Is Thompson a Reaganite? Was Reagan?

Today's New York Times story about whether Fred Thompson will be accepted as a genuine conservative and a true heir to Ronald Reagan is rather confusing, not least because the Times does not seem to have a clear idea of what it means to be a conservative in 21st-century America. To be fair, neither do I.

Some of the Thompson stances identified as conservative—opposition to the Medicaid drug benefit, support for gun rights and tax cuts, respect for the division of powers between state and federal government, the belief that we "get our basic rights from God, not government"—sound pretty good to me. Others—"unwavering support for the war in Iraq" and a desire to restrict immigration, for instance—make Thompson look less appealing. Likewise one Thompson position the Times identifies as unconservative: his support for the restrictions on political speech known as "campaign finance reform." My personal reactions aside, it's not always clear what makes these positions conservative.

Take the war. The case for invading Iraq relied on a very broad understanding of self-defense that was at odds with traditional conservative skepticism of foreign entanglements, nation building, and attempts to remake the world in our image. Staying there is conservative, I suppose, in the sense that it continues what we're doing. It may also be conservative in the sense that self-described conservatives are more likely to support staying the course than self-described liberals or progressives are, but I suspect those numbers would be reversed if the war had been launched by a Democrat.

Similarly, the Times cites Thompson's desire to restrict immigration as distinctively conservative, ignoring the many self-identified conservatives (including President Bush, John McCain, and The Wall Street Journal's editors) who are more pro-immigration. Conversely, Thompson's opposition to federal caps on punitive damages and lawyers' fees is tagged as unconservative, even though it is consistent with his avowed support for federalism. Speaking of which, the Times notes that Thompson voted against the law that established a de facto national DUI standard by threatening to withhold highway money from states that refused to adopt a BAC cutoff of 0.08 percent. That makes him more of a federalist than Reagan, who went along with similar legislation aimed at establishing a de facto national drinking age of 21.