How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File

Guys, I was about to post this article from the Atlantic myself before Ksen beat me to it.

The Atlantic author has some valid points. Many of us on Free Republic were saying many of the same things about Mitt Romney before he won the Republican nomination.

Here's an example:

“You haven't just been misinformed about the horse race. Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven't tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they've done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election. Why do you keep putting up with it? Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election.”

Mitt Romney won the 2012 nomination because real conservatives couldn't get our act together and unite behind a single candidate. Via divide-and-conquer strategies, Romney won despite being the least conservative of the serious Republican candidates in 2012, using the mantra of “let's fix the economy” and downplaying the social issues that fire up much of the Republican base.

The article in the Atlantic is sounding very similar themes to what we've been saying for a long time on Free Republic about Mitt Romney, and I believe we need to take it seriously.

We also need to take seriously the fact that when Republican pollsters tried to predict the 2012 election, they underestimated the depth of support for Barack Obama among his key supporters. People who don't usually vote did vote in 2012, and voted in large numbers for Obama.

We need to select candidates who fire up our base as much as Obama fired up the Democratic Party's base, or we're going to keep losing elections.

No sport, if your comprehension skills were sharp the “convoluted temper tantrum” meant your "embracement" of the Democrat Party/ strong-central planning bull feces, not your demeanor on this thread.

Being a democrat/progressive/liberal doesn't equate to wanting strong central planning. To me it equates to not having an immediate knee-jerk reaction against solutions that involve government. Contrary to popular conservative opinion the government does some things quite well.

Hope you stick around for some personnel insight by me, but I don't make the rules around here.

Jim loves me because I'm an adorable little scamp. ;)

(inb4 Jim says, "ksen who?")

I'm also interested, KSen, especially because you're apparently either a Calvinist or a former Calvinist.

I still believe T.U.L.I.P. is accurate and consider myself a Calvinist.

What I don't run into is a lot of self-described political liberals who are theologically conservative, although I do run into a fair number of libertarians in my circles.

Pleased to meet you darrellmaurina! :handshake:

If you want to start a thread on this particular subject go ahead and ping me to it. I'd be happy to talk to you about it.

I read ksen’s answer, here:

“1) still having to use HTML code in @^#$$@# 2012 on a messageboard!!
2) healthcare reform
3) iraq
4) income equality issues
5) civil rights
6) republicans getting way too close to wanting to institute virtual theocracy”

I assume #1 is a joke... but Free Republic seems to do just fine in its stats even with a simple system of input and display. It is consistently ranked as one of the top conservative websites in readership.

Yes, #1 was a joke. ;)

I'd be interested in exploring #5 and #6 — i.e., why you believe modern conservatives still have a civil rights problem and why you believe, given the nomination of McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012, that Republicans are dominated by social conservatives.

McCain and Romney may not have been socially conservative but the base they have to appeal to are most certainly socially conservative. And even though people as a group can be pretty dumb they are not dumb enough to not see through the candidate to the base that is his power and will have his ear if elected.

I frankly wish social conservatives were much stronger in the Republican Party.

Why?

And beside that point, government has no RIGHT to do half the things it does. It powers are clearly enumerated in the Constitution, and exceeding those powers — regardless of how attractive the outcome — is not an option we can permit.

The Supreme Court has disagreed with your interpretation for awhile now.

Doing so is what got us to the obamaphone government we have now!

See? This is what makes conservatives sound silly. 5 seconds of digging would show you that the "Obamaphone" program's enabling legislation passed under Reagan and that the first "Obamaphone" was issued before Obama was even president.

Do you see anywhere where I said that Obama started the program? I intentionally used lower case to elevate “obamaphone” to a metaphor for the “gimme” culture that pervades America today. Even a president as conservative as Reagan succumbed to the giveaway mentality.

Contrary to your implication, the Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter of American law; the People are. And if they say a certain behavior or standard is not acceptable, all the writs in the world won’t change that.

Besides, if we don’t contain governmental sprawl within constitutional boundaries, where will it stop? What limits ARE there on government if not those imposed by our founding charter?

84 posted on Fri Nov 16 2012 10:28:40 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by ksen: “Thank you for getting my point.”

You're quite welcome. I do believe we have a problem with conservatives who failed to read the poll data and didn't see Obama's victory coming. Now we have to deal with the consequences.

On some of the other points in your note, I'm glad to see you still define yourself as a Calvinist, though I certainly wish you were applying Reformed principles outside the walls of the church building. For example, limiting the proper role of government to what is specified in Romans 13 and related passages. There are reasons why Calvinists have historically emphasized principles which today are considered both politically and religiously conservative — beyond the very limited role of national defense, most of what the federal government does now is a massive expansion beyond its proper role. The same could largely be said for state and federal governments, though I recognize that their role under Romans 13 will of necessity be greater. Police and fire protection are obvious legitimate examples.

And yes, as you pointed out with regard to Ronald Reagan's phone programs, I am painfully aware that these problems did not begin with President Obama. Problems of grossly overexpanded government began decades ago, in some cases more than a century ago, and will take decades to roll back unless a federal financial crisis forces catastrophic cutbacks without time to plan for the consequences.

Exactly that is a real possibility with sequestration coming up at the end of this year, and the fiscal crisis that is coming no matter what the lame-duck congress does.

87 posted on Fri Nov 16 2012 13:51:11 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by IronJack: “Contrary to your implication, the Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter of American law; the People are. And if they say a certain behavior or standard is not acceptable, all the writs in the world won’t change that. Besides, if we don’t contain governmental sprawl within constitutional boundaries, where will it stop? What limits ARE there on government if not those imposed by our founding charter?”

I am increasingly beginning to believe that a major difference between conservatives and liberals, one which needs more attention, is whether the written text of the Constitution is our final authority, or whether alternatively, the “wax nose” of an unwritten constitution which has been invented rather than interpreted by the courts and ultimately by the Supreme Court, is the final authority.

Unwritten constitutions aren't necessarily bad. The English common law system is an obvious example. But they're not our American system in which the judges in our courts are supposed to be interpreting a written text.

In no way am I trying to overturn Marbury v Madison, or to question the role of court precedents or of stare decisis, nor am I trying to say we should ignore what the courts say.

What I am saying is we have a written constitution, not an unwritten constitution, and we need to be demanding that the judges be interpreting the written text rather than making interpretations up out of thin air.

There is a tale told that when Davy Crockett was a congressman from Tennessee, a colleague introduced a bill that would have provided a pension to the widow of a distinguished naval officer. Although the measure was strongly supported -- who could deny a meager payment to a grieving wife of a man who had served his country? -- Crockett rose in opposition. He said that first, Congress had no right to appropriate money for charity, regardless of how well deserved; and second, that any debt the People owed this man had been paid in full. If not, there would be no end to the claims of "moral" or "spiritual" debts that people could levy against the public treasury.

That same idea holds true today. Many government programs are founded on noble notions -- "fairness," a "hand up," "the public good ..." But noble ends cannot be achieved by ignoble means, and no good arises from a good idea badly served. Robbing one segment of the population to support another is robbery, no matter how needy the recipient or how "undeserving" the victim.

THAT is the principle on which the Constitution rests -- that no man is more entitled to the fruits of my labor than I, and that government exists for one purpose only: to protect the rights vouchsafed me as a freeborn man.

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