SILENCE!
And slavishly listen, for our Dark Lord Rove speaks! Newsweek, briefly:
“We are at the end of the Reagan era.” Or, at least, that is the claim of voices as diverse as Newt Gingrich and Ed Rollins on the right and Sen. Chuck Schumer and pollster Stanley Greenberg on the left. It is true the Republican Party is having difficulty retooling its message for the 21st century. But so is the Democratic Party.
…
But that’s not to say that the Reagan legacy is exhausted. Ronald Reagan’s legacy was not simply that he was “a campaigner and orator of uncommon skill,” as Don Campbell argued last week in USA Today. President Reagan’s gifts to the Republican Party were ideas: growing the economy through tax cuts, limiting government’s size, forcefully confronting totalitarian threats, making human rights a centerpiece of America’s foreign policy, respecting unborn human life, empowering the individual with more freedom. Those ideas endure. They give Republicans a philosophical foundation on which to build. The Reagan coalition has a natural desire to stick together. Fiscal, defense and values conservatives have more in common with each other than with any major element of the Democratic Party’s leadership.
…
Why then the media’s recent fascination with the supposed demise of the Republican Party? What are the reasons given for why, at least when it comes to the Republicans, “the party’s over,” as NEWSWEEK recently pronounced? First, we are told the GOP nomination has not been won “fairly quickly,” as in recent contests.
…
Second, we are told recently by Susan Page, also in USA Today, that “never before in modern times has there been such a muddle,” and then by Jon Meacham in this magazine that the “chaotic nature of the Republican primary race” means “the party of Reagan is now divided in ways it has not been in more than a generation.” Many who witnessed the primary battles of 2000, 1996, 1992 or 1988 might disagree. … If spirited competition on the Republican side is evidence of a crackup, then what about the Democratic battle? It is focused more and more on race and gender, and Hillary Clinton has the highest negatives of any candidate at this point in an open race for the presidency. The Democratic House and Senate have plummeted to the poorest congressional approval ratings in history.
Third, we are told Democrats have raised more money. You will search in vain for a similar declaration of last rites for the Democrats in 2000 when Republicans outraised them. And having more money doesn’t decide the contest. Consider 2004, when Democratic presidential candidates, committees and 527s outspent their Republican counterparts by $124 million—and lost.
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Maybe we are not seeing the crackup of the GOP. Rather, America is more likely to be at the start of an intense and exciting election …
Our Dark Lord Rove has spoken. Whole thing here. We have nothing to fear bit fear itself! Sorry, bad choice of words. Darkness will prevail over the land, in a manner that is intense and exciting! You orcs may return to snarling over bits of McCain and Romney, whose respective shortcomings, curiously, ODLR deigns not to comment upon. May want to consider chewing on something else.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:45 am on Sunday, February 3, 2008
2 Responses to “SILENCE!”
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February 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
Incomplete…
Rove cites key MSM reports of conservative angst, but neglects this last week’s controversy between McCain and conservative purists.
This is not an insignificant split. Rush Limbaugh in particular has a reputation in the party as a galvanizing force for the GOP’s ascent to power in the 1990s. His following of potentially millions of listeners could hold grudges long after the nomination’s decided and a new occupant moves into the White House.
I think this is the key to whether there’s a conservative crackup.
See: http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-conservative-crackup.html
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:26 pm
The Dark Lord loves for us all to live in interesting times. We should make the most of it.