Maybe Axis-of-Evil speechwriter David Frum just wants attention or maybe he doesn’t know how to avoid a flamewar he is bound to lose, but his Newsweek lament about the power of Rush Limbaugh is fairly stupid.
Why?
Because the premise of his entire piece is that Rush Limbaugh is, indeed, the face of the Republican Party. Look at the intro box:
The party of Buckley and Reagan is now bereft and dominated by the politics of Limbaugh. A conservative’s lament.
Conceding that point isn’t the strongest way to make a defense of the Republican Party. Frum goes on to convincingly argue why Limbaugh should not dominate the Republican Party, but nobody in their right mind thinks that he should. The real question is why anyone that doesn’t agree with Limbaugh would embrace the GOP? Frum has no answer for that. He does offer some suggestions on how the GOP can stop the bleeding: push free-market health care instead of tax cuts, modulate positions on abortion and gays, and get an environmental message. I’ve made the exact same points because they are obvious points. But it’s also obvious that the Republican Party is not on the cusp of doing any of those things. And I can’t see how that is Rush Limbaugh’s fault.
The Republican Party does have leaders. It has John McCain, for example. And it has the the minority leaders in Congress, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner. It has GOP chairman Michael Steele. It even has a few people that are well-versed in policy like Sens. Richard Lugar and Judd Gregg and Reps. Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. The fact that none of these politicians is making an argument that is substantively distinct from Rush Limbaugh is their fault, not his.
Frum quotes Limbaugh disapprovingly:
“Conservatism is what it is, and it is forever. It’s not something you can bend and shape and flake and form … I cringed—it might have been 2007, late 2007 or sometime during 2008, but a couple of prominent, conservative, Beltway, establishment media types began to write on the concept that the era of Reagan is over. And that we needed to adapt our appeal, because, after all, what’s important in politics is winning elections. And so we have to understand that the American people, they want big government. We just have to find a way to tell them we’re no longer opposed to that. We will come up with our own version of it that is wiser and smarter, but we’ve got to go get the Wal-Mart voter, and we’ve got to get the Hispanic voter, and we’ve got to get the recalcitrant independent women. And I’m listening to this and I am just apoplectic: the era of Reagan is over? … We have got to stamp this out …”
But Frum doesn’t admit that the central problem for conservatives is that the country has moved on on the social issues and it does want big government. It wants to talk about regulating the financial markets, not about the wonders of the unfettered capitalism. It isn’t enough to ‘modulate’ your position on abortion and gay rights and immigration. You have to have an answer to the economic crisis and some kind of plan to deal with global warming and energy policy. Frum at least understands that people are more concerned about escalating medical costs than tax cuts, but what about education costs?
We’re entering a period of big government because small government failed us and because we’re facing big problems that only the federal government is suited to address. The longer the Republican Party clings to the era of Reagan, the longer they are going to spiral downward. And that’s not on Rush Limbaugh.
I’m not certain it was small government per se that failed us, but the idea of small government. Or a shift in governmental priorities. I’d welcome thoughts/comments on this.
well, you can define it different ways, but lack of regulation is one feature of a government that is too small.
I’ll buy that. But number of employees and budget would be two other ways. Intrusiveness would be another.
I’m not sure how small it was and there were a lot of federal job vacancies that went unfilled. But I think in the first George W. administration a big cause of the problems was Karl Rove’s use of patronage. Rove paid back favors by getting a lot of incompetent people in key positions. Think Brownie at FEMA.
The wacky part is that by the end of the article, he’s taking the Democratic Party positions on global warming and saying that health-care reform should be the central economic message of the GOP.
Which of course the Democrats have been saying for a decade plus now. He in fact lays out every reason why conservatives should in fact tell the current GOP to go to hell and support Obama.
Is Frummy going all Andrew Sullivan on us, or what?
He’s seen the future and it doesn’t include the GOP – certainly not in the short term.
Move over Rush. I suggest David Frum sit down with Jonathan Krohn. He may have missed Krohn’s speech at CPAC:
Hottest conservative pundit is not yet in high school
Frum’s article should not be viewed in isolation. It is part of a coordinated response, very much in line with recent statements by Gingrich and David Brooks, respectively. You say that “nobody in their right mind thinks that [Limbaugh] should dominate the Republican Party.” Well, the congressional republicans may it were not so, but under the circumstances there are good reasons why they don’t want to cross Rush — it’s not Rush per se, it’s his audience. Among the GOP decisionmakers, the whole CPAC crowd along with Fox News do see him as the leader. Check this out:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/3/6/11302/79111/568/705240
However, Gingrich, Brooks, and Frum are among those Repubblicans that are not afraid of Rush. Notice none of them holds elected office. I don’t expect to see these guys apologize to Limbaugh for their comments. What I do expect to see is the GOP split into (at least ) two factions, the Newts and the Rushes. In practical terms, they won’t be able to dislodge Limbaugh, but they can at least look like an alternative to republicans who don’t care for Rush but want to believe there’s still a reason to be a republican.
So Frum’s article is not stupid in the tactical sense. He and the others are responding to Rahm Emanuel’s challenge. They are saying, if you are Republican and you don’t like Rush being in charge, we’re your guys. But it IS stupid in a larger conceptual sense. As you point out, “Frum doesn’t admit that the central problem for conservatives is that the country has moved on on the social issues and it does want big government. It wants to talk about regulating the financial markets, not about the wonders of the unfettered capitalism.”
You are certainly right. So the struggle looming in the GOP is a tempest that remains confined to the 1990s teapot.
Of course the GOP has other “leaders.” But they’re not leading. Except for Steele, all the people you name are elected politicians, and Steele is directly responsible to the electoral needs of the GOP pols.
(stop me if you’ve heard this before)
David Frum’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. David’s problem is that he can’t sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, David Frum is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character. And wave a magazine cover of the President’s wife and you scream about patriotism and you tell them she’s to blame for their lot in life, and you go on television and you call her a whore.