Richard Viguerie whines about Bushco

I'm amused by this article I found linked at the Huffington Post from the Washington Post called Bush's Base Betrayal where in direct market mail guru Richard Viguerie complains about corrupt Republicans who aren't real conservatives. There are indeed some complaints that the right has that are the same as ours: incompetent handling of Katrina disaster, the Dubai ports deal, the bowing to corporate masters, the legal and illegal bribery (Bush buying congress's support by never vetoing a spending bill; aka the Bridge to Nowhere) as well as the illegal bribes (Randy "Duke" Cunningham).

This article is basically a threat to errant Republicans that their voters may stay home and not give money:

The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.

And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.

and this too:

At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.

Wow, talk about the huge irony of "letting Big Business" fund the GOP (well, then they'll be beholden to the corporations, Richard... what you need is real campaing finance reform and publically funded elections, which Viguerie opposes).

In some respects Viguerie sounds like a lot of frustrated people on the left, who are disgusted with the Democratic Party we currently have. Like Viguerie though, I personally also believe we're best off working within the Democratic Party. It's interesting, though, that despite all the advantages of money, right wing media, a very successful grassroots and GOTV movement, these people still feel betrayed by the conservatives they got elected. Are we on the left going to suffer a similar fate when we regain power?

•  And he still doesn't get it

  Throughout the article, Viguerie complains that the conservatives he and his bunch volunteered for and gave money to are just not conservative enough now that they're in power.  What he won't admit, or can't see, is that the reason the conservative theo-state hasn't come into being is because once Reps, Sens, and yes, even the Pres, are elected, they realize that to stay in power they can't govern for a third of the country - - Viguerie's third.  And once the elected (or selected) ones are in power, they want to stay in power, even more than they want Richie V and his kind to love them.  Bushie is down to the hard-right third who hated Clinton from the day he was elected & never stopped hating - - and as Clinton proved & Bushie is proving, you can govern perfectly well without them, but you can't do jack if they're all you have.

  by demokath on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:14:24 AM PDT

  •  Exactly

    You are so right. In the end the name of the game in politics is compromise, even with the control of the White House and Congress in Republican hands. Viguerie also doesn't seem to get that upwards of 70% of Americans simply don't agree with him on most of his pet issues (stem cell research, ie.).

    by lanshark on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:23:14 AM PDT

•  Nice comment in that HuffPo thread:

  "The new Republican campaign slogan is: 'No one could have anticipated that we would vote for idiots.'"

  by pat208 on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:17:58 AM PDT

  •  that's great!

    thank you!

    by lanshark on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:42:29 AM PDT

•  Are we on the left going to suffer a similar fate

  DUH!!
  The Inning will change and the other team will take the field, but the game stays the same.  Have you noticed how well the things we on the farm team get what we play for actually promoted into the big league.

  Sure we will like the team playing better and the outcome will be more to our liking, but big league players like playing in the big league which is all about money.  Hopefully the next inning  will be played with a little more integrity and adherance to the rules.

  Unless the rules change, I hold out little hope the folks in the cheap seats will get a listen.  Fans are only meant to pay increasing prices to fill the seats and draw in the advertisers and underwriters who pay the real money.

  (sorry for the sports thing, but I finished reading my newspaper)

  by ddrich on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:20:58 AM PDT

  •  No, it's a great metaphor

    Your sports metaphor is dead on, thanks!

    What I do hope is that we on the left are at least a great deal more pragmatic and we care about such things as "facts", which I think gives us a natural advantage over Republicans. We are willing to change our minds in the face of new facts and data (something many conservatives can't do) so I do think we always have that inbuilt advantage, else we'd lose far more often, since we've never had financial parity with the Republican Party (and won't in 2006 or 2008 either), where they have to outraise us by a good margin just to win.

    by lanshark on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:27:54 AM PDT

    •  Thanks

      but the ability to weigh facts and data in persuit of a workable, equitable solution to a problem is precisely what we have been beaten over the head with.  Forcing us into(angry, sullen, disspirited .... choose your adjective) submission out there in the "media" that is looking for simplistic advisarial roles.

      It is interesting and amusing to see the polar opposite complain in our own words when the inflexible bangs into the unmovable, uncaring, simplistic, disinterested wall they've spent 40 years constructing.  Good luck to the Mexicans.

      by ddrich on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:52:02 AM PDT

•  Is it not clear

  Bush's legacy will be one of betrayal.

  His willingness to use ANY group, including, his own base, for purely political gain, has all been mere lipservice, while his indifference to the plight of regular folks is incomprehensible.

  Bush's Base the Uber Rich and the Ultra Elite are the only one's that seem to have seen his promises kept.

  by missliberties on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:27:50 AM PDT

  •  This is very true

    I remember being startled a few years back when reading Ron Suskind's now famous article (the one with the infamous quote of the "Mayberry Machiavellis") that this White House had no domestic policy apparatus. That everything was purely a political calculation. That's rather unusual, perhaps unprecedented in American history.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but even most Republican administrations do some public good (even Nixon who created the EPA and passed the Freedom of Information Act), and want to use government for more than personal gain of themselves and their richest, closest friends. It seems that despite some of our past president's best efforts, they do really want to leave some sort of positive legacy. But the Bush (in part due to Bush's incredible short-sightedness) administration has far more in common with corrupt third-world governments around the world, where the only use of government is self-enrichment, from the top leaders down to the lowliest bureaucrats.

    by lanshark on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:38:07 AM PDT

    •  Just wanted to add

      that the only thing that has stopped Bush from being an even more complete disaster is 200+ years of government institutions. There's only so much damage he can do in the amount of time he has, since there's still all these people in government, honest, hard working people who are pushing back (people like Patrick Fitzgerald).

