i think it is, is more popular than the sort of nonagenda that republicans have. >> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community, and from the texas board of legal specialization. board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected and also by hillco partners, texas government affairs consultancy, and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health, and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you.