Posts Tagged ‘conservatives’

David A. Keene

Tea Party vs. 1960s Radicals

by David A. Keene

David Brooks is the very embodiment of a New York Times editor’s picture of a “responsible” conservative.

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He supported Obama in 2008 and dismisses Sarah Palin as an ignoramus without table manners. He considers Glenn Beck a clown and disdains the traditional conservative desire for limited government, lower taxes and fiscal responsibilities.  Perhaps most outrageously, however, Brooks last week managed to equate the tea party movement with the Weather Underground, SDS and the radicals who crawled out of leftist fever swamps in the sixties dedicated to destroying the America the tea partiers profess to love.

After the GOP electoral losses in 2006 and 2008, Brooks dismissed the notion that Republicans lost mainly because they had performed poorly in office and instead warned that the basic values of conservatives had destroyed the Republican brand. In BrooksWorld, Republicans lost because conservatives just hadn’t come to grips with modernity. Goldwater and Reagan, he hinted, spoke for a different time, to a different electorate in a different voice. The country and politics had changed and the time had come for conservatives to grow up.

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Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 9:41 am in Politics, Tea Party | 108 Comments

Andrew Mellon

The Insignificance of the CPAC Straw Poll

by Andrew Mellon

The enthusiasm at this year’s CPAC was palpable.  Conservatives turned out in record droves, optimistic and on the offensive against a government they rightly feel has run amok.  Dick Cheney and John Bolton amongst others predicted that Barack Obama would be a one term President.  I would take a more cautious view.  Beatable as I think President Obama is based upon his bombastic arrogance, blind elitism, blatant dishonesty, and boundless seemingly intentionally destructive policies, if the 2010 CPAC straw poll tells us anything it is that the conservative movement is still searching for its opponent.

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Before delving into the numbers, it is important to note that while roughly 1/4 of the 10,000 in attendance at CPAC participated in the poll, around 50% of these voters were students.  And indeed the youthful Campaign for Liberty crowd was highly visible and energized throughout the convention, which explains the extent of Congressman Ron Paul’s success.  Paul, the staunch libertarian came in first with 31% of the vote, Mitt Romney the establishment candidate second with 22% and Sarah Palin the (absent from CPAC) Tea Partier third but lagging significantly behind at 7%.

What is fascinating about the results is that the top three spots were split between three different types of conservatives, and further that the top two spots were divided between two candidates so bipolar.  In my view, Ron Paul comes off as unrefined, radical and principled, while Mitt Romney comes off as polished, moderate and slickly political. Sarah Palin alternatively is the homey if not hokie populist.

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Posted Feb 22nd 2010 at 7:01 am in Uncategorized | 259 Comments

Patrick Tuohey

This Week’s Elections: Tea Party Post Mortem

by Patrick Tuohey

Doug Hoffman lost his race in the 23rd Congressional District of New York, a seat held by Republicans for the past 120 years. John McHugh held the seat since 1992 and won with such large margins (he was even unopposed in 2002) that when I pitched him to provide polling for his campaign, it was a challenge to even argue why he needed polling in the first place.

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Dede Scozzafava was chased out of the race by conservative Tea Party activists. Her campaign may have been inept, and local GOP leaders may have erred in selecting her, but activists had no business dictating terms from afar. Despite her flaws, Scozzafava was ahead in the polls before the Tea Party brouhaha. (So much for respecting local control.) Their result was to actually shrink the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.  (Moreover, the newly-elected Democrat Congressman Bill Owens may provide the deciding vote on passing Pelosi Care, up for debate tonight in the House.) Just as conservative Democrats voted for Speaker Pelosi, liberal Republicans like Scozzafava would have supported the Party’s leadership. A RINO is better than no R at all.  The good news is that the district is likely to support the Republican candidate in 2010 after what I suspect will be a vigorous primary.

The most laughable criticism of Scozzafava was that she showed no loyalty to conservatives by endorsing the Democrat in the race–this from Tea Partiers who showed no loyalty to the Republican Party by pushing a third party candidate in the first place.

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Posted Nov 7th 2009 at 4:59 pm in Congress, Politics, State Politics, Tea Party | 232 Comments