Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Republicans? We Hardly know those Guys

Expect a lot of commentary along the lines of these from Philip Klein and Michelle Malkin. Conservatism didn't lose, they argue, Republicans did. Klein thinks that the GOP should try "returning to their small government roots and once again becoming the party of ideas." Which would work except for the fact that there is no constituency for their "small government roots."

Malkin argues that,

The GOP lost. Conservatism prevailed. "San Francisco values" may control the gavels in Congress, but they do not control America. Property rights initiatives limiting eminent domain won big. MCRI, the anti-racial preference measure, passed resoundingly. . . Gay marriage bans won approval in 3 states. . .

John Kerry's late-campaign troop smear galvanized bloggers and talk radio hosts, but it was not strong enough to overcome wider bipartisan voter doubts about Iraq. I'll weigh in further on the war and the GOP in the morning.

I wonder if in thirty years she will be arguing that conservatives prevailed because initiatives passed outlawing the "man on dog" sex that Rick Santorum so feared. That most Americans still oppose gay marriage hardly says that conservatives are winning. Note how she attributes the loss to "wider bipartisan voter doubts about Iraq" as if invading Iraq wasn't central the central issue for the Right in the last few years.

4 comments:

Sean Scallon said...

Did you hear Limbaugh today? He basically admitted he was a "water-carrier" for the GOP. No more! Now he's "liberated" from them and now that the Dems are control he'll go back to being the Rush Limbaugh of 1988-1994, crusading against the Dems in Congress. He said the word conseravtive 12 times instead of saying the word Republicans.

A lot of the shill talk show hosts were saying the same thing. Conservatism didn't lose. Republicans did. We need more green eggs and more green ham. Go back to the principals of Ronald Reagan. Yes, it's all so simple. Just act like Reagan! Even though Reagan never acted like Reagan when it came to governing. And if you can't act like Reagan when you gain power, you can how act like Reagan on the campaign trail?

Listen to all this and it's clear we don't need to go back to the past. We need a brand new conservative movement.

Anonymous said...

Now he's "liberated" from them and now that the Dems are control he'll go back to being the Rush Limbaugh of 1988-1994, crusading against the Dems in Congress.

Actually, from what I've heard, this would more be the Rush Limbaugh of 1988-1992, if even that. The Birchers, in their New American mag, quote a May 1994 James Fallows Atlantic Monthly article, "Talent On Loan From The GOP":


As recently as June 2, 1992, Limbaugh was free-swinging, even against some Republicans. During the Republican primaries early that year Limbaugh had been very hard on George Bush for his fecklessness and his deviation from the conservative line. Pat Buchanan's truculent campaign seemed matched to Limbaugh's outlook -- and Limbaugh supported it on the air.

(...)

On June 3 [1992] George Bush invited Rush Limbaugh to Washington. The two had dinner and took in a show together. Limbaugh stayed overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom -- where ... he placed calls to his relatives saying, "You'll never guess where I am!" ... From that day forward Limbaugh never said a word on his show that could be construed as hurting Bush's re-election effort.

Having proclaimed for years, and with good reason, that his show was so entertaining that it didn't need guests, he (then) had both Bush and Quayle on the air and listened to them reverently.

One visit seemed to turn him around permanently. (...) As Limbaugh became more and more a party operative, his subject matter shifted too -- from positions he'd developed to those he had obviously been fed .... He is clearly working from clips and theories someone else has handed him, very much like the Hollywood liberals he ridicules, who are working from clips about the plight of whales or the rain forest.

Glaivester said...

Which would work except for the fact that there is no constituency for their "small government roots."

Obviously, the problem is that we let the parasites vote.

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