Another Republican Harshly Criticizes Republicans
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in RepublicansA awhile back, Peggy Noonan stopped echoing the Party Line and started taking jabs at her party instead. Today, she hits Republicans hard with a truth that’s becoming more and more apparent:
What happens to the Republicans in 2008 will likely be dictated by what didn’t happen in 2005, and ‘06, and ‘07. The moment when the party could have broken, on principle, with the administration – over the thinking behind and the carrying out of the war, over immigration, spending and the size of government – has passed. What two years ago would have been honorable and wise will now look craven. They’re stuck.
Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.
This is and will be the great challenge for John McCain: The Democratic argument, now being market tested by Obama Inc., that a McCain victory will yield nothing more or less than George Bush’s third term.
That is going to be powerful, and it is going to get out the vote. And not for Republicans.
I’ve emphasized what I think is the key thought here. One of the legacies of George W. Bush is the transformation of government departments into marketing wings for the Republican party. This is what you get with an MBA president. To Bush-era Republicans, presentation matters more than substance. If Bill Clinton’s great sin was lawyerly equivocation, then Bush’s great sin is the creating of marketing-driven false realities.
But the problem with false realities is that, like the mirages they are, they don’t last. There’s only so long that Republicans can pretend they are for smaller government and a stronger nation when they are bloating budgets and exhausting our military in what began as an unnecessary war. Even if you strongly support limited government and even if you think the Iraq conflict is worth pursuing, it’s hard to trust the Republican Party to handle either.
This is, mind you, no endorsement for Democrats. That party still has its own issues to resolve. But they aren’t Republicans. And that’s why they will likely gain greater power this November. Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves. And those of us who might otherwise be Republicans will be left wondering who we can look to for serious pursuit of a modernized version of conservative ideals.
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May 16th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Well done…
May 16th, 2008 at 8:38 am
The republican rank and file deserve it–for years I have been saying, no pleading, with Republican acquaintences to dump Bush. Even though I am decidedly left of center, there is much about the Republican party I once admired (as a former resident of Macomb County Michigan, I was what later became known as a charter member of the Reagan Democrats–at least for his first term).
Bush is nothing like Reagan. Reagan was a man of ideas and principals–some of which I later came to dislike, but the man is still deserving of our respect.
Bush and his cronies and cohorts like Delay, Hastert, and Gingrich abandoned principal and used the Republican Party as a power base for personal gain and petty politics. They have killed all that was good in the Republican party and all I can say is good riddance
May 16th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Wow - SLAM DUNK! Mr. ASC steps to the plate, in comes the pitch…SMACK…Home Run!!
And not just b/c you’re hittin all the Dem talking points either, you’ve always given balanced posts, which is why I enjoy responding to them more than others, even tho I disagree with many of your positions. But here you seem to have reached a turning point, as you quoted Ms. Noonan as having done, and clearly outlined exactly what is wrong here.
The only thing I disagree with is that the truths you outlined here have become apparent to the Repubs. Have ya listened to any talking heads lately? Did you see the interviews with Mr. Feith? Have you become ‘appeased’ with the latest comments from Bush? Do you like the road McCain seems to be going down in his attacks on Obama, siding with Bush’s latest comments?
I think you hit the nail on the head here, I just don’t see the same change of policies or practice coming from the Repub leadership or their candidate for the future. I understand McCain’s tactics when he sought the nomination, but I haven’t seen any change of course since he began the general election run, and this is a mystery to me.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Of course these truths aren’t really recognized by the Republicans. What is the level of party identification for the Republican Party? 38%. What is the current percentage that approves of Bush’s presidency? 33%. Pretty close.
