Posted on 10/22/2009 3:20:36 AM PDT by markomalley
Many top Republicans are growing worried that the party’s chances for reversing its electoral routs of 2006 and 2008 are being wounded by the flamboyant rhetoric and angry tone of conservative activists and media personalities, according to interviews with GOP officials and operatives.
Congressional leaders talk in private of being boxed in by commentators such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh — figures who are wildly popular with the conservative base but wildly controversial among other parts of the electorate, and who have proven records of making life miserable for senators and House members critical of their views or influence.
Some of the leading 2012 candidates are described by operatives as grappling with the same tension. The challenge is to tap into the richest source of energy in the party — the disgust of grass-roots conservative activists with President Barack Obama and their hunger for a full-throated attack on his agenda — without coming off to the broader public as cranky and extreme.
Mitt Romney has purposely kept a lower profile and stuck to speeches on specific policy issues, in part to avoid the early trade-off between placating party activists and appearing presidential. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, one of the most active potential opponents for Obama in 2012, said that media portrayals of a narrow-minded party could make it harder to attract the middle-of-the-road voters needed to make the GOP a majority party again.
“The commentators are part of the coalition, not the whole coalition,” Pawlenty said in a phone interview. “The party needs to be about addition, not subtraction — but not at the expense of watering down its principles.”
“We need more voices,” said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, one of the party’s up-and-coming leaders. “Our party’s challenge has been that we need to be more inclusive — we need to attract the middle again. ... When one party controls all the levers of power in Washington, they’re going to try and villainize whoever they can on our side. It gives us an opportunity now to try and harness the energy and point it in a positive direction, so that we can attract the middle of the country to the common-sense conservative views that we have been about as a party.”
Political operatives of all stripes like to fancy themselves as coolly controlling practitioners — who can shape public images and direct the activities of party regulars from their perches in Washington.
But the reality of the GOP during the Obama presidency is that the party’s image and priorities are in many ways being imposed on Washington — driven by grass-roots energies that lawmakers and strategists can scarcely control.
At the same time, there are powerful incentives for Washington politicians to play to the crowd and bow to the influence of commentators like Beck, who at the moment is far more famous than any of the GOP’s congressional leaders.
When Republicans such as Rep. Phil Gingrey have complained about these figures in public, most have quickly apologized in the face of outraged phone calls and e-mails from conservative activists.
House and Senate Republicans both seized on the issue of federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now after Obama critic Andrew Breitbart launched the controversy on his site BigGovernment.com with video of two people posing as a pimp and a prostitute in the group’s offices.
As vividly illustrated by Rep. Joe Wilson, elected Republicans are seeing the benefits — national media attention and fundraising — from embracing the trash-talking style of talk show hosts. Wilson went from being a little-known member of the House minority who had repeatedly failed to get on the A-list committees to a cause célèbre for the right wing because he shouted “You lie” at Obama during a joint session of Congress.
Though he apologized to the president through chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Wilson moved quickly to exploit his brush with fame, posting Web videos to raise money, appearing on Sean Hannity’s show, getting a coveted invite on “Fox News Sunday” — and even being asked to raise money for some of his conservative colleagues. Most rank-and-file Republicans have to spend hours on the phone pleading for money and relish the chance to be taken seriously by a major Sunday show.
But some Republicans worry the party could squander an opportunity to capitalize on voters’ concerns about Obama and the Democratic Congress because they come off looking shallow, sharply partisan or just plain odd to persuadable voters.
Warning of the influence of the Fox host, who recently accused Obama of racism against whites, George W. Bush White House veteran Peter Wehner wrote last month: “Beck seems to be a roiling mix of fear, resentment and anger — the antithesis of Ronald Reagan.”
Still, these concerns apparently are not powerful enough to prompt most elected Republicans to take public stands against the rhetoric coming from the web of conservative talk show hosts, websites and public activists.
Ed Gillespie, who was counselor to Bush and has started a conservative group called Resurgent Republicans, said his polling shows rising numbers of persuadable voters who are growing disenchanted with the Obama administration’s policies but nevertheless remain invested in the president.
“Our party has to bring those voters along with a critique of policies, not the kind of harsh rhetoric the left used against former President Bush,” Gillespie said.
“Without a good slice of the independents, we are doomed,” said former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).
The only Republicans standing up to Beck and other conservative activists right now are familiar iconoclasts like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and New York Times columnist David Brooks — both of whom are distrusted by many Republicans for their frequent departures from conservative orthodoxy.
Graham, earlier this month, mocked Beck’s famous on-air cry and warned that the Fox News talk show host is “not aligned with any party as far as I can tell. He’s aligned with cynicism.” Not long afterward, he was heckled by conservatives at a political event back home.
