Conservatives roar; Republicans tremble

Politico ^ | 10/22/2009 | JIM VANDEHEI & MIKE ALLEN

[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.

[DH]

The problem with Republicans is twofold. First, it’s the two party system with all others being shut out due to the costs associated alone. Second, it’s the fact that Republicans EXPECT your vote instead of hoping to EARN it.

For time exceeding my life span, you basically had two choices; Democrat or Republican representatives. Notice I did not say Liberal or Conservative representatives.

Now our country has been mortally wounded by these spineless Republicans in their quest to satisfy only their egos and pocketbooks.

It’s time to throw all of them out of office and start once again with those who FEAR THE WRATH of those who put them into office and those who will protect the Constitutionality of all that transpires within the governing body of this country.

[Altura Ct.]

Congressional leaders talk in private of being boxed in by commentators such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Boxed in? Really? The way out is simple unless of course conservative principles mean absolutely nothing to you which I believe in the majority of cases within the current crop GOP that is true.

Constitution, Western Values & culture, Sovereignty, Dismantling the Leviathan we call DC. All of these lead you out of the box.

[bustinchops]

Politico is a bunch of whoring lefties.

[thecabal]

The illusion that the oligarchy has put up is being shattered.

[Biggirl]

The good news is that 2010 is coming, and it will make 1994 look like a day at the beach.

[bustinchops]

It’d be nice if the pubs for once were prepared and had their own bomb to drop.

[Ulysse]

“MORE VOICES”?

What voices?

[rasl04]

Imagine it’s 1776. Our founders feared that sounding too radical against the English crown would just turn off too many people.

So they attempted to be more “moderate” in their dealings with the Crown.

After the war, as they attempted to write the Constitution, they were worried that some of the language in it may turn off moderates

[italyconservative]

Did not read all of the responses so if someone already said this - sorry. 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!

[StatenIsland]

Lots of straw-men and framing of the argument in this hit-piece.

If the party doesn’t move in the direction of its impassioned and energized conservative base, of course party ID will go into the crapper. I’ve identified myself as a Republican since Barry Goldwater, and now, to my own amazement, I find that I cannot do so.

Dede is about more than just one upstate NY county - she’s become a cause celebre, and is probably the best thing that could happen to conservatives, even if we lose a seat we’ve held forever. MAYBE THIS WILL OPEN THEIR EYES!

[o2bfree]

McCain is either behind this push, or he’s in agreement. He’s not on our side anymore.

[Altura Ct.]

Indeed.

[Two-Bits]

Both parties are brought & paid for by George Soros. One party is open about it, the other tries to keep it hidden. As to McCain, he was never on our side to start with.

[x_plus_one]

The only legal entity that can stop the democrat party, at this time, is the republican party. It is better to have dead cats in office under the republican brand than to turn over the levers of power to Soros financed progressives, moderate democrats and anyone affiliated with the demoncrats.

[Liz]

New York Times columnist and faux Republican, David Brooks, is standing up to Beck and other conservative activists ..............

If you destest Brooks, you will despise this media prostitute.

Announcing the Winner of the 2008 Best Election Night Performance Award in the category of: "Neos Know Nothing About this 2008 Republican Disaster."

Billy Kristol (pukeneo chieftain and McC campaign mastermind)

"Thank you very much. But I could not have done it without the help of all the
punkeos--David Frum, Michael Gerson, David Brooks, Richard Perle.....and
my Dearest departed Daddy."

"Sniffle---my Dearest Daddy (who was Giuliani's foreign policy advisor) said,
"The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism is.....to convert the
Republican Party and American conservatism in general, against their
respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to
governing a modern democracy."

"Sob."

"I especially want to thank punkneo Douglas Feith for faking documents on his
home computer so we punkneos could dupe our lapdog, President Bush."

"Without Doug we would not have been able to transfer trillions of US dollars
into the Mideast, into the pockets of war profiteers, which enabled Richard Perle
to startup an oil business in Iraq with his cut."

Kristol smirked: "Making Iraq safe for Perle's oil business with US tax dollars was truly a noble punkneo effort."

==============================================

AS FREEPER TADSLOS COGENTLY POSTED: "People forget that candy-a** Kristol, and his crony, metro-sexual David Brooks, are the original makeover artists for McCain post-2000. They are McC's original groomers and media switch operators.....obsessed with religious cleansing of the party. Kristol at his most smirkiest---urging McCain to fire his 2008 staff, to start all over at the 11th hour, as McC's numbers tanked. Shows how how ill-conceived, advised, equipped and poorly managed McC's campaign was. But then, what else to expect from a Republican candidate made up of neopunks Kristol and Brooks."

Watching Kristol smirking and squirming in his Fox seat election night as McC lost was a consolation prize to this abortion of a losing 2008 election cycle.

===========================================

COMMENTS The 2008 political entrail readings showed the crucial conservative base stayed home. Too bad the pukes "forget" to tell McC that would be one outcome of the punkneo-RINO bi-partisanship. Be aware that many senior neocons are rank opportunists who squatted in the Repub Party for their selfish stealth purposes-----they are actually former Trotskyites that flew the coop when Stalin executed their hero.

[nathanbedford]

A few observations to put the lie to this spin:

A look at Real Clear Politics,http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/, reveals that all the pollsters save one, Rasmussen, have the Democrats above the Republicans in congressional job approval. But all of the polls save one, Rasmussen, survey either of adults (perfectly useless) or registered voters (not very useful). Rasmussen alone polls likely voters. Rasmussen has the Republicans in Congress up six points over the Democrats.

Other polls show that since July the Republicans have gained nearly 20% approval and the Democrats have lost nearly 10% in approval. Although that polls shows the Democrats still ahead, the value of such polls which do not poll likely voters is limited to revealing the trend and those data show the trend is our friend.

Citing numbers attend the show that Obama is retaining his popularity do not support this kind of spin. First, there is no reason to believe that Obama's popularity will rub off in a midterm election in which he is not a candidate. Second, although I do not have polling data, it is generally accepted that intensity is on the side of those who vehemently oppose Barack Obama. Third, recently Obama's approval numbers have been dropping like a stone down a well.

The authors do not tell us that, although the Democrats remain the plurality party, conservatism remains the majority philosophy. If that is ignored exhortations of Rinos and intermeddling liberals in Republican domestic affairs which call for Republicans to move left in order to gain independence, makes sense. But if one understands that the bulk of the country is inherently conservative, one understands that Republicans need only articulate an attractive conservative message and avoid being painted as crazed out of the mainstream zealots by people like JIM VANDEHEI & MIKE ALLEN who wrote this Politico article.

[Carley]

IOW, Politico is a wholly owned subsidiary of the White House.

[EBH]

Dede Scozzafava

Sorry, nope, can’t do it and won’t ever do it again.

Snowes, Voinoviches, McCains, et al. Yeah, “The Party,” put them up and I voted.

They have done more to destroy our country as moles from within than my refusal to vote “The Party” line.

Don’t like my stand. Tell “The Party” to put up candidates worth voting for.

They picked this lady. If they really had garnered the middle the few conservatives running to support Hoffman wouldn’t split the vote. It is time to stop blaming the conservative voter and start blaming the lame duck party.

[NoGrayZone]

"Dede Scozzafava, despite her liberal views on abortion and other issues,"

RIGHT THERE is what is wrong w/ the republican party....liberal views DO NOT belong. She can be as liberal as she wants, on the OTHER side.

[norge]

LOL

My response is “unless you’re calling on behalf of Sarah Palin, you haven’t got a chance of getting one penny from me.”