Posted on 11/08/2006 4:50:12 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
Republicans lost control of the House, and perhaps the Senate, because they abandoned their conservative principles and in the end stood for nothing, Rush Limbaugh said today.
In his Wednesday broadcast, America’s top talker said that until Republicans begin asking themselves what’s wrong with themselves they are never going to fix their problems.
When things go wrong, Rush said, "you must look inward and ask first, ‘What did we do wrong? What could we have done better? What mistakes did we make?”
Commenting that although Republicans lost, "Conservatism did not lose, Republicanism lost last night. Republicanism, being a political party first, rather than an ideological movement, is what lost last night.”
The Democrats, he said "beat something last night with nothing. They advanced no agenda other than their usual anti-war position. They had no contract — they really never did get specific. Their message was one of ‘vote for us; the other guys have been in power too long.’”
Rush further admonished, "There was no dominating conservative message that came from the [Republican] top and filtered down throughout in this campaign.”
He added that if there was conservatism in the campaign, it was on the Democratic side: "There were conservative Democrats running for office in the House of Representatives and in a couple of Senate races won by Democrats yesterday.” He cited James Webb as an example.
He also said it was conservatism that won fairly big when it was tried yesterday, but it was Democrats who ran as conservatives and not their GOP rivals. He added that the Democratic leadership had gone out and recruited conservative candidates because they knew liberals could not win running against Republicans in red states.
Rush quoted Thomas Sowell as explaining that the latest example of election fraud is actually what the Democrats did — they nominated a bunch of moderate and conservative candidates for the express purpose of electing a far-left Democratic leadership.
"The Democrats could not have won the House, being liberals,” Rush said. "Liberalism didn’t win anything yesterday; Republicanism lost. Conservatism was nowhere to be found except on the Democratic side.”
The root of the problem, Rush said, is that "our side hungers for ideological leadership and we’re not getting it from the top. Conservatism was nowhere to be found in this campaign from the top. The Democrats beat something with nothing. They didn’t have to take a stand on anything other than their usual anti-war positions. They had no clear agenda and they didn’t dare offer one. Liberalism will still lose every time it’s offered.”
Republicans, Rush said, allowed themselves to be defined. "Without elected conservative leadership from the top Republicans in the House and Senate republicans are free to freelance and say the hell with party unity.”
That leads, Rush said, to the emergence of RINOs — Republicans in name only.
Republicans in Congress, Rush explained, were held captive by the party’s leadership in the White House. They were put into a position of having to endorse policies with which as conservatives they disagreed.
"The Democratic Party,” Rush went on to say, "is the party of entitlements; but the Republicans come up with this Medicare prescription drug plan that the polls said that the public didn’t want and was not interested in. That is not conservatism. Conservatives do not grow the government and offer entitlements as a means of buying votes. But that’s what the Republicans in Congress had to support in order to stay in line with the Party from the top.
"It is silly to blame the media; it is silly to blame the Democrats; it is silly to go out and try to find all these excuses,” Rush said. "We have proved that we can beat them … we have proved that we can withstand whatever we get from the drive-by media. Conservatism does that — conservatism properly applied, proudly, eagerly, with vigor and honesty will triumph over that nine times out of 10 in this current political and social environment. It just wasn’t utilized in this campaign.”
Rush also blamed the failure to embrace conservatism on Republican’s fear of being criticized from those in the so-called establishment. Republicans, he charged, go out of their way to avoid being criticized, fearing they will be characterized as extremists and kooks.
As a result conservatism gets watered down, and the GOP loses the support of the nation’s conservative majority Rush stated.
Anything can beat nothing, Rush concluded, "and it happened yesterday.”
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Why did Rick Santorum (rock solid conservative) lose?
Get ready. We are gonna get homosexualty rammed down our throats for the next two years. And they maybe we'll get Hillary.
I'm joining Butch and Sundance in Bolivia.
I tend to agree.
Glenn Beck has a similar take on his show tonight. Reruns at 9:00 and midnight (Eastern Time).
Probably bacause Casey is "pro-life". It gave a lot of conservatives an out to lodge a protest vote.
Finally Rush is making sense. Unfortunately, he basically admitted he's been whoring for the RNC and Bush for 6 years. Now he's been "liberated" (his word!) from his duties.
>>>Why did Rick Santorum (rock solid conservative) lose?
His loss was a political assassination by the media.
Losing is losing. You can't spin it. We got pounded.
I don't know about this. A lot of "true conservatives" got clobbered yesterday, candidates who were not shy about espousing their conservatism and offering it as a choice between them and their opponents. They went down to defeat.
We ran a "true conservative" for governor in Ohio and he got slaughtered by close to 20 points. Ohio sent a "true liberal", Sherrod Brown, to the Senate in place of a conservative-moderate Mike DeWine. Brown offered nothing other than "hate Bush" and "retreat from Iraq". Those two things won it for him.
A lot of other "true conservatives" got creamed as well. Santorum in PA for one. Others lost, not by much, but still lost. Northrup in KY, Talent in MO, Burns in MT, Allen in VA, Hayworth in AZ (I know these last three are still in dispute, but I don't have much hope). I don't know that Rush is right on this one. A lot of "true conservatives" ran as conservatives, and were rejected. My guess is that the overhang of an unpopular war, which is always a huge liability for the incumbent party, did them in.
Listen up, all you McCain and Giuliani campaigners here for the last 6 months!
Amen, Rush.
People, listen up.
The Exit Polls Were Correct. They had only a few percent of skew, but the important part of them was the question:
What issue was more important to your vote today?
Look it up. It wasn't immigration. It wasn't the economy. AND IT WASN'T IRAQ.
The #1 issue was corruption scandals.
Put all this talk about the party not moving far enough right or too far right away. This is a conservative country. It approved of the party's right/left position on the spectrum in 2004 and NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN THAT.
The only difference in 2006 was the GOP had a ton of corruption scandals this very year. Not recently. Not in Bush's 2nd term. This very year. A conservative country will not tolerate corruption.
So hit the numbers and find those Democrats who took GOP seats in heavy red districts, find a squeaky clean candidate to target him or her and get them out of our seats.
Do Not Waste Time On Philosophical Introspection because the exit polls showed that's not what drove the vote. Get rid of corruption scandals, change nothing on any other issue at all, and we retake Congress.
You're right, but I think its appropriate to ask why we lost so we can readjust in the future
Bill Frist is/was a disaster, he let the Senate be controlled by the RINO's because he is one. And W never explained the death cult we are up against because he too God damned PC.
Without a McCain or Guiliani running for the Presidency, they'd have that too.
Yep, Rush is a fart smeller, I mean a smart feller. I think he's got it right. Conservatism first, principle before party. I actually voted straight R yesterday all the good it did. I had to offset the damage my mother (the former Republican) did. We've tried to tell some of these "Bush above all" people here but they don't listen. Principle first!! If they had only listened, we'd be in a far better position today. This will be the only negative post I make on what happened last night. Hopefully the one's who think the R behind the name is all that matters will also learn something from this.
One of the reasons Santorum lost is that conservatives have long memories, and when he supported Spector over Toomey in the 2004 primary he lost his base support. Plus, it was the 'throw the bums out' year, and some of the good guys got thrown out as well.
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