Bush's Base Betrayal By Richard A. Viguerie Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01 As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us." Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience. Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism. Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries. In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait. We're still waiting. Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows. Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs. The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative. For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed. Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change. As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism. Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism. But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again. But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists. White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks. In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage? Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote? As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives. But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party. In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won. In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives. In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
Continued: The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November. And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better. If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994. At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward. I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer. As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Conservatives will NOT stay at home in November. And Viguerie canât look at history because the Democrats knew how to reach conservatives back then. Today the Democrats donât know their asses from their elbows. So in this case, conservatives will not only make sure the House maintains a Republican majority, but they will show their presence at the Primaries and make the Party more conservative. As soon as Washington stops listening to its dumb pin heads and takes a peak at its own country for once, it will realize that the âright wingâ is actually âthe middle.â
Will we see a right wing funded 3rd Party candidate in 2008? oh but there is one! it is called the k.k.k. and their extension...the n.r.a. i love it...i just love it! let them all come out of their holes.
Richard Viguerie is one of the most respected voices in the conservative community. I agree with much of what he says, and I think the old Republican tactic of threatening voters with the nutcase liberal Democrats who will be in charge, while accurate, will not be effective. At some point there has to be a price paid for betrayal. In a way it would be easier if Bush reflected all elected Republicans. He doesn't. While he has clearly sold us out, about 40 Republican senators and the vast majority of the House members have more or less lived up to their obligations. Unfortunately, they will suffer because of the treachery of Bush and McCain and the liberal republicans.
Actually, I don't think Bush presented a conservative platform at all when he was running. I don't recall the details of his platform but the Medicare drug plan thing is not all that conservative.
The gop is fucked. Too many voters alive who remember the 90's, and who will simply compare it to the 00's. I know, I know, your more "sophisticated" analysis will reveal that the 90's weren't so great. Try getting that to stick with Mr. Mits.
Doesn't help Generalissimo Bush and the GOP if the public figures out the logic of Dick Cheney's cocktail napkin. -- Make-Believe, Deceit Are Behind Latest Tax-Cut ....Or are they going to pretend, as Bush and more than a few members of Congress have, that tax cuts pay for themselves by generating so much more economic activity that the lower rates yield more revenue that higher rates would have? That's what Bush strongly implied Feb. 8 in a New Hampshire speech, ``You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase.'' ``See, some people are going to say, well, you cut taxes, you're going to have less revenue,'' said Bush, setting up his straw man. `We Cut Taxes' ``No, that's not what happened. What happened was we cut taxes and in 2004, revenues increased 5.5 percent. And last year those revenues increased 14.5 percent, or $274 billion. ``And the reason why is cutting taxes caused the economy to grow, and as the economy grows there is more revenue generated in the private sector, which yields more revenues,'' Bush explained. Notice the assumption that if taxes hadn't been cut, growth wouldn't have accelerated and revenue wouldn't have increased. Neither seems likely. In last week's debate, Grassley explicitly made that claim. ``In the case of dividend and capital gains tax policy, the tax policy we adopted in 2003 is the reason we have created 5.2 million jobs,'' he said. That's ludicrous. Some Federal Reserve research has questioned whether the lower rates have even had much impact on stock prices. There are lots of reasons why U.S. economic growth has been strong since 2003, including extremely low short-term interest rates put in place by the Federal Reserve. Nevertheless, Grassley said former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the 2003 tax policy ``is responsible for the economic recovery we have had.'' Greenspan approved of the lower rates on dividends and capital gains as a plus for growth. He never came close to saying that the lower rates were responsible for the economic recovery. Careless language on Grassley's part? No, just part of a long-running effort to deceive the American public. ----------- Tax cuts are only effective if they taget the classes that have a high propensity to consume and the rich are not of that class.