If I were launching a new conservative venture, the last venue I'd choose for the announcement would be the New York Times. Karl Rove has gone to the Times to announce that he has created a new "conservative" entity "to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts."
Rove argues that Republican fortunes have been ruined by "far-right conservatives," but he's shamelessly calling this entity the "Conservative Victory Project." Yes, and I could call myself Ray Lewis, but it doesn't make it so.
Whaddaya know? The liberal Democrats at the Times love this idea. They call it "the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party." They would love a group to "discipline" conservatives right out of the GOP nominating process. What the heck? They could call themselves "conservative," too.
It's reminiscent of all the reporters who desperately wanted Colin Powell to run for president in 1996 because apparently Bob Dole was too fringy, and, as Howard Fineman said at the time, reporters "want a Republican Party they can live with."
Only at the end of the Times story does a fraction of balance appear, when Grover Norquist is delicately quoted on how establishment candidates did not win in Montana (Rep. Denny Rehberg) or North Dakota (Rep. Rick Berg). That list is very incomplete.
Rove and Co. should also revisit how establishment moderates fared in other Senate races. Former governor Linda Lingle lost in Hawaii. Former governor Tommy Thompson lost in Wisconsin. Two-time self-funding Senate contender Linda McMahon lost in Connecticut. Sen. Scott Brown lost in Massachusetts. Five-term Congresswoman Heather Wilson lost her second Senate campaign in New Mexico. Chris Christie's 2009 campaign chairman Joe Kyrillos lost in New Jersey.
So how many moderate GOP challengers won in 2012? Not one. How many Tea Party conservatives? Three.
The New York Times quoted Rove staffer Steven Law on their alleged philosophy: "Our approach will be to institutionalize the Buckley rule: Support the most conservative candidate who can win." Uh-huh. So that's what Rove was doing when he supported Sen. Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2004. Before that term was over, Specter became a Democrat.
That's what moderates were doing when they supported Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio in Florida in 2010. Crist, too, became a Democrat.
The Times did not explore Steven Law's win-loss record. As executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1998 and 2000, Law's work ended up with zero gains in 1998 and four seats lost in 2000. The Times didn't want to remind anyone how Rove "the Architect" predicted in 2006 that the GOP would retain control of both houses of Congress, and he proceeded to lose them both.
Wouldn't that information help the public evaluate just how much the Republicans need Team Rove's new "discipline" to win?
When it comes to winning, they supported Sen. Robert Bennett over Mike Lee (who won the seat) in Utah. The GOP moderates preferred Lt. Gov David Dewhurst over Ted Cruz in Texas in 2012. The list seems endless.
These candidates are not the ones that journalists want the public to remember. Instead, the national media gorged itself on 2012 Senate candidate Todd Akin's comments on abortion and "legitimate rape." This is where media bias on deciding what is a gaffe (and what is not) matters. It was never a gaffe when Senate candidate Barack Obama ran in 2004 (and 2008, and 2012) after having voted four times in the Illinois Senate to allow abortions after the "fetus" became a baby outside the womb. Absolutely nobody with a press pass found that idea ideologically extreme or scientifically bizarre.
I don't remember Rove making an ad about that extremism, but Rove and the Times have already settled on Iowa Congressman Steve King as the potential Akin of 2014 if he runs for the Senate. The Times repeated Democrat opposition research, that King had compared illegal immigrants to bird dogs and that King denounced Nancy Pelosi and her "Stasi troops" for insisting on eco-friendly light bulbs and other federal mandates.
In the end, this is not a fight between Democrats and Republicans. This is between the Reaganites and the same old moderate Republicans who insisted Ronald Reagan was far too extreme to be elected in 1976 and then in 1980, when Rove worked for George H. W. Bush. They thought the Doles and McCains were always the smart money against the Democrats. It's a fight between Republicans who want to not only run as conservatives, but govern as conservatives, versus the Bush-Boehner-McConnell never-mind approach.
