rssThe Conservatives’ Lost Decade
Monday, March 02, 2009 at 12:19 pm
- 30 Comments
Former President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (WDCpix)
?John McCain, the 2008 Republican Party nominee for president, was not invited to speak at this past weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Neither was former President George W. Bush, and neither was former Vice President Dick Cheney.
“Our big effort this year was not to look back, but to look forward,” said David Keene, the chairman of American Conservative Union, a CPAC sponsor, on Saturday.
Image by: Matt Mahurin
The 36th annual meeting of the conservative movement — the largest ever, with more than 8,500 attendees, as organizers delighted in pointing out — was marked by its rejection of the past decade of conservative government. The name of the president who left office one month earlier, and who had won the CPAC presidential straw poll back in 1999, rarely escaped the lips of speakers. When it did, it was a token of praise for Bush’s foreign policy or — more often — a knock at his economic record.
“We got big spending under Bush,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in his Friday speech to the conference. “Now we’ve got big spending under Obama.”
The only images of George W. Bush that CPAC attendees could find in the crowded exhibit hall appeared at a booth for The Washington Times, which was offering, at a discount, a new book about his presidency titled “W.” A few steps away was the booth of Muslims for America, a Republican political committee founded in 2004 as “Muslims for Bush.” The only politician pictured in the group’s display was Newt Gingrich.
Conservatives at CPAC restarted their political clock at 1993, the first years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, before the Republican takeover. They also cast the 2008 election as a narrow and unearned Democratic victory made possible by a biased media that defended Barack Obama and destroyed Gov. Sarah Palin. The compressed history agreed upon at CPAC is that Republicans will win the 2010 elections if they utterly reject compromise with Democrats and re-brand themselves as the party of spending cuts and Ronald Reagan.
In a Saturday interview with TWI, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) argued that Republicans had “gotten lazy” during the Bush era. “We just think that we can make a speech and say we’re going to cut your taxes and [Americans] are going to vote for it,” said Sessions, pausing after taking a flyer from a Ron Paul volunteer about auditing the Federal Reserve. “We’ve got to go back and make the intellectual case for why a lean, efficient [government] is better than a bloated, politically driven, pork-driven government.”
Asked why McCain had made that argument in 2008 and yet lost the presidential election, Sessions argued that this had been a problem of message and credibility. “Sen. McCain did have a record opposing pork,” said Sessions, “but neither he nor President Bush, I think, were convincing to the American people that they fully understood and were committed to containing the growth of government.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s because conservatives argued the same things sixteen years ago, at the first CPAC of the Clinton presidency. “There were eight years of Reagan and four years of Bush,” said political strategist Ed Rollins from that CPAC’s dais, “and never should the two be confused.” Don Derham, then the secretary of Young Americans for Freedom, told reporters that it had been “tough to sell conservative philosophy under Bush” and that conservatives were now in the “enviable position” of “not having to run government programs but being able to criticize them.”
Conservatives took much the same line at this year’s CPAC, and claimed that Americans were ready for the party to block Democratic bills. “It’s going to take some time for this to play out,” said Rush Limbaugh in his closing address to the convention on Saturday. “But I spoke to David Keene, interviewing him for my newsletter. I asked him about this. He said they’re going to overreach. Wouldn’t you say they have?”
Anger at President Obama was open and, occasionally, paranoid. While there was little anti-Barack Obama merchandise on display, speaker after speaker and attendee after attendee spoke openly of the new president as a “socialist,” a “Marxist,” and a threat to the country’s traditions. Cliff Kincaid of the conservative Accuracy in Media, a co-sponsor of the event, used his time at the dais to further a discredited conspiracy that the president was born outside America’s borders. “At least in the 1980s,” said Kincaid. “We knew our president was born in the United States!”
“I loved it!” said Allen Metzger of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania after Kincaid spoke. “I thought they had a strong case for disqualifying Obama, but the media didn’t get interested and never got on it.”
Many attendees distanced themselves from these kinds of attacks; MSNBC host Joe Scarborough warned the crowd that it would “never get anywhere calling Barack Obama a communist.”
Harris was confident of his chances in a congressional rematch as long as President Obama continued working as he did in February. Voters, he said “will be waiting to get out and vote in 2010 and divide government in Washington. They’re going to want a right-leaning Congress to balance out a very left-leaning president.”
Many conservatives who had felt shut out and marginalized in the Bush years felt vindicated by the defeat of 2008. Immigration restrictionists had a large presence at CPAC, bolstered by a new group, Young People for Western Civilization, and the omnipresent former congressman Tom Tancredo and Team America PAC leader Bay Buchanan. At a launch party Friday night for the group, Tancredo was mobbed for photos as Peter Brimelow, editor of the immigration restrictionist web site VDare.com, huddled in a corner nursing a cough.