Brooks, a Republican who has written both favorably and critically about Obama, amplified Graham’s concern with the party’s obsequious relationship with Beck and Limbaugh. “It is a story of remarkable volume and utter weakness,” he wrote. “It is a story as old as ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.”
Allies of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have detailed for POLITICO how the former GOP presidential nominee is dismayed with the direction of the party and put an unusual amount of time and effort into trying to push the party in a more centrist direction.
All three figures are often irritants to establishment Republicans — but in this case, many Republicans said privately they were in agreement that they need to move beyond the hard-core right to succeed.
But this critique goes to a major fault line within the party. Many activists believe the party lost because McCain failed to present a clear and genuine ideological contrast — and that the party abandoned principles through excessive spending during the Bush years.
The debate means the argument over whether outspoken talk show hosts are reviving a beaten party or trashing its brand is likely to persist through the 2010 midterms and into the 2012 presidential primary.
On the one hand, the GOP seems to be surging a bit as it sharpens its attacks. The party is doing better than it has in recent history when it comes to generic matchups for the 2010 midterms. Beck, other Fox News commentators and Breitbart are clearly landing some punches on Obama.
Their efforts helped stoke turnout at the August town halls, forced the mainstream media and Obama himself to reckon with a scandal at ACORN and incendiary comments and led to the resignation of green jobs czar Van Jones.
On the other hand, the party’s image more broadly remains in the dumps. An ABC News/Washington Post poll this week found that only 20 percent of those surveyed consider themselves Republicans. A larger study by the Pew Research Center this spring captured a similar trend: The share of independents in the electorate is the highest in 70 years (36 percent), while the share of voters who call themselves Republicans is the lowest in 30 years (23 percent, compared with 35 percent for Democrats).
Republicans in Congress are even more unpopular than the very unpopular Democrats who are running the House and the Senate. This suggests something has to change for a true GOP resurgence to take place.
Karl Rove, the chief political strategist for Bush, said impressions of the Republican Party as a captive of a fringe reflect “a cynical and dismissive and small-minded view of who the American voter is.
“The question will be whether the Republican candidates next year can talk about a lot of kitchen-table issues and the deficit and spending,” Rove said. “Rush Limbaugh won’t be on the ballot.”
This big tension is playing out in a smaller way in the special election in upstate New York. Congressional leaders are backing moderate Dede Scozzafava, despite her liberal views on abortion and other issues, because they think she has the best chance of winning this swing district. Conservatives, including many who participated in the much-publicized “tea party” protests, are convinced she is insufficiently Republican, so they are throwing their support and money to third-party candidate Doug Hoffman.
The result: Polls show the Republican vote could be so split that a lackluster Democratic candidate could pull off a win. If Republicans blow this race, it will leave the GOP holding only two of New York’s 29 House seats. A decade ago, it had 14, most of which were occupied by Northeast moderates who no longer feel welcome in the party and were voted in by independents who remain very skeptical of the party’s policy solutions.
I feel that Limbaugh and Beck don’t tell me how to feel about political issues, rather they reflect what I and other conservatives are feeling right now. We are not mind numbed robots, we see what is happening to this country’s freedoms and we are angry and concerned. If someone is a true conservative they get it.
Rahm Emanuel calculateldy cued Marxist Obama to tell voters, "I want to be another Ronald Reagan."
Rahm had atheist Dims run in solid Repub districts as "fervent believers."
Then came Obama's cocamamie socialist ideas, and his weirdo buddies Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Anita Dunn, and the crackpot ACORNS.....etc etc etc.
B U M P
” ‘I wouldn’t give you a nickel. The people running aren’t Republicans. They’re Democrats who call themselves Republicans!
Then I hung up. “
I knew you were intelligent.
“YOU SUCK, GOP!
“Conservatives endorse this message”
Yea, more smirking than squirming.
What a worm.
Now it's learned the 90% pay cuts for Wall Street's TARP recipients? Won't effect, drum poll, Goldman-Sachs. LOL
Just keeps getting more & more surreal.
Yet, this is only the beginning.
The broad base that EVERYONE tries to capture is conservative. Hussein can't even be completely honest and SAY he's a liberal. No liberal admits to it. They all have to ACT and talk at least a little bit conservative to get elected.
Stay with the R party. Umm hmm, and get candidates like Scarzzafova. Right. I see where that’s going to move us back to a conservative govt. /s/
Look at the MANY great ones like Congressman Steve King, Michelle Bachman, etc. You get my point.
This is NOT heaven and you will not find perfection here. The truth is we have a great bunch of conservatives in congress and we need to send them all the help we can. These RATS are so darned dangerous, we must stop themn.
I’m sorry but the Republican party has consistently supported candidates who’s only recommendation is that they have an R by their name. That’s not good enough. It’s Democrat light and I’m sick of it.