The hard truth for the Republicans and those who believe in them is that their philosophy of government belongs to a different era. It doesn’t work in a time when one multi-national corporation can sprawl across more nations than the British Empire once did and have more money and influence than many nations. It doesn’t work in an era of corporate medicine where it is the profit margin that rules and not the health of patients. I have never, ever heard an adequate answer to the question of just how small Republicans think government can be in a country of 300,000,000 people that is the 5th largest in area in the world. The most common answer I hear is that the states should take care of everything. When I ask the ones who give that answer if that means that as a nation we should just leave those states that don’t have the resources to fall behind the rest of the country I can hear a pin drop. After all, tax increases under any circumstances are anathema to them. They never want efficient, well run government because the idea that such a thing is possible goes against their ideology so they never work for it.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Ben,
Interestingly, if you were to go back and read my posts over the last 3 years or so, you’d probably see a rightward track more than anything else. I’ve never been a Republican and never identified myself as such. I consider myself a conservative-leaning Indpendent but I don’t see conservative values being upheld by many Republicans, so there’s no point in joining them, even if I do end up on their “side” more than half the time on specific policy matters.
Then again, my definitition of conservative is probably too literal in this age of hyper partisanism. I see it as taking a measured approach to enacting change or creating regulations and a foreceful approach to preserving our core secular values. I’ve long said there was nothing conservative about invading Iraq. That was highly liberal (in the true sense of the word), which is no surprise when you consider neo-cons are basically old liberals without the peacenik gene.
So, I don’t know if I’ve reached a turning point so much as I’ve reached a wall. There’s only so far to the right I’m willing to drift. When they ask me to drink to Kool Aid, I draw the line.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
ASC,
I feel your pain; it’s frustrating when you think of the potential for good this country has always offered it’s citizens and all that it stands for is simply used as a slogan for political gain.
Jim S. put his finger on it when he suggested that the need for large government in such a large, complicated society as ours is somewhat of a necessity. For one thing, how else can an ordinary person stand up against the power of the large company if not for uniting with others to insure personal rights. Our system of laws is all we have, and our govrnmint with it’s checks and balances is all we have to protect those rights.
I’m not saying that big business is the source of all evil on earth, as I’ve belonged to a Union that I felt did more harm than good for it’s members - but they’re often just another example of a bureaucracy too powerful to work for the people they represent. To say that big Gov is synonymous with communism, though, is just insulting. It is, however, expensive and wasteful and one must be weary of that.
There are a some countries in the world that are answering the needs of their citizens much better than we are in many crucial areas, such as health care, transportation, energy consumption to name a few. There are also some States in this country doing a great job innovating for modern life. We need to learn from these successes as a nation or we will fall behind, and the sense that this has already started to happen is what’s driving this change of direction. It’s gonna be a rocky road so hold on!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Hard to believe that less than four years ago there was talk of an emerging permanent GOP majority, because the Democrats had become too polarized and dysfunctional to challenge them anymore. Today, the Dems remain (at least) as dysfunctional as ever, but now that is merely the GOP’s only glimmer of hope against another electoral pasting, as the Republicans have proven to be just as dysfunctional in their own way.
The main reason for this is the erosion of what was once the GOP’s great strength: its ability and will to stay more or less united behind its candidates and its presidents, even after long and vigorous primary campaigns. GW Bush severely damaged that unity, with his free-spending ways and his administration’s frequent, heavy-handed ineptitude making it ever harder for his own party members to remain wholeheartedly loyal.
But if the conservative blogs I’ve visited lately, and their comments sections, are any indication, John McCain may well represent the final shattering blow to that former GOP unity. While Obama may claim that a McCain presidency amounts to a third Bush term, many conservatives are claiming that it amounts to putting a de facto Democrat in the White House - not quite as odious as Hillary or Obama, perhaps, but still too far left for them to support with any enthusiasm. There’s also a school of thought that the stuff’s going to hit the fan for the nation and/or world in the next four years no matter who’s in the White House, and that it’s preferable to have a Democratic administration take the rap for it. These are the so-called “suicide Republicans” who are contemplating crossing over to the Democratic candidate, especially if it’s Obama.
Needless to say, all this has put them at odds with their more moderate brethren, and other Republicans who would still prefer McCain over either Democrat. For all the Democrats’ internal strife, they may still be the more unified of the two major parties heading into general-election campaign season. Not a very promising state of affairs for McCain.