Brimelow, like Tancredo, scoffed at the idea that the Republican comeback would come when the party reached out to Hispanic voters. “Republicans fluctuate between disastrous and catastrophic with the Hispanic vote,” he said. “The problem that Republicans had was that they didn’t turn out the white vote, and they didn’t get as large a share of the white vote as they should have. What reason did McCain give them?”
Republican members of Congress said much the same thing. “The time to go-along to get-along is over,” said Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House, in his Friday speech. “I can feel it. I can hear it. Our nation’s very revolution itself began with rumblings of discontent.” Mike Huckabee, who followed Pence, called him a “congressional hero,” one of many whose opposition to the September Wall Street rescue package was “spurned by both president Bush and Sen. McCain,” thus leading to Republican defeat.
“That moment was not our best moment,” said Huckabee. “It would have been our best shot at winning the White House, a chance to offer a true, authentic, conservative choice, rather than a meek, me-too way of doing things. We missed our chance.”
One Republican who agreed with Huckabee was Andy Harris, a Maryland state senator who’s running for Congress against Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Maryland). Last year, with the backing of the Club for Growth, Harris defeated Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland) in a heated three-way 2008 primary, blasting Gilchrest for his opposition to tax cuts. Kratovil won the general election, an upset that Harris chalked up to an “extraordinary year,” and not something that discredited his strategy.
“If I had been elected,” said Harris, “I would’ve voted against the stimulus bill, against SCHIP, against Lily Ledbetter, and I would have voted against the omnibus spending bill.”
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30 Comments
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 10:27 am
I wish that Chicken Hawk Rush Limpball would run for office. Currently, he mouths off and does not have to worry about responsibility, let alone research. It took eight years for the Republican Reactionary Neo-Cons to create this economic depression, and it will take a few years to resolve it.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 10:39 am
Please make Rush Limbaugh your leader, the under educated name calling Fascist who paves the USA with hate and incindiary rhetoric . The distorter of truth. democrats did not want Bush to fail. Republicans want Obama to fail. This is one of the most unpatriotic animals in the USA and the GOP is going for it.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 10:41 am
Please make Rush Limbaugh your leader, the under educated name calling Fascist who paves the USA with hate and incindiary rhetoric . The distorter of truth. democrats did not want Bush to fail. Republicans want Obama to fail. This is one of the most unpatriotic animals in the USA and the GOP is going for it.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 10:43 am
As a independent voter, the rise of the Republican Party as a hate-filled, non-tolerant, and party that is run by this fringe group of right-wing radicals is both frightening and satisfying.
It is frightening because the GOP could have won the last election and the value system of Limbaugh and his ilk might have been running the country.
It is satisfying because Limbaugh and his following are finally removing the doubts of many in this country about what the majority of Republicans believe and think behind closed doors–intolerant, anti-American, and treason bearing individuals.
It is amusing that the Republicans see Limbaugh as their standard bearer when good old Rush was convicted of drug abuse and drug related charges a few years back.
This is who they look up too?
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 11:04 am
Wow, I'm amazed at the xenophobia that has gripped the Republican party, and their certainty that this is what American's really want. I am more of a pragmatist, and I think Reagan would be ashamed of what his party has become. I think people want access to healthcare, and college, and they want to buy food and gas for a price that lets them save up for a family vacation. I don't think America (at least the majority) is most concerned with their anger at Hispanics, or a misplaced belief in a broken ideology that people will govern themselves well simply because they feel like it. I think that the purpose of the republic was to create and enforce equal opportunity for all citizens of the United States, and any persuasion that corrupts that single, inherent belief, is going to end up losing in the long run.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 11:45 am
Honestly I'd love to have the option of voting GOP again. All they have to do is find leadership and candidates that actually spend time in the real world. These current party leaders are in denial of basic facts and recent history.
Obama was born in this country. Get over it. The initial claims were investigated and found to be false. Just because the investigation didn't yield the result the right-wing zealots wanted they try to act as if it didn't happen. At some point you have to just get on with life. Goodness knows the Dems did it after two at least “questionable” elections in 2000 and 2004.
The last I checked the so-called big spending that Obama is being vilified for dates to well before he took office. It was the Bush administration that threw half of the TARP funds out to the banks that played a bigger role than most in creating our current economic crisis. Most of that money has just disappeared. If you want to complain about government spending then look in the mirror first.
Speaking of big government: Does the name Homeland Security Department ring any bells? That's not a criticism of Homeland security, but it certainly proves that Conservatives aren't against growing the government. They just want to grow it to support the things they believe in.