Well. 10 seconds after I sent my last reply I ran across this post which makes my point perfectly.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2368854/posts
Where have they been for the last 9 months? in a drug-induced coma? in solitary confinement? in North Korea?
How can the obvious have escaped them? Their business is politics, government!!!! That's what we pay these public servants to do --- to serve their constituency, the Republic, the CONSTITUTION.
How can they not see that we are in the middle of a coup and that we will be blessed by the favor of God to even see an election in 2012.
Deception is hanging in the air like a thick blanket of fog. I don't even think mod Dems or Independents voted for this. I keep asking myself what is the matter with these Repubs? Can they be that dense? Are they being blackmailed?
It is incomprehensible to me that they let Beck & Rush twist in the wind as if they are some hysterical, over-reacting ninnies starved for attention and ratings.
standing up to Beck and other conservative activists ..............
They want to pick a fight with the only living, breathing, thinking organisms in their own party???
IMO, we will continue to see articles like this to try and push us to a third party there by rendering us ineffective come the next set of elections. Bad idea. Don’t fall for this fluff! No third party! It was our party to begin with! We are making a difference! Stay the course!
We must!
Lastly, (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act)
I never wanted a tag line until I read yours. We are witnessing the living proof of that profundity.
Maybe I am the idiot; I had no idea how the Repub Party had been taken over by RINOS. Is it possible that since the Dem Party has been taken over by Marxists and Nat'l Socialists, that RINOS think the Repub Party will become the new Democrats? Is that what they are thinking? How delusional.
The GOP "leadership" is a creature of Washington. The entire Washington establishment is delusional.
The 2010 election will be about Democrat vs Republican and liberal vs conservative, to be sure. But, more than anything, it will be about Washington vs The Rest Of Us.
Did you see one of the early Glenn Back expose programs? He had on Pat Caddell, a Dem from the Carter era & now a consultant (Coulter once called him the sanest Democrat she knows).
He was visibly shaken by the info Beck was presenting and said, “Washington has become the enemy of the people.”
This is the only way to stop the coming civil war.
It would be better to have dead cats (rinos) in congress than democrats running the show. The millions of dead that are going to pile up on our streets need not die. Stopping the coming war can be realized if we keep democrats out of power.
Electing John McCain as president would have done this. The Mike Savage view of punish the republicans to teach them a lesson only works in a perfect world where democrats don't steal elections and create a fascist dictatorship so republicans can get back into power.
Last November, ACORN packed presidential election votes in blue city states. It is not unrealistic to think that 5 - 8 million ACORN votes were cast. This includes dead voters, duplicate and triplicate voters. It is against the law to use voter ID in many blue city-states so it is not unreasonable to think that an acorn voter could go from poll to poll to vote several times....
Love your tagline...and the comments.
Your point of view requires that conservatives disavow their principles over and over, while republicans do whatever they want. No.
The “we’re not as bad as the other guy” school of governance is garbage. If the R party wants to be regarded as leaders, they need to head in a direction that others are willing to follow. They have forsaken whatever right they might have had to “lead us to the gates of hell” because they have forsaken whatever principle might once have guided them.
One last point. I have no idea why you seem to think that the R party is the only “LEGAL” organization that can take on the dems - they have demonstrated time and again that they CANNOT (or will not) take on the dems. The GOP has wasted its chances, spurning conservative thought and action for so long I can no longer ignore their 80% tendency to roll over. After all, “rolling over” is hardly a method for defeating the democrat takeover you decry.
Lastly, (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act)
I never wanted a tag line until I read yours. We are witnessing the living proof of that profundity.
I wish I could take credit for that profound statement but it’s a quote straight out of 1984. The more I re-read that book, the truer and truer it seems to become.
We are falling into a time where collectivist thought rules (It’s better for everyone if....). I think it comes from the writing that students are required to read. When I was in college (20 years ago) I had to read the Commmunist Manifesto for three different classes. Only collectivist, class warfare thought was taught and discussed. It always grated against me.
Writers like Orwell, Rand, and others were never taught in the same fashion. They discussed the horrors of collectivism thought many times.
If hindsight is better than foresight then my concerns are justified. God forbid we are nuked by Russia et al. We can't survive as a functioning civilization without electricity and gasoline and roads and trucks.
If a starving man can walk 30 miles before he stops then its safest to be far away from the huge blue city states. It doesn't take much imagination to read the writing on the wall.
(1) Your conservative group holds an official position within the campaign;
(2) Your group's issue is affirmed in the candidate's platform;
(3) Your group is in attendance at all campaign strategy meetings;
(4) Your group holds a paid job in the campaign;
(5) Your group holds a position in the winning candidate's elective office.
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