Conservatism is in no way synonymous with defeat, and "conservative victory" isn't even attempted by those who were never conservatives to begin with.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM
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5 Comments | Post Comment
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Take one look at the establishment choice Romney, his dirty fight to ensure he received the nomination and the GOP's treatment of the new young people coming into the Republican party, supporters of Ron Paul. Ron Paul supporters created the new tea party on Dec. 16, 2007 (anniversary of the Boston Tea Party) raising millions for his campaign. We need more young people in the GOP or it is gone. I am delighted to join forces with anyone that will work for lower taxes, less government and more freedom. We are so far under tyranny now and the GOP has continued to champion Bush and now Obama's attacks on our freedoms in the name of fighting some unseen monster (terrorism) The fact is we lose far more people from almost anything else, yet we waste trillions of dollars, create the god awful monster the TSA, have drones in our skies and eliminate large sections of the Bill of Rights to enable gov to fight it.
Either the Republican party will start to actually work to reign in government or it will disappear.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Delia
Wed Feb 6, 2013 7:00 AM
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We need to face facts - "Republicans" are not conservative anymore, overall. Liberal ideology has seeped into everything. It goes beyond politics, and has for a long time.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Truth never fails
Wed Feb 6, 2013 9:20 AM
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It is time for all Americans to realize that TERM LIMITS are needed but, we can have them now by voting out all the
professional polititions and get real conservative, constitutional supporting candidates in office to make the changes
and restoration of individual and States rights. The "establishment" has become a liability in both parties.
Comment: #3
Posted by: ROBERT McDONALD
Wed Feb 6, 2013 2:37 PM
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Re: Truth never fails;... Well naturally sir... You have to be liberal to believe in liberty, and while many in the old south, the heart of the new republican party still believe in chattel slavery, and accept a version of it for themselves as an alternative to the government living up to the constitution, yet, and for now, they are only a large exception to the rule...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #4
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Feb 7, 2013 7:11 PM
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Re: ROBERT McDONALD;... The most effective remedy for government is not to make our representatives the servants of their employees, their staff which all of them must depend upon in the extreme already; but the solution is to have representation at the ratio that our founding fathers did, of one for every thirty thousand...The parties limited that number to make the house manageable...They had not even come close to filling the chamber created for their affairs... They gave up the power of the people's house to have a fraction more of power for themselves... We could replace all of their staffs, give them a lawyer and a secratary each, and let them sort things out...
There would be thousands of them, but no reason for any one to be replaced who actually represented his small district... Now, the gerrymandering of districts is done to deny huge parts of the population their fair representation... And I personally do not care if, or who a district sends as their rep... They could elect a republican, or democrat, or a dog, a clown, or the devil in hell for all I care, as long as he will represent only them, and not party... It is their choice, and the rep only has one job: to represent his people, who he should well know...
Now, If my representative, Mike Rogers does not represent my views, I am left asking some other rep from some other district to represent me, and some people in that district must appeal to Mr. Rogers... This affair does not help me, or any other person gerrymandered out of a representative... It helps to empower the parties as it was intended to do when the numbers of house members was limited...If the house were allowed to work as intended we would not have to fear our government... We would all have more defense at the cost of less offense...But no president or senate would dare stand in the way of such a house of representatives...
The house was supposed to grow with the population, and for a time, did... It was the one bone that was thrown to democracy in our constitution, that the house would grow, and be in a close ratio to the people... And the parties took that away for their own power...
What good is our government doing us???...They are a house divided...The radicals have radicalized their districts to keep them, and now they must fear being replaced with one more radical... Radicalism is the inevitable result of failed government, two blocked, stuck, stalemated...
They are a sellers market... They do not reflect the democratic spirit of this country, which without gerrymandering would have packed the house with democrats...That is not my object...A great number of reps would not need party, and to represent ones district does not require such alliances... Mostly, we need consensus... We need the ability of reps to veto any injury to their district for the benefit of any other... Democracy is about self defense... The voters universally feel at risk... Everyone now fears the government that should exist only to defend their interests, and their lives...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #5
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Feb 7, 2013 7:40 PM
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