Posted on 03/07/2007 6:28:29 AM PST by MadIvan
In the run-up to the fateful election of 2008, conservatives face a clear-cut choice: we can rebuild our movement as a broad-ranging, mainstream coalition and restore our governing majority, or else settle for a semi-permanent role as angry, doom-speaking complainers on the fringes of American politics and culture.
We can either invite doubters and moderates to join with us in new efforts to affirm American values, or we can push them away because they fail to measure up to our own standards of indignation and ideological purity.
In short, we must choose between addition and subtraction: either building our cause by adding to our numbers or destroying it by discouraging all but the fiercest ideologues.
No political party or faction has ever thrived based on purges and insults and internal warfare, but too many activists on the right seem determined to reduce the conservative cause to self-righteous irrelevance.
The most recent outrage involving Ann Coulter provides a revealing example of the self-destructive tendencies of some dedicated partisans on the right. Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., the best-selling author and glamorous Time magazine cover girl declared: “I was going to have a few comments about the other Democratic candidate for President, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot’ so I’m kind of at an impasse. I can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Some members of the audience gasped as she deployed the forbidden slur, but many others laughed and applauded. Naturally, Democratic Chair Howard Dean and many others pounced on the incident as another example of conservative viciousness and bigotry, demanding that all Republican Presidential candidates dissociate themselves from Coulter’s comments.
This challenge creates a miserable dilemma for every GOP contender. If the candidate ignores the controversy, he looks gutless and paralyzed in the face of obviously inappropriate and over-the-top insults. If he condemns Coulter, he looks like he’s wimping out to the liberal establishment and offends right-wing true believers who feel instinctively protective of Ann the Outrageous. Any comment by a presidential candidate also refocuses the national conversation on the absurd and unacceptable suggestion that John Edwards is secretly gay.
To paraphrase the old line attributed to Talleyrand: this smear amounts to worse than a crime, it is a blunder. John Edwards deserves contempt and derision on many counts, and I go after him (regularly) on my radio show for his extreme left wing positions on foreign policy and health care, his shameless opportunism, even his long history as a fabulously wealthy and floridly hypocritical ambulance-chasing attorney. Ann Coulter could have found plenty to say about the former North Carolina Senator without invoking the dreaded f-word (all right, the other dreaded f-word).
In fact, Edwards has been a visibly loyal husband to Elizabeth, his wife of more than 29 years, who’s currently battling breast cancer. Together, they’ve brought five children into the world, including a son who died in a tragic traffic accident at age 16. Drawing attention to Edwards’ personal life and away from his policies only helps Edwards and harms conservatives.
In other words, the lame attempt to question the Senator’s sexual orientation is precisely the wrong attack, and Coulter herself is most certainly the wrong attacker. If this issue continues to attract attention, indignant liberals will no doubt point out that the devoted family man from North Carolina exemplifies traditional values far more notably than the mini-skirted, never-married provocateur from the right.
Personally, I like and admire Ann Coulter, and I’ve always defended her in the past – even when liberals gleefully quoted out-of-context from her recent bestseller “Godless” to make it sound as if she suggested that 9/11 widows wanted their own husbands to die and celebrated their fiery deaths. Her caustic humor often upstages her serious and substantive political points, as did the notorious headline “They Shot the Wrong Lincoln” appended to her column attacking her fellow Republican, Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee. That one opinion piece didn’t doom Chafee’s re-election bid, but movement conservatives like Coulter and many others expressed the desire for his defeat—a loss that insured the Democrats’ one-vote margin in the Senate.
Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of concentrating fire on a fellow Republican (even a liberal GOP’er like Linc Chafee) but there can be no argument about the purely destructive impact of Coulter’s sneering slur against Edwards. How could such a nasty shot possibly assist the conservative cause? Which potential Republican supporters would feel motivated or mobilized by her casual use of the term “faggot”? How could a smart woman expect anything other than a disgusted and negative response for her implication that a long-married father of five deserved outing as a homosexual?
The Coulter commentary (and the subsequent applause) reinforced the public image of conservatives as unreasonably hostile to gay people in general, not just opposed to the dubious particulars of the so-called “gay rights” agenda. In fact, exit polls showed that self-identified gay people made up 4% of the total electorate in the incomparably close election of 2000, and nearly one third of those homosexual voters cast their ballots for George W. Bush. In other words, more than a million gay citizens voted for Bush-Cheney, in a race that ultimately turned on a mere 527 votes in Florida, and a national margin in the popular vote of just 537,000 for Gore.
What sense does it make for a featured speaker at a conservative conference to deliver gratuitous insult and offense to that stalwart minority of homosexuals who still choose to cast their lot with Republicans, despite the party’s impassioned (and appropriate) opposition to gay marriage?
