Republicans Decide at CPAC to Run on Empty

I don't begin to have a clue what the Republicans are doing. If it's any solace, apparently neither do they.

Conservatives are not merely the Republican "base," they've become the party. So, when CPAC met for the big conservative gathering last week, it was significant. It was to show America the foundation from which the Republican Party will attempt to rebuild itself, after getting crushed in the last two national elections, and losing the White House.

It turns out that the foundation is papier-mâché.

With the nation's economy in freefall and two wars being fought, how did the conservatives at CPAC make their case for having substance and depth?

Their keynote speaker was a radio host. "Joe the Plumber" headed a panel. And they had a 13-year-old child deliver a policy address.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new face of the Republican Party. Who the GOP hopes to convince America will lead the nation out of its George Bush-created collapse.

Honest.

Mind you, I understand that Rush Limbaugh is popular with his broadcast audience. But, geez, folks, so is Keith Olbermann. Just imagine if a floundering Democratic Party brought in Randi Rhodes to lead them. But it's worse than that. Rush Limbaugh's fire-breathing bombast is what helped Republicans lose their last two national elections! Why in heaven's name would a political party still want to listen to his advice??? It's like a favorite bus driver taking you over the cliff, and then asking him to drive you out after the crash bursts into flames. Forget directions, the bus is destroyed.

Rush Limbaugh hates everything President Barack Obama stands for. We get it. Fine. But it's Republicans following that very hatred that helped get Barack Obama to be president!! And Republicans now make the conscious choice to have Mr. Limbaugh be their CPAC voice, their keynote, their standard bearer?? This is the political equivalent of pinning a "Kick me" sign on your own butt.

Yet even that doesn't explain having Joe Wurzelbacher at CPAC. "Joe the Plumber" shouldn't have been anywhere near the convention - unless it was to fix leaking toilets. And even then it would be a bad idea, since he isn't licensed. From every public word he has spoken since elbowing into our accidental public consciousness, there is nothing about "Joe the Plumber" that is not pitiful and buffoonish - including that he's known to his admirers as "Joe the Plumber." America is facing its worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. You don't bring in clowns to lead policy. That conservatives think it's a good thing to be associated with Joe Wurzelbacher about anything speaks volumes about their grasping emptiness.

The only thing that might speak louder is having 13-year-old Jonathan Krohn address the convention. Mind you, they didn't invite this preadolescent to preen adorably about the future when he's all grown up - he was there to lecture on party strategy! "Conservative Victories Across the Nation." Who cares that three years ago he was named "Atlanta's Most Talented Child"? The operative word in that title is "Child."

(By the way, know how he got that exciting "title"? He was dubbed it by Deborah Norville on TV's "Inside Edition." No, honest.)

Now, young master Krohn might be extremely bright for a 13-year-old kid. But the point is, if you're trying to convince America that your party's discredited philosophy should be given another chance, is that really what you want to put forward? This is a time when Republicans should be listening to party leaders with the historical stature of Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, even Ronald Reagan. Not any 13-year-old kid. The problem is that there aren't Republican leaders like that these days. So, the GOP is stuck with Rush Limbaugh, "Joe the Plumber" and a 13-year-old.

"We have to return to conservative values" is what these crack experts keep insisting. Sorry, but if Republicans couldn't handle the concept of being themselves for the past eight years they were in power, why should anyone think that six weeks out of power would make a difference? But far more to the point -- conservative values are cutting taxes and individual liberties without government control. That is how Republicans have been acting for the past eight years. There's nothing to "return" to. And...these conservative values are precisely what has gotten us into the mess we're in. I can understand a 13-year-old not grasping that, or "Joe the Plumber," but these other leading Republican voices know. And you know they know.

They know that conservative values have failed America. That's why at CPAC, Rush Limbaugh once more explained how he hopes the President of the United States fails. It's the only flop trick he has left.

Just imagine if a Democrat said this about any president.

But the thing is, in the end, as much as Rush Limbaugh and Republicans think it's a winning strategy to copy how Democrats ran against George Bush, it shows the mindless futility of their papier-mâché GOP foundation.

George Bush had a 23-percent approval rating. Barack Obama is at 67-percent. George Bush was tarnished with the Iraq War, collapsing economy, Hurricane Katrina, failing education, global warming, and so much more. Barack Obama was just elected in an Electoral landslide.

Yet Republicans want to keep running against the man they just lost to. Want to return to the values they never left which got them voted out of office. And want to push forth as their public faces of leadership a radio host, "Joe the Plumber" and a 13-year-old child.

It's pathetic. But then, it's that attitude when in power which got us in this mess in the first place.

Comments

[MSB]

This is spot on.

This is why I get frustrated when the Democrats self-censor and pare-down their own policies due to some perception of Republican resistance. I'm not underestimating the party because history suggests that they will make a comeback eventually, however, that point is likely years away. Currently, many democratic economic and judicial policies are absurdly timid. We are like a boxer who has knocked our opponent down twice in the round, has our opponent on quivering legs, and yet allows him to clinch for the last two minutes of the round ---- KNOCK THE DUDE OUT!

The GOP is on fumes.

The Democrats need to lead and start behaving like the majority party. I like the inclusion of the GOP, and I like the attempted movement to take in their ideas (as if they have ANY), but when it is all said and done, act on Democratic values and stop catering to Clintonesque corporate pragmatism. It served our party horribly.

As for the judiciary - transparency, investigation, prosecution.

[bdaved]

I would like to humbly suggest taking a page from the Republan playbook, and turning the language against them. If the radicals who have taken control of the party want to be identified as conservatives, so be it, but give it a new spelling. Konservatives, perhaps. Any misspelling would differentiate them from real fiscal or libertarian conservatives.