      That's something many of these poorly managaged third-world governemnts don't have, a couple of hundred years of stable government behind them that limits the damage a failing leader can do.

      by lanshark on Sun May 21, 2006 at 09:41:59 AM PDT

      •  Saved by the Constitution

        This document is the only thing standing between us and the totalitarian regime of Bush, The Decider.

        by hmbnancy on Sun May 21, 2006 at 12:15:07 PM PDT

        •  and he's dismantling it

          as fast as he can.  Lord, give us the speed to get these thieves out of office before they've ruined everything!

          by Lisa on Sun May 21, 2006 at 12:44:50 PM PDT

•  Now it begins in earnest

    Republicans are trying to run from this administrations failures by claiming the conservative "revolution" has been betrayed.
     
         Bullshit.
   
     Are they trying to say Dubya is a liberal? Are they claiming guys like Rick Santorum and Tom Delay are tools of the left? No, these people are enacting the conservative, free-market, corporate-driven agenda that they said they would.

     Well, their economic theories have been disproven. Their social-Darwinism ideology has been rejected. Make them live with it. Remind people every day that this is what Republicans are all about. And that Democrats will do it very differently.
     

  by happy camper on Sun May 21, 2006 at 10:17:06 AM PDT

•  Avoiding Responsibility

  Everyone could have predicted the disaster that Rightwing ideology would be for our country.

  I don't even call it 'conservative' because 'conservative' implies something you're trying to maintain and preserve whereas the Rightwings were only bent on pulling things apart: Social Security, public education, the military, our role in the world...

  Unfortunately the big defect in their ideology which they repeat time and time again is assuming that American society is willing to do without these programs. The truth is, Americans aren't willing to do without these programs.  Americans correctly believe that these programs are essential to the life of the country.  So the quandry that the rightwingers continue to find themselves in is that they'll never achieve their agenda through the normal democratic process.

  So what's left?  If you can't tear something down in the open, your next set is to undermine it in the dark and from the inside.  They do this through mismanagement and the appointment of incompentent cronies.  They do this, in other words, through a form of sabotage operating from the inside once they get the keys to the place.

  The result again should be no surprise.  The fact that they then want to dissassociate themselves from the disaster they were instrumental in creating ought not to be a surprise either.  They're merely clearing out the old crop in order to make way for the new.  Their denunciations, fuminations, etc. are merely part of the ritual.

  Democrats run on their records, Republicans run away from theirs.  The only consistent thing on the part of the Republicans is their desperate avoidance of responsibility.  It's a rightwing thing.

  by patachon on Sun May 21, 2006 at 10:24:19 AM PDT

•  getcher whining here:

  "He started it!"

  Viguerie is responsible for the "winning is more important than governing" ethos that got these clowns the access they craved.  I hope hope hope he feels betrayed.  It's only fair that the ones who did the most to wreck the country endure some of the pain they've wrought, and Viguerie wrote the book.

  by Lisa on Sun May 21, 2006 at 12:42:38 PM PDT

•  This is more than just a whine

  This is drawing a line in the sand and say,"We are not going to take this anymore."

  When conservatives like Viguerie are in open rebellion, you know that you are in the shitter. They have felt exploited for the very narrow agenda of a corrupt government. No other major member of the VRWC has come out so strongly in opposition to this admin. From my elementary viewpoint, it looks like the wheels have come off.

  by fratdog on Sun May 21, 2006 at 02:17:41 PM PDT

•  Conservatives: Ooops my bad!

  This article had me turning green and ripping my shorts off. The sane ones among the public knew the admin was playing dirty long ago. To be brief, my questions after reading this:

  1. When mentioning conservatives, he likes to switch from "we" to "they" - how convenient

  2. Conservatives "tolerated" the bungling of Iraq and Medicare??? Are you kidding me? I wonder how well the families of the soldiers tolerated the mishandling of the war? Are we to expect the emergence next of Tolerant Conseratives?

  3. He mentions repubs not being concerned enough about Russia and China. Yeah, they should really be our top priority right now...

  4. What does he say is the main cause of conservative anger?

  "He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative."

  Does that mean if W had only outlawed abortion and cut more taxes they would be ecstatic right now?

  5. He complains that conseratives tolerated the signing of McCain-Feingold, but then later says repubs need to get rid of big business and develop the grass roots. Hey repubs, look around you, you ARE big business.

  Viguerie is attempting to paint conservatives as victims in this debacle of an administration, but fails to honor the true victims, those around the world and at home who died or suffered as a result of the idiots who connived their way into office. You fucked up, just shrugging and saying "oooops!" is not gonna cut it.

  by azuma101 on Mon May 22, 2006 at 11:46:12 AM PDT