We know Sarah Palin got that little weasel John McCain further than he would have gone. Vote for her on this poll: http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/366171/results
NR has been off my list for some time. While there are still some good people there, people like Frum are now more representative of the magazine. So long as that is the case they do not represent me, the base of the party or conservatisism. When NR cleans house, I’ll start reading again.
Frum has quite a history of being the GOP’s self-appointed Chicken Little. Most famously, his tome Dead Right proclaimed the intellectual and electoral barrenness of conservatism in general and the GOP in particular, and offered Frum’s own prescriptions for the renewals of both. The blurb on the original edition’s cover read, “The great conservative revival of the 1980’s is over. Government is bigger, taxes are higher, family values are weaker, and the Democrats are in power. What will the Right do next?”
Hilariously, Frum’s question was answered just over two months after the August 1994 publication of Dead Right, when a back-bencher from Georgia led a Republican takeover of Congress that lasted for nearly a decade and a half....
Well worth the read -- Frum keeps forgetting history, poor man, so he's obviously among those who are doomed to repeat it. Watch for a new book, of course.
“College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats—but their values are under threat from Republicans.”
Is that why why Asian-Americans, who have the highest percentage of college graduates in this country, vote overwhelmingly for the Republican Party, while African-Americans, who have by far the lowest percentage of college graduates, and have the highest percentage of felons and criminals, vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats?
In all seriousness, what is he asking Republicans to become? Democrats...right? I guess I don’t understand what he believes Republicans are for if they drop all these ideals.
Who’s David Frum?
In 1996, William Safire wrote that social conservatives need to ‘get to the back of the bus and let the adults drive’.
That was after those rabid social conservatives, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, had their butts handed to them by Clinton after their fire-breathing campaign!
So yes, liberal GOPers who care about nothing but money want all others to leave the Party. Because we all know how well candidates do who pursue the middle-of-the -road voters...
Remember what the Nazis did to the Jews? It’s happening here now, the Nazi Left Wing is getting ready to intern us
There are entirely too many NR staffers...well, actually, it’s not just NR staffers, there are a wide variety of center-right pundits...who need to take a laxative and clear their mind.
Anyone has link to original David Frum article?
Thanks in advance!
David Frum - “God is dead.”
God - “David Frum’s career is dead.”
NRO’s problem isn’t just Frum.
In developing an agenda, Republicans and conservatives need to figure out what the top challenges facing the country are and how to meet them. But it would be pointless to devise an agenda that could not possibly win over a majority of the voters. And of course the same type of politics that might attract one group of voters will repel another. To generalize wildly: Upper-middle-class, college-educated voters tend to find the Republican party’s economics attractive and its social positions less so; vice versa for lower-middle-class voters without college degrees. Which group should the builders of a center-right coalition try hardest to get? I largely agree with Ross Douthat’s take on this question, but I would make an additional point.
I don’t think many people are arguing that if Republicans just emphasized their social conservatism more, they would attract enough additional lower-middle-class voters to win a majority. The argument that Douthat, his co-author Reihan Salam, and I (among others!) are making is that it is possible to craft conservative economic policies that would serve the interests of this group. These policies need not drive away upper-middle-class voters. The Democrats’ promises to help downscale voters have been compatible with an increased appeal to upper-middle-class voters, after all.
And if Republicans can appeal to lower-middle-class voters on domestic policy—health care, taxes, etc.—then they will have less need to make the type of cultural appeals to these voters (we disdain arugula, wave the flag a lot, etc.) that seem to drive some upper-middle-class voters batty. Such an economic agenda might thus help the party directly with the lower middle and indirectly with the upper middle. So I think the party’s best bet is to keep, while doubtless modifying in some respects, its social conservatism while searching for free-market economic policies that would help lower-middle-class voters.
My subscription to National Review will not be renewed. I can find their opinions on CNN for free...
Nevermind, article has a link to it!
“College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats—but their values are under threat from Republicans.”
*****
Well then it sounds like these college educated Americans have already found a home with the dims if they agree with them on economic issues and at the same time dislike pubbie values. To accept Frum’s argument, what’s the point in even keeping the Republican party around?
****
“To pursue the burgeoning yuppie class, “will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. And it will involve potentially even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy and less polarizing on social issues.”
****
Gee, what a silly question let’s just merge the two. Somehow I would have been disappointed in any less from Frum. He’s already outed himself as one of the Vichy swizzle sticks.
Better idea. Jettison Frum. He can follow his money to the safety of the Dims.
If these Yuppies we so desparately need to reach feel “their money is safe with Democrats, but their values are under threat from Republicans”, how in the heck is moving to the left on social issues going to win them over?
Why support Dem-lites instead of real Democrats. If the Democrats are as strong as us on the economy and abortion and values issues don’t matter, the GOP really doesn’t have much reason for existence, except to come in 2nd place.
To win these Yuppies over, we need to either:
1) Change their minds on values issues.
2) Convince them that their money (not to mention our national and their personal security) is NOT safe with Democrats. I think Comrade Obama will go a long way towards convincing them of this, if he gets his policies passed.
Frum is right!
Sister Sarah is the past.
GOP needs to move on and move on now.