[RevSpaminator]

The Republicans keep trying to sell the same tired tricks over and over again.

Who needs facts when you can yell. What we said is not what really we said is nothing to do with how we were completely misinterpreted. If we say something absurd often enough it becomes reality.

Republicans need to learn something from one their own. "You can fool some of the people..."

Amazing that 100 years ago Republicans were considered progressives.

[econ1]

There is too much extreme polarization. In California we have a gerrymandered system that elects only hard core left and hard core right (it may be changing with Prop 11....we'l­l see). What it has led to is no solutions.­...only positions.

I consider myself a social liberal (if by that one means the government should stay out of people's bedrooms and that people who are economically disadvantaged should be helped), and a fiscal conservative (if by that one means that policies shouldn't enable a woman with six children on government support to have eight more at government expense...­has happened here in the Golden state, or that the government shouldn't take money from the people and give it to an arts group or car company just because someone in government thinks too few people are supporting it on their own).
Hard to find a position like that in either major party.

What Bush and Congress did over the last eight years was hardly fiscally conservative or socially liberal. He increased the size of the federal government and extended its' reach further into our lives.

I am hopeful that Obama eliminates agricultural subsidies for large companies and also that he allows the District of Columbia to extend the school voucher system which is giving poor blacks the ability to escape the public school system and attend the same school his children do.

Unfortunately there are Democrats and Republicans who will fight both.

[johninoregon]

Elisburg says, "...these conservative values are precisely what has gotten us into the mess we're in. I can understand a 13-year-old not grasping that, or "Joe the Plumber," but these other leading Republican voices know. And you know they know."

Actually, I don't know that they know. Go over to townhall.com---perhaps HuffPo's closest counterpart on the right---and read the comments. These folks are nothing if not delusional. It took them about a millisecond to come up with an alternative explanation of the financial crisis that explains away their own complicity, places much of the blame on liberals who let "Those People" get mortgages they couldn't afford, and calls for a return to free-market purity!

And that's just the beginning. When mainstream science gets in the way---as in climate change and other matters affecting the natural world---the strategy is to label it "junk science" and attack the foolish "alarmists" who actually believe such things.

The once respectable and occasionally constructive Republican Party has come to resemble what would happen if the least-treatable patients took over the madhouse.

[MossyOak]

"But far more to the point -- conservative values are cutting taxes and individual liberties without government control. That is how Republicans have been acting for the past eight years."

I don't know if Mr. Elisberg meant to imply that conservatives are FOR individual liberties (actually the sentence is ambiguous) but if that's the case, nothing could be further from the truth. In addition to all the Constitutional assaults on personal freedoms promoted by Bush, the party is also anti-choice, anti-science, anti-legalization, anti-gay, etc. That's part of why they're called the Party of No.

Correction: Conservatives are only for individual liberties THEY want you to have.

[cyclobenzaprine9]

Conservatives are only for individual liberties for uneducated extremist evangelicals and the richest 1% -- both groups comprise the core base of the GOP/.

[Millenium King]

"Just imagine if a Democrat said this about any president.­"
I'm sorry, did you live under a rock the last 8 years? How about Nancy Pelosi calling Bush a "total failure?"
http://www.politicalbase.com/forums/topic/house-speaker-pelosi-calls-bush-a-total-failure/5037/
By the way, Harry Reid said it too. And how about the politicizing of Iraq war intelligence documents in such a manner that they bring "maximum embarassment" to George Bush? How is that not "hoping he fails?"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,102206,00.html
When is the last time a Democrat stood up and said "I hope Bush's conservative agenda succeeds!" If you think that sounds ridiculous, why do you keep on expecting conservatives to stand up and shout for Obama to succeed?
And finally, I think it's pretty cheap and petty of you to insult the speakers at CPAC on the basis of their age or their blue collar roots. Why is it so bad for normal people to have a say? Would you prefer the usual collegiate, bearded intelligencia that liberals usually fawn over? It's amazing how deep elitism runs in today's media when a speaker gets criticized because he or she is just an average person and not a political, academic or media elite.

[Ben Reilly]

* Noting that Bush failed is not even in the same solar system as hoping that Obama fails.

* Conservatives could easily say that while they disagree with Obama's politics, they hope he can help end the recession.

* Being intelligent doesn't make you an elitist.

Poor logic such as that is what caused the majority of America to reject your party and your ideas.

[Ben Reilly]

1) Noting that Bush's policies failed is nowhere near the same thing as hoping that Obama's policies fail.

2) Conservatives can easily say that they disagree with Obama's policies but hope he can help the country out of a recession (that way doesn't sound as much as though they're rooting against economic recovery).

3) Being intelligent doesn't make you an elitist.

If Republicans keep this up, the party will die.

[rwt1138]

The problem with conservatives is that they hate anything and everything intellectual, when the problems we face in this country require some real planning and thought.

Why is it bad for normal people to have a say? Go read the comments on Free Republic sometime, if you still don't get it then you're hopeless. We are not going to remain at the top of the heap by being the dumbest country in the world, and if you seriously think that the input of thirteen year olds and plumbers have as much value as that of elite scientists, experts or academics, you're an idiot.

Maybe you should look up the word "elite". You seem to be under some mistaken impression that it's a pejorative. If you're a conservative, look up "socialism" and "communism" while you're at it, I have yet to see evidence that any conservative even knows what those words mean.

[nellie]

There's a difference between calling someone's policies a failure and saying you HOPE THE PERSON FAILS. Conservatives never recognize this distinction. I don't remember hearing anyone say they HOPED Bush would fail. God knows, we wanted the man to do something right. SOMETHING. ANYTHING. He just didn't have it in him.

[madfeline]

Ahhhhhhmen.