I want government to spend money to fix roads and bridges, secure the countries borders, defend against attacks from foreign countries, and protect my right to pursue a little personal happiness. I don't need it to abuse me or the military to help big corporations, spend my tax money on getting politicians from other states reelected, or tell me what religion to have.
If the GOP wants to become relevant again it needs to realize what got it in it's current state. It wasn't that Obama is all talk and no skill or a media biases against them (their mindless zombie talking heads more than dominate AM radio and Fox (Faux) News). It was a change in the times and a shift in priorities for the majority of Americans.
Get a platform that can voted for and a candidate able and worthy of implementing it. Votes will start coming in again. Someday, maybe even mine.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
I'm still shocked that nobody in the media picked up on, what I think was the shinning moment in Rushbo's speach, “Conservatives love people.” Really, would anyone care to elaborate for me how the last 8 years and the 12 years of Reagan / Bush show a love for ALL American people. I'm sure all of the dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians would like to hear some “love” too. If “loving people” for the “compassionate conservative” means millions of middle income jobs lost, health insurance out of reach for over half of Americans, and increasing the wealth of your rich buddies on Wall Street…I would much rather you didn't love me so much.
Pingback posted March 2, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
[...] See the original post: The Washington Independent » The Conservatives’ bLost/b Decade [...]
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
Scary stuff! The GOPs would like to see President Obama fail (not just the stimulus bill), regardless of the welfare of the country…and they wonder why the have been branded as losers? BTW, I didn't realize Rush was done with his rehab.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
This former democrat, now independent, is one of many across the country, who will vote for republican candidates who take a strong, principled stand on behalf of the American citizenry, our US constitution and sovreignty. Who will commit to securing our border, implementing E-Verify, in tandem with targeting employers who hire illegal aliens. Who will also commit to enforcing our immigration laws, and that means rounding up and deporting those illegal aliens who refuse to leave voluntarily.
We'd also like to see a candidate who will stand up to the globalist interests and say that their insistence that the only thing America gets to export is it's jobs, does not serve our interests, and that we don't consider any business that outsources and displaces citizens when there are no real shortages, American companies. Who will stand tough against corporate and foreign interests, standing with the American citizenry.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
Mary – Should've listened to Ron Paul. Maybe next time the country will listen.
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
Rush Limbaugh is, such, a sore loser. He is like the one that gets dumped and rather than saying hey good luck, he stalks the ex and makes idle threats. Impotent, ineffective, full of hot air and irrelevant. I think the only reason he is even getting headlines for his 15 mins here is, there hasn't been a juicy gossip story in awhile. Please Rush, stay around awhile and do more, we are heartily amused by your endless ignorance, and the permanent damage you are doing to the Republican party is the last thing they need right, and America does need right now. I hope Obama succeeds, and I know he will, because I am hopeful for America, I have faith in our President and our future after all of the serious damage Bush and bloated, loudmouthed, blind, dimwits like you Limbaugh have done to our great country. One day Limbaugh, you will be humbled, obviously that day has not come yet for you, it will.
Pingback posted March 2, 2009 @ 11:44 pm
[...] a column entitled The Conservatives’ Lost Decade by David Weigel in the Washington Independent I found this tidbit: Many conservatives who had felt shut out and marginalized in the Bush years [...]
Comment posted March 3, 2009 @ 12:11 pm
“Who will commit to securing our border, implementing E-Verify, in tandem with targeting employers who hire illegal aliens. Who will also commit to enforcing our immigration laws, and that means rounding up and deporting those illegal aliens who refuse to leave voluntarily.”
Mary, two questions:
1. Are you also in favor of retroactive border policies? Unless you are Native American, most of us are descendants of immigrants.
2. Immigrants would not be able to thrive unless (mainly small to mid-sized) businesses were able to hire them as cheap labor off the books. Are you in favor of more business regulation?
Pingback posted March 3, 2009 @ 8:50 pm
[...] the Crock….I mean Clock Jump to Comments From The Washington Independent: John McCain, the 2008 Republican Party nominee for president, was not invited to speak at this [...]
Comment posted March 4, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
HELP STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION…….MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD: http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/about/w…
Comment posted March 5, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
Brimelow's comment was revealing. “The problem that Republicans had was that they didn’t turn out the white vote!”
That's what the Republicans have been reduced to.
Comment posted March 6, 2009 @ 1:14 am
Brimelow's comment was revealing. “The problem that Republicans had was that they didn’t turn out the white vote!”
That's what the Republicans have been reduced to.
Comment posted March 14, 2010 @ 7:49 am
Idiotic!! As usual. This party will never amount to much.
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