Is The Conservative Pundit Dead?
A moment of silence, please, for the Republican polemicist. The list of casualties from this election year will be long; the battlefield will be strewn with the corpses of famous politicians (Rick Santorum) and anonymous embryos (thawed by a Senate that takes marching orders from Marty McFly).
And when it comes to the Bush defender—the kind of commentator who’s spent the GWB era aggressively defending his turf on radio, in books, and on TV—the medics might look at his injuries, clutch their kits, and quietly move on. The field of aggressive pro-Republican pundits, expanded by blogs and cable TV, has never been larger. And never have so few been so right about so little.
Well, that’s harsh stuff…I’m not sure I buy it, though. Weigel’s premise is that conservatives have so wedded themselves to the fortunes of the Republican Party that they’ve lost their credibility and sense of reality. I have seen conservative pundits go after Bush with a vengeance over Dubai Ports World, Harriet Miers, immigration reform, and the handling of the Iraq occupation. Sometimes he deserved it, and sometimes he didn’t.
I have also seen many comment (including readers of this blog) that maybe a Republican loss wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if it forced us to abandon our current leadership and retrench to our small government roots. Methinks Weigel doth protest too much: if there is a dominant thread to conservative punditry today, it’s similar to Churchill’s famous statement about Democracy: the Republicans are the worst batch of leaders we’ve ever seen…except for the alternative.
I hope we hang on to Congress, though I’m skeptical. And if we do, I hope there is a big housecleaning, though I’m skeptical about that, as well. The one thing I do know is this: the Democrats are full of ideas on domestic policies, should they win, but I’m hearing precious little about how they would handle, say, North Korea, or Iran. If the Democrats win this election, they’re in for a very rude awakening if they think that foreign affairs will take a vacation…and this is what Weigel fails to see: if George W. Bush has been given a bit of a free ride, it’s because on the most important issue, the recognition of the threat posed by terrorists, he has been mostly right (though the Iraq War is an undeniable drag on our efforts elsewhere)…
The height of Limbaugh’s success was while Clinton was in the WH. If the gop retains, then the pundits will have been right. If the gop loses one or both houses, the ground will be even more fertile for attacking democrats.
“And never have so few been so right about so little.” ???
a plethora of liberal pundits fall, at the same time he writes this?
The author started with a belief, and cherry picked want supports it. I really doubt he has paid significant notice to the examples that dismantle his theory.
I’m not optimistic about Santorum retaining his seat, but the tales of an imminent defeat seem like a discussion Van Helsing would be having aboard a steamer on the way to Transylvania.
I’d wait until the stake is in his heart, and the corpse has gone to ash. Pa has the largest rural population of any state. Room for error? I won’t predict a win, but I will say that Santorum will outperform more than any other gop candidate, relative to his current polls. Casey’s silent treatment has left him in the limbo of trying to get over 50%, something that should be far easier if he actualy represented a choice.
04 was a referendum on Bush, and he recieved 20% more votes than 2000. The dems have made this a referendum on Santorum, moreso than any other senate race-this style tends to skew the result of a straightup election. Negative ads, help with the undecided, but rally support of the ‘victim’ within his party, equivalently.
the corner picked on a Brownsein piece:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjVkODViNGMzMGFhYTEwNDhjMmZmMGIyMzVhM2JmOTY=
“Breaking the GOP’s grip on socially conservative voters in Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia will be especially challenging. In each of those states, the surveys found that despite extensive doubts about the country’s direction, the Republican candidates are amassing strong margins among rural voters and whites who regularly attend church…”
as I previously mentioned, PA has the largest number of rural voters of any state. No other state will be as skewed by actual turnout from rural voters, as PA. Enough to pick up 11pts? I wouldn’t bet either way.