In late December, Matt Browner Hamlin wrote that the ability of narratives to thrive, in part, depends on the reactions by conservative media figures, such as Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh.
The day after the 2006 midterm elections, Limbaugh proclaimed that he was “liberated” by the defeat of the Republican-controlled Congress because he, admittedly, no longer had to “carry the water” for “people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried.” He justified lying to his audience because the “stakes were high.”
Heading into the 2008 presidential primary season, Limbaugh is operating under a different MO: honesty.
Contemplating the current field of Republican presidential candidates, Rush Limbaugh sounded like a man with malaise.
“To be honest with you, there’s nobody out there that revs me up,” he confessed to his audience of several million conservative sympathizers on his radio show last week, “so why should I pretend there is?” [emphasis added]
Limbaugh joins RedState in proclaiming, “They all suck.”
With the three leading candidates’ conservative qualifications, at best, questionable, conservative activists just are not happy.
From consultants to bloggers to talk show hosts, there is a climate of suspicion — at times bordering on contempt — among conservative activists about their 2008 choices.
The resumes of Senator John McCain (AZ), former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (NY) and former Governor Mitt Romney (MA) don’t hold up under the scrutiny of conservatives.
McCain has alienated some conservatives past the point of no return, despite his recent overtures (read: pandering) to the far right. Romney’s “Reagan wasn’t always a conservative” schtick isn’t winning over armies of potential supporters, though some local activists are willing to listen to him. Giuliani continues to stump for support but some people question whether he is serious about running. (Not to mention his stances on social issues that will certainly complicate things for him in the primaries.):
Some activists see all three men failing the test. “The party is headed for the wilderness,” complained conservative publicist Craig Shirley, author of a book on Ronald Reagan’s insurgent 1976 campaign. “In some ways it’s a victim of its own successes, but it’s also been co-opted by folks from the inside with less than pure intentions: People who’ve come to party for power, money, access, celebrity.”
Romney “is a question mark” who has “got problems because of his past,” Shirley observed. As for McCain and Giuliani: “I don’t know of any conservative who is excited about either one of them.”
California consultant Dan Schnur summed up the conservative dilemma:
“Where do social conservatives go?” asked Dan Schnur, a California-based Republican consultant who worked for McCain in 2000 but is staying out of the 2008 contest. “They’ve been the determining force in the nomination process for a generation and they’ve got no candidate in the top tier.”
Even “second tier” conservative candidates are struggling to build support due to the various factions within the conservative movement.
There are many contenders in the second tier who would like to fancy themselves as conservative alternatives to the top trio. But even the lesser-known candidates have their flaws. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is trying to get to the right of Romney and emphasizes his cultural conservative bona fides. But for many in the base, his stance on immigration is unacceptable. And then there are those pesky quotes surfacing from his own past that tie him to the moderate wing of the Kansas GOP and raise questions about just how committed to the conservative movement he is.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, another dark horse, is a Baptist preacher by trade with unimpeachable social credentials. Yet Huckabee has already turned off many conservatives because he raised taxes as governor — a cardinal sin in internal GOP politics.
It is a Republican Party in disarray with the primaries looking to be messy. Conservative second- and third-tier candidates have targets on the backs of all three front-runners in an effort to elevate their prospects.
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[...] Finally, The Right’s Field has a lengthy discussion of conservative unrest with the current field of Republican candidates. For example: [...]
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This race is starting to look like the ending scene of Reservoir Dogs.
Left by Matt Browner Hamlin
January 30, 2007 at 7:41pm