Posted on 01/23/2016 5:02:45 PM PST by VitacoreVision
The Republican National Committee has ended a debate partnership with National Review after the venerable conservative magazine devoted its new issue to a "symposium" of reasons why voters should reject Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
"We expected this was coming," the magazine's publisher Jack Fowler wrote in a blog post late Thursday night, just 90 minutes after the symposium went live. "Small price to pay for speaking the truth about The Donald."
RNC spokesman Sean Spicer Fowler's account of events, and added in a comment to Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray that "a debate moderator can't have a predisposition." That leaves CNN, Salem Radio, and Telemundo as the co-sponsors of the planned February 25 forum in Houston.
The idea of bringing conservative media into the debates had actually come from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, who has repeatedly blamed a loose, easily-exploited approach to the media for a "circus" that hurt eventual 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
"I mean, there's a lot of good people out there that can actually understand the base of the Republican Party, the primary voters," Priebus told Fox News in an August 2013 interview. "There are some people in our party that think that - you know, on immigration, have different views. On the issue of tactics, on the funding of Obamacare - I mean you can very easily parse that out in a way that actually provides some substance to the Republican primary voters and what they actually want to talk about and understand."
Yet a clash of egos and interest has now stymied several attempts to bring conservative media into the debates. While Salem Radio's Hugh Hewitt, considered one of the best interviewers on the right, has made two appearances as a CNN debate co-panelist, a forum co-hosted by the Washington Times and Liberty University never got past the planning stage.
In an interview early Friday morning, National Review's editor-in-chief Rich Lowry said that the magazine knew it was risking a debate snub when work on the Trump package began. "We priced it in," he said, describing an editorial process that began shortly after the Christmas holiday. "We wanted to push back against this notion that it was just the establishment that was opposed to Trump, so we assembled this group of people who nobody can accuse of being the establishment. We actually wanted this to be the first issue of the year, but we held it. That timing just turned out to be fortuitous, with the establishment parts of the party suddenly bending his way."
In a tweet, symposium contributor and Commentary editor-in-chief John Podhoretz confirmed Lowry's account.
National Review, founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley, has frequently policed the conservative movement and warned against the influence of populist movements. In 1962, Buckley devoted 5000 words to the John Birch Society, attempting to write it out of the movement and calling its founder Robert Welch "far removed from common sense." Twenty-nine years later, Buckley wrote 40,000 words — an entire issue of the magazine — to condemn what he saw as anti-Semitism festering on the right, personified in Pat Buchanan, who was then mounting the first of three unsuccessful presidential bids.
Those essays, if not often read again in full, are often viewed with nostalgia. In 2012, after Romney's defeat, the former RNC research director David Welch bemoaned the lack of strong conservative voices who could police the movement.
"We need 'the Establishment,'" he wrote in a piece for the New York Times. "We need officials like former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey."
Trump, who now leads both of those men in primary polls, had praised Buckley as recently as last week. "Conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan — including William F. Buckley," said Trump at the Republican presidential debate in Charleston, after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) derided the "New York values" of liberalism.
On Thursday night, in a series of characteristically impassioned tweets, Trump suggested that Lowry's National Review had lost the spirit of Buckley.
‘”We expected this was coming,” the magazine’s publisher Jack Fowler wrote’... but I think that this situation absolutely required a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!
Priebus is a snake and he is all BS.
The nattering nabobs are no better at picking winners than their big government masters are.
The GOPe think they can have authoritarian rule over the people better with trump than with Cruz. The GOPe are just democRATs in costume.
I cancelled my subscription over the stupid attack in our front runner.
I won’t contribute to National Review again. Has nothing to do with Trump. You don’t turn on people in the party like they did.
Donald Trump represents an extreme version of everything liberals despise about Republicans.
Donald Trump is a mean-spirited multi-billionaire whose hatred of immigrants, women, minorities, and everyone who doesn’t agree with him is expressed daily and loudly across every form of media.
Yet the single publication that has come out most strongly against him is the Conservative ‘’National Review,’’ while the entire liberal mainstream media remains silent — except for egging him on to make ever more outrageous attacks against everything liberals hold dear.
There is a concept known as giving someone enough rope to hang himself with.
For example, a political party (Democrat) might stand back during the primary season while a candidate from the opposing party (Republican) goes on a six-month rampage antagonizing so many voters that he will not be able to win the general election.
Does anyone really believe that the liberal media despises Donald Trump LESS than the Conservative National Review does?
Or that once Donald Trump wins the nomination the liberal media won’t suddenly burst forth and tear him limb from limb by simply repeating the outrageous attacks he’s been making that have so antagonized voters?
Big mistake. Would have been better to have nailed Trump’s ass to the wall during the debates, which are before a national audience of millions, vs NR’s 160K+ subscribers.
You mean like they’ve nailed him at all the other debates? He comes out of them with higher ratings each and every time.
They either came after him from a liberal perspective or for stupid things. Megan the bleeder is good-looking, but no deep thinker.
There is no moderation of language any more, is there? You can’t express a reasonable thought to prevent the murder of innocents, by Muslim jihadists such as suggesing a temporary moratorum on allowing Muslims into this country until we can figure out a way to keep the terrorists out.” Instead we scream “racist.”
You know, in time Ms. Bluestocking, all of this hyperbole, all of this excess, is going to lose its power. And that day cannot come too soon, in my opinion.
Surely, if you are the Bluestocking that you claim to be, you must realize this!
How about we nail the ones who have been running the country into the ground.
Poll FReep: If the election were held today, who would be your first choice for President of the United States?
You have it backasswards. Priebus, Walker and Raul Ryan are all from the same part of Wisconsin. Make no mistake the GOP has everyone blasting Trump period. Only the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole know what is going on. The GOP does not fear Cruz as he needs K street money/power too. Trump does not. Cruz plays both sides.
Yes, during the very first debate every Fox moderater was after Trump. Kelly pulled her usual BS. I can’t stand her. I like ladies who are worthy women like Proverbs 31 clearly states. Kelly likes to dish it out then play the hurt female later. She wants it both ways.
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