If you think of the CPAC crowd not as an isolated gathering of the right's freakishly hateful and pitiably infantile, but as the perpetual core of the GOP's primary base, then you already know how things will turn out for the Republican Party in 2016.
Audience reaction to Jeb Bush's "center-right," "be more inclusive" and "stop alienating potential supporters" speech "was fairly muted" and "got very little applause and cheering," while Sarah Palin's "fiercely anti-establishment speech" and "punchy one-liners ... received the strongest response yet from a packed auditorium."
Inclusiveness isn't exactly a political program, but it's something--something positive, something forward-looking, something to grab hold of as at least a guide to a political program. Punch one-liners are meant only to amuse the slow kids and rowdy delinquents in the back--when punchy one-liners are all you've got. Palin yelped that "if we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals to tell us"; yet she herself revealed nothing of discernible convictions.
What is it she and the crowd seemed to believe? In blanket againstism. For three days they and other assorted nihilists vented hatred against pretty much everything except the idea that they were standing strong for something which in fact never got articulated. They were simply, intensely against--against this and against that, and their entire, incomprehensible goo of puerile disgruntlement just slithered and slimed to nowhere ...
... that being the precise location to which the GOP primary base will again thrust the party in 2016.
In sh'Allah my friend.
Posted by: shsavage | March 17, 2013 at 09:50 AM
However unmeaningful CPAC is, it means something.
So, what defines "Establishment Republicans" and what defines "Conservative Republicans"? This was answered with Rand Paul winning the straw poll.
Conservative Republicans are libertarians, and they have made a hostile takeover of the Republcan Party. Establishment Republicans are everyone else in the Republican Party.
This explains why the military budget is not protected and why the cultural warriors have beenn disposed. Balanced budgets only have value in cutting spending - read that cutting government.
Nothing else matters.
Even winning majorities are no longer important because the libertarian/Conservative Republicans rightly understand they can use a minorityin of the senate to stop government - and will not hestitate to do so.
Establishment Republicans are merely useful idiots in the service of the Libertarians.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | March 17, 2013 at 09:53 AM
It all rather begs the question, wither the future of conservatism? What is the Cato Institute working on? And all those other right wing think tanks. What are they prototyping in their labs as future things to be against? When the apparently inexhaustble veins of anti-gay are lost to public indifference. When demographic changes make dog whistle racism can't get you elected to anything beyond local offices in a limited number of states? There's always science of course but can you really base a national campaign on that?
The possibilities are just not endless. I can't wait to see what their Great Leap Forward might be.
Posted by: Peter G | March 17, 2013 at 02:03 PM
I just keep thinking that 60 million people voted for the most flawed candidate in decades for President just a few months ago. Clearly the crazy and lies and flip-flops and not showing tax records are no real bar to a large segment of the voting public. I think we're behind the times when it comes to recognizing that simple truth.
Posted by: Tien Le | March 17, 2013 at 03:26 PM
The punch lines and the red meat indeed rally the dead-enders, but they're the ones that show up on primary day.
Let us not forget, though, that the Democrats threw up a string of winners: McGovern, Carter80, Mondale, Dukakis (Dukakis! Really!). It wasn't until Bill Clinton yanked the party into modernist centrism (and an assist from H. Ross Perot) that we would go on to have a two-term Democrat president.
During that time, Democrats' policy ideas were still rooted in the New Deal.. just like Republicans now try to solve every problem (the economy, environment, pot holes, dental cavities) with 1980s channeled tax cuts.
The danger for the GOP is its "againstism" is ridiculously more extreme than the Democrats' was during their wilderness years. Clinton won his primaries relatively easily despite being perceived as a flawed candidate-- the Democratic "base" had gotten tired of losing.
I doubt a Clinton-like figure will emerge in the GOP for a while. This will give skilled political operators on the Democratic side much more wiggle room in claiming more of the center. Any new centrist policy proposal by them will be de facto rejected by the GOP.. simply because of "againstism".
I'm sure they will change-- who knows when. But groups don't change because of losing. They change when they get tired of losing.
Posted by: MinneapolisPipe | March 17, 2013 at 05:19 PM