I am one who believes that we need to chart a conservative course for the future for the Republican Party and has spent time recently re-reading old speeches and watching old videos of Ronald Reagan (who was a political philosopher). BUT I really am very, very tired of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and here Melissa Clouthier whining about “moderates.” They are the ones who are depicted in the baby crying.
In the 2008 election, Rush ran anti-McCain parodies up to the election and then afterward, in a cowardly and unmanly way, proclaimed he had nothing to do with the 2008 loss. Ann Coulter went so far as to support Hillary for a period and always showed her disdain for McCain; of course, she too walks away from responsibility for 2008.
Lets get some things straight because if we don’t, we are going to learn the hard way that while delivering a conservative message is one part of the task for the GOP ahead, it is but one part. Rush talks about the Reagan formula of 1984, but he forgets that in 1984, Reagan was an incumbent President at a time of prosperity and peace — a winning combination. In 1996, Bill Clinton won by a wide margin without a conservative message but with the benefit of prosperity and apparent peace (the gathering storm of radical Islam was not on people’s radar).
In 2008, it wasn’t running what Rush unfairly calls a moderate campaign that killed us. It was a combination of factors: (i) a financial crisis that caused economic uncertainties that historically have favored Democrats and did in 2008; (ii) a Bush Administration bailout that muddied the waters of the difference between the parties on economics and diluted the largely Reaganesque message on the campaign trail delivered by the McCain-Palin ticket; (iii) Bush unpopularity, which was unfair but which was a factor; (iv) the Obama money that paid for what was flase political advertising (how do you win against a 7 to 1 advantage?); (v) the media bias that operated day in, day out as a propaganda machine for Obama; and (vi) demographic changes (if the country had the same demographic make up as 1992 and groups voted in the same percentage McCain-Obama as they did in 2008, McCain would have won).
According to the polls in 2007 and 2008, McCain was the only Republican who ever was close to Hillary and Obama; the other Republican candidates polled badly in a putative national match up, with Romney often the weakest. McCain went ahead in September, in the polls, but then the financial “crisis” hit. Had more foreign problems arose and reminded everyone of McCain’s strengths in foreign policy, military matters and national security, then McCain would have been elected despite everything. Instead, we have someone in Obama whom I do not view as competent to be Commander in Chief, and we will in time suffer badly as a result.
The point is that today, we cannot comfort ourselves with easy formulas, but rather confront all that went wrong in 2008. We now are facing a mainstream media bias that is effectively becoming an arm of what is becoming a socialist government, Leftist money is fueling Leftist propaganda and causes, ACORN operatives are out there funded by federal monies, and demographic changes are favoring Democrats. To overcome all that, just talking conservative principles won’t be enough. Among other things, Republicans need to reconnect with the people at such gatherings as TEA parties and Town Hall meetings, and we bring a conservative message applied to the specific circumstances of American lives and explan how multi-trillion dollar deficit spending and Big Government huts people in their every day lives.
That is what we need to be doing. But instead too often and I see and hear conservatives whining about “moderates,” including Rush who still runs anti-McCain parodies and groups McCain with Specter.
May I point out two facts to you? First, check John McCain’s voting record this year. McCain voted: AGAINST tax cheat Geithner to be Treasury Secretary; AGAINST ultra-lib Kagan to be Solicitor General, AGAINST radical pro-abortion Sibelius to be HHS Secretary; and AGAINST every Obama budget and bailout bill. In fact, it was John McCain who formulated the phrase “generational phrase theft” to describe Obama’s absurdly irresponsible multi-trillion dollar deficit spending, a phrase used often by Sean Hannity accurately attributing it to John McCain. Second, one of McCain’s main points in his campaign was that we needed to get out of control spending under control and cut it. As Victor Davis Hanson wrote wisely in his “Why Did Republicans Lose Their Appeal,” Republicans did so because they no longer were the party of financial responsibility. McCain ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility — a conservative message.
It is long past time to cease fire among ourselves and focus on what is to be done ahead.
