Posted on 11/08/2006 11:54:25 AM PST by Ol' Sparky
'Liberated' Limbaugh flays GOP for lame campaign
Radio host: Conservative values not trumpeted by 'I'm-afraid-of-my-shadow Republican Party'
Posted: November 8, 2006
2:10 p.m. Eastern
By Joe Kovacs
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh says Republicans are to blame for their own demise at the polls by failing to run a campaign trumpeting conservative values.
"You and I hunger for ideological leadership and we're not getting it from the top. Conservatism, conservative ideology was nowhere to be found in this campaign from the top," Limbaugh said today in his post-election analysis. "The Democrats beat something with nothing. They didn't have to take a stand on anything other than their usual anti-war position. They had no clear agenda and believe me, they didn't dare offer one. Liberalism will still lose every time it's offered."
Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, with the fate of the Senate still uncertain.
Limbaugh said Republicans allowed themselves to be defined by Democrats and the media, and says they instead should have gone on the offensive.
"It's 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," he said. "We have proven we can beat them. We've proven we can beat Democrats. We've proven 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 that nine times out of 10 in this current political environment and social environment in this country. It just wasn't utilized in this campaign."
Limbaugh, a longtime proponent of conservative ideology, believes the primary reason Republicans didn't campaign on their beliefs is "fear of criticism from those in the so-called establishment; and nobody wants to be criticized and nobody wants to go through their life in fear."
He listed a number of benchmarks which should have been the basis for successful campaigns including no terrorist attacks on the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, gasoline prices averaging $2.08 per gallon, increased take-home pay, a strong economy and an unemployment rate at a historically low level.
"We all know that there's very positive things happening out there, but it was not trumpeted by the people who should have been shouting it from the rooftops because they were proud of it," Limbaugh said. "They should have been shouting it from the rooftops, 'Look what we've done! Look how America can improve. Look how your future is brighter!' ... instead of allowing the template to be set by its critics. ... You have a defensive, Gee-I'm-afraid-of-my-shadow Republican Party."
In answering questions about how he feels about the election results, Limbaugh said, "I feel liberated. ... I no longer am gonna have to carry the water for people who I think don't deserve having their water carried. ... If those in our party who are going to carry the day in the future both in Congress and the administration are going to choose a different path than what most of us believe, then that's liberating. ...
"There have been a bunch of things going on in Congress. Some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at. And it has been difficult coming in here trying to make the case for it when the people who supposedly in favor of it can't even make the case themselves."
During the last mid-term congressional election in 2002, Limbaugh proclaimed the Democratic Party to be in total chaos, and advised it to drop failed strategies if members wish to see political gains in the future.
"They're a party in total disarray, total collapse, total chaos," he said at the time.
During the 2004 campaign, Limbaugh said the Democratic Party was completely without a leader in its hunt to regain the White House, and members were desperately trying to invent one.
"They are so absent leadership right now it's a joke," said Limbaugh, "and everybody knows this in the media, and the Democrats are out trying to manufacture one – they're trying to create one. And they've got this list of nine candidates for the Democratic nomination, and nobody can name one of them."
"Allen looked like an idiot."
I predict Sen. Allen is the first, and will be the only, politician ever to have lost a race partly due to the disputed translation of a Tunisian-Jewish word.
We should kick non conservatives out because of their failures and weaknesses. Conservatism rings true and as soon as we s$%t can ideas like McCain '08 the better we are. People need to look in the direction of conservatives with a strong military background. Duncan Hunter is the best choice out of the prospectives for 2008. I like Rudy, but some folks don't like him. But the mindset that McCain is better than Hillary is demonstratively crazy. A RINO doesn't trump a liberal and we need to abandon the lesser of two evils philosophy especially during primaries.
It's time we all grow a set the size of grapefruits, take off our gloves, and pound the liberals down into the ground.
I guess we shouldn't blame Burns. After all Abramoff's money got forced into his hand, right? He can't be blamed for the fact that he's a crook.
/sarc
Too bad Rush didn't put down the Vicodin bottle and re-read his "Undeniable Truths of Life" a year or two ago....
Maybe now he'll start to remember what a CONSERVATIVE looks and acts like and start supporting them EVEN IF THEY AREN'T REPUBLICAN....
...or he can just refill his prescription. I really don't care...
Listen, in liberal states, if we have a RINO in office, you can accept that. You can work to make that state more conservative over time, so that it can become a state eventually that will accept a conservative, but until then, a RINO who is usually with us is better than a Dem who is not. Where we need to improve is in removing RINOs from holding office in conservative states. This is unacceptable. Lindsay Graham and Chuck Hagel, this means you. They should be removed in PRIMARIES, and the national GOP should stay the hell out of the race.
This is a winning strategy--persuade in liberal states, consolidate in conservative states, and use primaries to replace, not general elections against socialists. Oh, one other thing--
Go libertarian hunting all you want. They have cost us the Senate, and endangered the US as a result.
I don't agree with that, I believe Iraq was far and away the biggest issue. But let's look at what Rush is saying. From the start of the Virginia Senate campaign, I and others here were going nuts at the attacks on Jim Webb for his writings about women in the military. What kind of conservative has a cow when a guy expresses his opinion that ground combat is no place for a woman?
I prefer that we refrain from the blame game, but if we have to play it, I'd like to bring Elizabeth Dole into the discussion. Her NRSC campaign put out an ad attacking Webb because he called Tailhook a witchhunt and a feminist something or other. Well folks it was both of those things, and I am sure this lost Allen a good few thousand (if not more) votes in the military area of the state. This ad was released just before Novelgate, and I believe that it was not Novelgate that backfired, but her ad.
George Allen is supposed to be a conservative. Somewhere in the post mortem there needs to be a discussion of the lunacy of running him as a radical feminist sympathizer.
What is the Republican platform? And what is a "Conservative"? I always thought I was a conservative Republican. I know I'm still a Republican.....but maybe I'm not really a conservative...as defined by the majority of FR.
Memo to the clueless: the big losers last night were conservatives.
Evidently the American public doesn't agree with you.
Yeah, those damn voters exercising their sovereign right to choose their elected officials, who do they think they are? ;-)
"Ohh, so that's why Santorum lost... sarcasm off"
Exactly! We have some running around saying they weren't conservative enough. Others saying we're not moderate enough. Blahhh...blahh...Until the exit polls are broken down, we don't know why things went the way they did. Glenn Beck was claiming the exit polls did not suggest it was a referendum on Iraq -- but then he went on to point to conservative issues on the ballots that passed, not the exit polls. Huh????
Well said!
I didn't listen today (I will get the replay later), but by reading this transcript, it sounds like he is saying that since you have a biased press, you have to fight back in ways that the GOP did not do. He is not blaming the press for the loss per se, he is accepting that they are always a hurdle to overcome.
"I like Rudy, but some folks don't like him. "
I have big doubts about Rudy's positions. But ya know, he would have taken a bunch of the crap the Dems were spewing and shoved it down their throats. As for McInsane, no way in hell.
Maybe 2008's presidential campaign will pit Daschle vs. Santorum in a battle of ousted Senators who are out of step with their states but considered great within their parties.
There are (or were) a lot more "conservatives" than RINOs.
"Actually the biggest issue was corruption. Mehlman last night admitted it last night without shading on NBC."
I read the same thing. Corruption.
People who read every political play in terms of left-right are a small part of the electorate. A bigger part look for results.
Republican majority for 6 years gave them corruption. Solution=change it. They did.
So called rinos had/have nothing to do with it. JD Hayworth lost in a red state.
This was a "toss the bums out" election. In this case, Republicans OF ALL stripes were the bums.
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