TRB: Slow Learners
What part of "overwhelming electoral defeat" does the GOP not understand?
Jonathan Chait
The New Republic
November 19, 2008
A year and a half ago, around the time thoughtful conservatives started to realize that George W. Bush might not in fact be a combination of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote a cover story pinpointing the source of the president's failings: He had a competence problem. Going forward, Lowry suggested, the party might want a new leader a bit less, well, meatheaded than the incumbent. Republicans would seek out someone who "doesn't run the government like George W. Bush," he predicted--someone "detail-oriented" and "proven (in jobs more demanding than part owner of a baseball team or governor in a state where the office is weak)."
Yet the Republican who has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 elections having captured the loyalty of the party faithful--Sarah Palin--does not quite fit this description. The base does not appear concerned. "At a recent meeting of conservative activists," writes an approving Midge Decter, "the very mention of her name set the whole room cheering and the women present all but dancing on the tables."
The outpouring of Republican enthusiasm for Palin suggests that the party faithful have not quite digested Lowry's critique of Bush--or, for that matter, any critique of Bush whatsoever. This week, Republicans are holding a series of confabs to plot their way forward. The most popular themes appear to be Palin in particular and the return to a more traditional conservatism in general. A recent, pre-election Democracy Corps poll found that Republican voters, by a two-to-one margin, think their party "needs to get back to Republican issues," as opposed to devising "better ways to make government work for people, make America secure and address new problems." I have seen the future of the Republican Party, and it is the present of the Republican Party. Only perhaps more so.
Among the intelligentsia, a handful of thinkers have started to argue that the failure of the Bush administration calls for a rethinking of conservatism. But the most powerful institutions of the right--Fox News, talk radio, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the major right-wing think tanks--remain firmly in the hands of conservatives who see the events of the last eight years as a vindication of their ideology.
(More here.)
Jonathan Chait
The New Republic
November 19, 2008
A year and a half ago, around the time thoughtful conservatives started to realize that George W. Bush might not in fact be a combination of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote a cover story pinpointing the source of the president's failings: He had a competence problem. Going forward, Lowry suggested, the party might want a new leader a bit less, well, meatheaded than the incumbent. Republicans would seek out someone who "doesn't run the government like George W. Bush," he predicted--someone "detail-oriented" and "proven (in jobs more demanding than part owner of a baseball team or governor in a state where the office is weak)."
Yet the Republican who has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 elections having captured the loyalty of the party faithful--Sarah Palin--does not quite fit this description. The base does not appear concerned. "At a recent meeting of conservative activists," writes an approving Midge Decter, "the very mention of her name set the whole room cheering and the women present all but dancing on the tables."
The outpouring of Republican enthusiasm for Palin suggests that the party faithful have not quite digested Lowry's critique of Bush--or, for that matter, any critique of Bush whatsoever. This week, Republicans are holding a series of confabs to plot their way forward. The most popular themes appear to be Palin in particular and the return to a more traditional conservatism in general. A recent, pre-election Democracy Corps poll found that Republican voters, by a two-to-one margin, think their party "needs to get back to Republican issues," as opposed to devising "better ways to make government work for people, make America secure and address new problems." I have seen the future of the Republican Party, and it is the present of the Republican Party. Only perhaps more so.
Among the intelligentsia, a handful of thinkers have started to argue that the failure of the Bush administration calls for a rethinking of conservatism. But the most powerful institutions of the right--Fox News, talk radio, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the major right-wing think tanks--remain firmly in the hands of conservatives who see the events of the last eight years as a vindication of their ideology.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
Perhaps Obama is a quick learner. After all, Obama..."defended the right to gun ownership under the Second Amendment; arguably ran to the right of McCain on broader-based tax cuts for the middle class; defied his left-purist base by supporting (with more controls) the president’s terrorist surveillance program; talked of pay-as-you-go fiscal policies aimed at restoring balanced budgets; insisted to black audiences that black men take more responsibility for their families; and talked boldly of aggressive military action in Pakistan to take out al Qaeda and bin Laden..." from Lanny Davis, WSJ
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