Maybe it's because I want to get all perspectives or maybe it's because I'm some sort of masochist, but I like to read the conservative press fairly regularly to see what's up on the other side of the spectrum. Every once in a while, a doozy of epic proportions comes down the pike; the product of such bizarre thinking that it begs further examination. Writing in the American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord goes so far off the deep end that he's probably back in the shallow end. Let's take a look at some excerpts from his article on John McCain's conservative problem:
The American conservative movement, refreshed from its annual festival of intellectual and political lights known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), is experiencing yet another transformational moment of growth. It is important, it is dynamic, and it is most certainly unstoppable.
It's one thing to say that the conservative movement will experience another transformational moment of growth, but it's not happening right now. More and more people consider themselves Democrats than Republicans. Of course, you can be a Republican and not a conservative, but I doubt Lord will be able to find any Democrats who satisfy his definition of "conservative." Conservatives lost the 2006 elections roundly and polling does not bear out the retort that the GOP lost due to weak stands on earmarks and immigration.
As for "unstoppable," I think time will speak far more eloquently to that claim than I can.
Anyone who spent time at CPAC this past week, as I did, could not possibly miss the energy, passion, and intellectual volcano that is the American conservative movement. While media attention was understandably focused on McCain's Thursday appearance, the real story of the next stage of American conservatism was with the attendees themselves.
Judging the future of the conservative movement based on the enthusiasm of dyed-in-the-wool professional activists, party apparatchiks and folks with stuff to sell and websites to promote is like divining the bright future of the Democrats from the 1984 convention. Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson gave speeches that are still considered masterpieces today. Yet the Dems couldn't have sunk lower in the following decade.
To understand the potential represented by all of these people as they enthusiastically walked me through their projects is to know with assurance that conservatism in America is moving forward yet again, on the edge of a vibrant transformation into a serious 21st century political and cultural force.
Enron tells me Enron's future is bright, they're making money hand over foot, and I believe them! Why would they lie to me?
Particularly appalling was the recent column in the February 9th edition of the Wall Street Journal by Robert "Bud" McFarlane, President Reagan's national security adviser. As with some others supporting Senator McCain, McFarlane makes his case for McCain in a positive fashion -- up to a point. Inexplicably he then wheels around and attacks the talk radio folks as using "extremist rhetoric" that will "cost" the Republican Party.This is astounding language to hear from someone who worked for Ronald Reagan. Surely McFarlane is aware that this is the kind of language that was used repeatedly by Reagan's political enemies to describe Reagan himself.
Just how far into this piece did you think he could get without mentioning Reagan? Inadvertently, he's hit on one of the big problems with modern conservatism. Lord says over and over again that people are energized by new conservative ideas, yet every dispute is argued in terms of what Reagan would do. Ronald Reagan was first elected 28 years ago. The youngest people who had a chance to vote for him (in 1984) are 42 years old today. Attacking someone for misusing St. Ronnie's name is increasingly irrelevant to people outside the Congressional Ballroom at CPAC.
Next up, a line of people waiting to hear Ann Coulter speak:
Quite a number of them, with Coulter buttons pinned to lapels and blouses, volunteered that they didn't agree with their heroine that it would be better to vote for Hillary over McCain. What they also made clear was that they loved Ann Coulter and respected her for her clarity as a champion of conservative principles, reserving the right to disagree with her as they reserved the right to disagree with McCain.
Every time that woman opens her mouth, the conservative talking heads disavow her. Check out the link to her name right above this to see what conservative "clarity" means.
This isn't going well - so far, he's claimed conservatives are on the march based on talks with America's most dedicated conservative activists, fought over the dusty Reagan mantle and defended John McCain from Ann Coulter, as if there wasn't an entire political party out there that people outside the conservo-bubble are increasingly leaning toward.
Let's go back to Reagan.