By the same token, how does it help for one of the nation’s highest profile conservative talk hosts to use his broadcast on the Martin Luther King holiday to insult the fallen hero as unworthy of federal commemoration? Yes, the overwhelming majority of African-Americans votes incurably Democratic, but in 2004, Bush still drew well over a million-and-a-half black votes. It doesn’t help these courageous dissenters from politically correct orthodoxy if loud voices on the right make them wonder whether Jesse Jackson and Howard Dean are right about the racism of Republicans.
Finally, the most serious challenge of all involves the rapidly growing and increasingly prosperous Latino communities. Were it not for his competitive showing among Hispanics (with some 35% of their votes in 2000, and above 40% in 2004), Bush wouldn’t even have come close to victory, either time.
Meanwhile, elements of the President’s party seem perversely determined to make sure that no future Republican repeats this success with the nation’s fastest growing minority group. Imagine how naturalized Hispanic citizens, or even native-born Latinos might feel, at the suggestion that their cousins amount to an “invading army” bent on destroying America, or the common equation of terrorists (who have all been legal U.S. entrants by the way) and those who enter the country to care for our children and mow our lawns. Anti-immigrant rhetoric (which increasingly dispenses with any distinction between legal and illegal arrivals) provoked a disastrous shift of Latino voters away from the GOP in 2006. If Republicans continue to draw just 20% of Hispanic votes they will never regain control of Congress and stand scant chance of retaining the White House. Nativist posturing (like Congressman Tom Tancredo’s obnoxious slogan, “America Is Full”) may play well with some elements of the conservative base but it could easily doom Republicans to permanent minority status.
Obviously, the future of the conservative movement and of the Republic itself requires GOP recruitment of more Latinos, Blacks and gays, and anything that stands in the way of such participation fatally undermines the party’s future.
The situation hardly requires retreat and retrenchment on key issues of principle in the vague hope of winning more minority support.
Republicans don’t need to drop our implacable opposition to gay marriage in order reach out to gays.
We don’t need to reverse our criticism of race-based quotas in order to bring more black involvement in the party.
And we certainly don’t need to endorse automatic amnesty or “open borders” as a way to connect with Latino voters – but we might want to avoid widespread public advertising for games like “Find the Illegal Immigrant” (devised by a College Republicans chapter in New York City) or giving undeserved respect to crackpot fringe groups like the scandal-tainted “Minute Man Civil Defense Corps.”.
On all the important issues, it’s not substance that needs to change, it’s style.
Republicans need to return to the open, expansive conservatism of Ronald Reagan: more concerned with bringing in newcomers than driving out dissenters, more committed to winning elections than to scoring points in arguments, more determined to steer the government in the right direction than to sit at the sidelines carping about inevitable decline. We should make skeptics feel welcome as Republicans and urge them to fight the issues inside the party where they can have the most impact.
Every major event, every potential speaker, every resolution, every specific approach, deserves evaluation in terms of effectiveness in party building—winning new adherents to the cause.
We should ask a crucial question before we speak or act: will this draw people to conservative ideas and ideals, or will it serve to turn them off and push them away?
It’s not a matter of pandering; it’s an expression of practical politics. At this crucial juncture, conservatives need to recall the obvious point that you strengthen your cause most effectively when you’re appealing, not appalling.
So, what if a person doesn't have cable? Do they still have to do rehab?
What nonsense!
It's just a word!!!!
FYI: Ann made the following remarks at CPAC during the same Q&A she made the faggot comment:
"I do want to point out one thing that has been driving me crazy with the media -- how they keep describing Mitt Romney's position as being pro-gays, and that's going to upset the right wingers," she said. "Well, you know, screw you! I'm not anti-gay. We're against gay marriage. I don't want gays to be discriminated against."
She added, "I don't know why all gays aren't Republican. I think we have the pro-gay positions, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money and they're victims of crime. No, they are! They should be with us."
I see your point and appreciate your posts, here and on the Rudy threads.
I love Ann but I have to agree with Medved that her "faggot" comment did not help the conservative cause. To me, it's not an issue of free speech (she's certainly free to say it), it's civil, polite discourse.
While she didn't outright call him that, she did, by implication. I just don't see how that helps the conservative cause. She's not an elected official but she is in the public eye, and she made conservatives look bad, IMO.
It's interesting, though, that conservatives are having this debate. I wonder if the Dems would debate, for days, whether a comment made by one of them is civil/polite or not. I doubt it, LOL! And that reflects well on conservatives.
Again, I appreciate your posts and commitment to conservatism.
You have no idea what she was saying or the point she was making. You seem to think she was calling him a homosexual (and there is supposed to be nothing derogatory in that - right?).
As for the media, we pretty much agree they are biased, inaccurate and dishonest right? So why in the world do we give a rat's behind what they say or think? The more biased and outrageous they are the more credibility they lose (just ask NBC, MSNBC, NYT, Boston Globe, etc.). We give them credibility by reacting to what they say which only works against us in the long run. Just ask Scotter Libby what happens when you kowtow to the media....
