viguerie explains conservative disaffection
tim
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club
Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives,
thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a
"compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean.
Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush
and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were
desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to
Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the
strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly.
After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a
triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a
honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts
nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for
the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion
into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription
drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon
B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single
bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his
signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's
opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John
McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly
religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out
on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and
probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second
term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a
Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the
conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After
the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court
nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the
tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last
week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16
percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of
conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as
talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the
benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not,
outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a
conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched
Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready
for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal
immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of
the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly
the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising
threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the
temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to
the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the
world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal
lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to
appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an
inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to
be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine
previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be
liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a
significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a
message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme
Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize
the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives
as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would
take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence,
tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever
grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power
brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering
conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share
of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door,
staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican
congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an
affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word
strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off
the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The
cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke"
Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional
earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to
protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a
constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex
marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled
House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem
cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the
classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the
Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush
has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader
such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans
could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would
do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda
comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are
unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal
Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the
election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with
Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the
spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government
policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's
selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major
Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976,
conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and
Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's
open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the
candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an
incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998,
conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending
and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected
loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich
(R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a
drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home
this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing
will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional
Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and
nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter
what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting
things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how
badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle
and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan
ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's
unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National
Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!)
Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts
toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect
their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement
independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of
the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new
generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The
current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's
conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him,
and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to
discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce
lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
r...@conservativesbetrayed.com
Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of a Manassas marketing firm, is the author of
"Conservatives Betrayed: How Big Government Republicans Hijacked the
Conservative Cause" (Bonus Books), out this summer.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
coaste...@yahoo.com
reduced to running a Manassas marketing firm. He used to propose and
dispose. I can remember when he was their Karl Rove.
H.
tim
<coaste...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1148229320....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
> H.
I saw an interview with Viguerie recently. He still commands that mailing
list he compiled, the one that would rake in millions of dollars with each
appeal. He was a mover and shaker, indeed.
The internet if full of pictures of Bush in his border patrol dune buggy
side by side with Dukakis in his tank.
Sour grapes, revenge, enough. Lots of hard emotions swirling around
politics today. It's good to see. Democrats are finally standing up and
speaking their minds. Yesterday I heard a Republican sneer at "class war",
and Begala spoke up and said, "Damn right its a class war, and YOU started
it and are waging it." He was almost foaming at the mouth. I can't tell
you how good that was to see. I haven't seen any spunk in the party since
the Warren Court.
Huffington Post has a nice review of McCain's reception at The New School.
Hilarious.
Tim
Joel Olson
>
This does bring out how internally factionalized the Republicans are. The
significance of the frequency of them "rallying their base" is getting
clearer. Not just ignoring the rest of the people, but trying to herd cats.
They don't have the self-perception to realize that the Republicans have
abandoned their former core values - honesty, public service, constitutional
reverence. The only glue holding them together now is their mutual corruption.
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tim
"Joel Olson" <jeo...@webzone.net> wrote in message
news:DwXfg.8098$921....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> This does bring out how internally factionalized the Republicans are. The
> significance of the frequency of them "rallying their base" is getting
> clearer. Not just ignoring the rest of the people, but trying to herd
> cats.
>
> They don't have the self-perception to realize that the Republicans have
> abandoned their former core values - honesty, public service,
> constitutional
> reverence. The only glue holding them together now is their mutual
> corruption.
Unapologetic corruption.
Welcome home, Joel. You have a good trip? Missed you. Been dull around
here.
Joel Olson
Pretty good. Longest I've ever stayed back there. Nephew graduated with a major
in graphic design, now busy putting up his portfolio on a web site, apparently
a large adjunct to his resume.
Visited the Dada (East Wing, downtown DC), Hokkaido (Sackler Gallery) and
Motherwell (Baltimore Museum) exhibits, and a green housing display at the
National Building Museum. Found Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s 3-Vol. set on The Age
of Roosevelt for 2 bits apiece at a yard sale. A trip to the Amish market
got us some good balogna and a chunk of Limburger, which the family wouldn't
touch, but I slipped some to Ron on good bread with a Brooklyn beer,and didn't
tell him what it was till after. :-)
Ate well - Halibut in Fell's Point, Crab on the inner harbor, Barbeque, Popeye's,
Indian twice (including Goat curry) and Linda even made a rhubarb/raisin pie.
And my brother Leon (getting into the latter stages of MS) even played some
Texas Hold 'Em with us for a while. Did pretty well till we all figured out he
couldn't quite see exactly what his cards were. He'd been watching the games on
TV. They have an attendant come by for a few hours 4 days a week, to help him
with bathing and stuff and they go out "walking" in his scooter.
Ron, one of Leon's boyhood fiends, was there over the Memorial Day weekend, and
with Leon only having a couple hours a day of "up-time", we had plenty of time
to get reacquainted and compare histories (I used to date Ron's older sister, but
dumped her, back in High School.) Ron became an EE type and is still at it, but
plans to retire soon and maybe become a poker pro, but I doubt he'll make it ;-).
So it was really good to talk again with a Minnesotan.
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A man shouldn't have to wait until he wasn't any good before he retired. He should be
able to quit while he still has some fresh accomplishment in him. - Orson Scott Card
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tim
Wow. That much R&R would occupy me for a decade.
Slip us the URL for his page by e-mail when it's launched.
Nice to have you back, Joel. What was the Hokkaido like?
Joel Olson
Not so many woodblocks, more paintings and inked works. Have I mentioned The
Laws of Japanese Painting (Henry P. Bowie)? Essential to at least recognize that
different types of line go with different subjects.
One of the other viewers, wearing a blouse with cut-away shoulders, had a
tattoo of one of the paintings. Spectacular.
It was similar to Durer in that he painted many of the common people at work,
so that you see the less formal dress and a lot of old technology.
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I wouldn't be seen dead with a living work of art. - Uncredited museum curator
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tim
Wonderful. I pay a price for living far from the city.
Bill
Minnesotan. If you didn't get enough of that you are welcome to spend some
time at my place. My fishing buddies showed up today and we landed 16 nice
northern. Let all but four go. Those were in the 3-lb. range. My friend
and I had two for supper tonight and will have the other two day after
tomorrow. Deep fried them with a beer batter and they were like eating
candy. Only found one bone.
Sorry to learn your brother Leon has advanced MS. Most folks get along for
years with gradual deterioration it seems, however it finished my wife in
only 18 months.
Joel Olson
I've an uncle in Slayton who has it too, but with him its going much slower.
A terrible disease.
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A low center of gravity makes me feel healthy. - John Hesse
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