I know some of the signatories to the recent public letter signed by several longtime Reaganites, and in fact worked for two of them. All the signers are great people who have deservedly won high praise in their careers. Yet with all due respect, how long and how well they knew Ronald Reagan is, at this juncture, quite beside the point. To sign on to a letter that tries to compare Reagan-as-maverick to McCain-as-maverick not only misses the mark, it ignores the obvious. If Reagan was a maverick -- and I personally believe he was about conservative principle, not about being a maverick -- he was a conservative maverick. He approached the 1976 campaign against the incumbent President Ford by running where he in fact was -- to Ford's right. McCain spent both the 2000 primary season against then-Governor Bush and notable parts of his Senate career championing causes not of the right but of the left.
Translation: Not fair! You can only use Reagan analogies to defend the rightmost side of an argument!
The "McCain problem" is not talk radio. Listening Thursday evening as I drove through Washington after day one of CPAC I tuned into Mark Levin's show. In paint-peeling language, Levin, a former Reagan-era colleague, ran through McCain's problems in terms of his record. Some Straight Talk here. If talk radio fell mute this minute, McCain's problem would still exist.
Talk radio is not McCain's problem. The fact that radio hosts are trashing this guy to audiences of millions of true believers has no relevance.
[...] McCain's best year as a conservative came in 1994, when he was ranked the 8th most conservative among all Senators. By 2004, he had fallen to 49th, with rankings of 45 and 46 respectively for 2005 and 2006. No ranking was available for 2007. The 2004 ranking, Victor says, tied McCain with the GOP's famously liberal Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, with only two liberal Republicans further to the left, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee. Chafee, of course, faced a primary challenge from a conservative in 2006 and then lost to a Democrat in the fall. He has now announced that he is leaving the Republican Party.
Let's take a look at recent conservative history. "Famously liberal" Arlen Specter faced a well-funded primary challenge from extreme fiscal and social conservative Pat Toomey. Specter won. Lincoln Chafee faced a primary challenge funded by the same pack of money-cons, beat them, then lost to a Democrat. Olympia Snowe won re-election in 2006 with 74 percent of the vote. Yesiree, people both inside the party and out are clamoring for the demise of moderate Republicans. All we need to show them is that we've drummed out all the deviants from the party.
So, how does McCain reach out to the shrinking and increasingly irrelevant conservative core that couldn't even select a nominee for its own party? Play to a base that just proved how little it matters!
There is nothing that stops him from introducing a McCain conservative program bill by bill on the Senate floor. Surely most if not all of it would not pass. Senate Democrats would see to that. But it would give conservatives a very clear, very sharp look at exactly what a McCain presidency would look like. Yes, it runs the "risk" of not appearing to "reach out" to Independents and Democrats. Sure, the mainstream media would be all over him -- as if they won't be anyway.
Apparently, if you win a GOP primary, your main responsibility is to the people you beat handily. You were wrong, not them, and you must repent for your popular ways!
Anyway, I think it's been a while since we heard anything about Ronald Reagan...
But if McCain's campaign wishes to really do something Reaganesque he could use his Senate position not as a forum to "reach out" but rather to bring Independents and Democrats into the conservative cause as conservatives, not as liberals who want a second liberal party.
I'm conservative. You're not. My candidate will lose unless you support him. Please support him even though he refuses to meet you halfway on any issue. You must understand that he can't cater to you, the independent voter, because he must first placate the faction within his own party that proved itself incapable of nominating someone acceptable to them.
That couldn't be a hard sell, could it?
But whether [the folks I talked to at CPAC] were McCain supporters or not, they made something else very plain.One and all, they are working, working passionately, to lift the conservative movement forward to its next stage. To transform and energize it yet again, creating a 21st-century future based on conservative principles just as Ronald Reagan re-created the late 20th century based on those same principles. They will do it with John McCain -- or without him. But one way or another, they understand that all of this isn't about McCain or about talk radio.
It's about the principles, stupid.
Think about that one.
Another Reagan reference? Check. No acknowledgment of any change in the world since he was President? Check. Unenumerated "principles"? Check. A thinly-veiled threat against the nominee? Check. A complete detachment from reality that sees defeat as victory? Check plus!
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