When we as a group wake up and stop GIVING the Left so much power over us we will truly gain ground.
Really? This is why you signed up for conservatism?
I "signed up for conservatism" because I don't want to end up in a socialist gulag for thinking I was livig in a free country.
I have no interest in drinking tea with my pinky extended. Slurs and four letter words dont really bother me. We are in a fight against people who want to physically take your money, your property and your children from you and use them in the service of the socialist agenda.
Except when there is nobody in the race with a chance of winning that matches you purity test. Then you get irrelevance. Some pick the best candidate with a chance and make a difference. Some pick the candiate that makes them feel good about themselves. Just like some people make love, while other people just masturbate.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the pure conservatives don't really want to have a position of power. That would require them to actually do something, and to use a pragmatic approach instead of ideological purity.
No, they would much rather remain a fringe group and lambaste others. It is easy to be orthodox when there is no committment to action.
I agree with Medved. Why insult gays who choose to vote Republican...
I defend free speech. I feel no need to condemn Ann Coulter to prove to the hypocritical Left and the MSM that I am not a bigot or homophobe. The disproportionate reaction to Ann's remarks by the MSM and the Left is just another example of how they put us on the defensive and enlist some of us as "useful idiots" to help them destroy one of our own. This is just a tempest in a teapot.
Ann speaks for herself and is responsible for whatever consequences that may ensue. The Left is trying to make that linkage between Ann and the conservatives to smear everyone. We have become so defensive that many Reps feel the need to denounce and discredit Ann publicly to show that we are not all bigots, racists, homophobes, etc. No such onus applies to the Left because they are not assumed to be any of those things. We have the monopoly on bigotry, which is why we act guilty even if we are not. Can you imagine any of the Dem Presidential candidates even being asked to denounce inflamatory remarks made by Bill Maher, Al Franken, or Michael Moore let alone denouncing them?
What conservative movement? The one where liberals act offended and everybody craps their pants?
Personally, I use neither word but a great deal of the other stuff I say wouldn't be considered "appropriate for polite company".
Are you using the term vulgar in the common or the ivory tower sense? Regardless, my point is that the two words should have different societal taboo.
I don't think he said 4% of our population is gay. He said that according to exit polls 4% of those who voted in the 2000 election were gay and nearly a third of them voted for George Bush.
As for whether 4% of our population could be gay, I don't know if it's completely out of the realm of possibility that 4% of at least the adult population in this country could be be gay. That's just 4 out of every 100 people, so 96 out of 100 would be straight. There are a lot of gay people even in the small town in the Bible Belt where I live. Certainly there probably are several million in this country of 300 million people.
I could not agree more Tribune. I wish Canada had a ~tell it like it is~ personality like Ms. Coulter.
I am absolutely sick of it.
I think it's an ugly word, and can say that for a board that prizes itself on linguistic cleanliness it's been weird seeing it in print umpteen times in these threads.
LOL! I like that analogy alot. So voting Republican comes down to to wether you would rather have a Playboy magazine or a real live fat chick. I guess Rudy is the fat chick. Not what you really want. Not up to your usual standards, but at least she is real and you have a shot with her, plus there are not better looking women in the bar. do you put on the beer gogles and take her home? Hmm? Well you could go home to your Playboy mag (fill in real conservative candidate's name here). Man, those women look good. They are super hot, but you dont have a shot with them because they are only pictures on paper, and all you can do with them is draw the blinds and do what youve always practiced at.
I don't know, honestly. I guess it depends how desperate you are. Doing the deed with the fat chick could make me feel sick, gross, guilty, dirty and desperate, and without any self respect or self esteem. But at least I could say I got me some.
it is not an easy choice.
What a crock. Everyone has known the definition of the word since 5th grade, which also happens to be the last time most of us used it. This was shortly after "poopy butt" went out of fashion for us.
But the fat chick has VD. Now what do you do?
When my brother and I were young, we used to call each other names (which I won’t repeat here), and sometimes we didn’t really know what they meant.
When we found out, we promptly stopped calling each other those names in public.
Private might be a different matter!
That's a pity, but then again you aren't giving talks at CPAC either.
Are you using the term vulgar in the common or the ivory tower sense?
I wasn't aware there was any difference. My meaning seemed clear to me -- either word is what might be called a "swear" word. They are not things polite people say. They are things your mother would give you hell for saying when you were a child. Vulgar. Not fit for civilized use.
In addition to being vulgar and "swear" words, the two particular examples you give are also fighting words. They are insults.
I fail to see the need to use such language.
Regardless, my point is that the two words should have different societal taboo.
Why is that? Cause you disapprove of homosexual behavior?
So do I, I consider it immoral. That doesn't mean one needs to use vulgar and insulting language. It makes you look like a cretin.
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