CPAC-A-Go-Go

Salon covers the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, in which conservatives--yes, conservatives--flay George Bush for reasons ranging from his adventurous foreign policy, his softness on immigration, and his out-of-control domestic spending.

"Surprisingly," writes Michelle Goldberg, "factions of the movement with very different agendas shared this [negative assessments of Bush]. Even as Bush's runaway spending and expanding deficits infuriated small-government libertarians, his immigration proposal outraged right-wing populists who want the government to intervene to protect American workers."

Whether this means Bush's base is slipping away--the article's basic hope--is far from clear, but the article is worth a read. Parts of the CPAC were in heavy rotation recently on C-SPAN and it's always a delight for the senses.

[Link via longtime reader and critic of Bush's foreign policy, Jon Basil Utley]

Comments

[obvious]

I am sure that Joe is a dickus

[Karl]

First name Biggus?

[CTD]

Bush has a spending plan... her name is Incontinentia.

[Matthew]

No, it was more of a cutdown, I was implying not only are they not informed and interested enough to see what the president has been doing to the constitution and to their children's financial futures, but that they aren't even smart enough to realize that the prez has been doing what they wanted all along.

[alma hadayn]

"Well, absent the war, I think GWB would probably lose to just about any legitimate Dem nominee...Sadly, the lesson that the Republican party will take from this is that more spending and bigger government is the way to win elections."

Or maybe that the way to win elections is to wave the flag until a war gets going.

[Citizen]

Joe,
If asked, I'd say we Americans like to be pandered to, we just want to keep a front as though we aren't. Victim's sanction, or something.

Pols make a big show of decrying Special Interest influence. But they, and whelps that lap it up, forget something. They are the Special Interest. You are. I am. My special Interest is my own damn self and whatever else I am interested in. The NRA, eco-sluts, Righteous Right, Union gangs and Right to life and Right to death suporters are Special Interests made up of individuals. Even Big Industry is Special Interest made up of individuals. And they (we) all want things our way. It's simple and it's fair.

W's problem here is not pandering, it's incompetent obvious pandering.

[Thorley Winston]

Salon covers the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, in which conservatives--yes, conservatives--flay George Bush for reasons ranging from his adventurous foreign policy, his softness on immigration, and his out-of-control domestic spending.

Actually I did not see anything in the Salon article (maybe I missed it) indicating that there are many conservatives upset over matters of foreign policy. As RC Dean pointed out, this is Bush?s primary strength with his base.

Something else to consider is that the sampling of conservatives who are that upset with President Bush (certainly those who might vote for an alternate candidate or stay home) is hardly representative. Most of them recognize correctly that any one of the Democratic candidates would be worse than Bush on spending, more inclined to subordinate the United States foreign policy to the UN, push for a bunch of wacky judicial activists for the courts (whereas Bush has a number of good constructionists who were bottled up in the Senate), and kill any chance for reform in the areas of torts, education, health care, and Social Security ? where Bush is pretty good (and certainly better than any of the Democratic alternatives).

In addition, Bush to his credit seems to be focused more on long-term growth issues. The primary criticism of his tax cut was that it focused more on the long term rather than short term stimulation. He has also proposed a number a number of pro-growth initiatives such as expanding savings accounts and Social Security reform and while he has been a typical managed trade president (every President has supported some combination of protectionism and liberalization) ? with his support of the Free Trade of the Americas and expanding trade with Africa (also his defense of NAFTA which most of the Democratic candidates are disavowing) he is more pro-trade than any Democrat sans Lieberman.

Also while it is true he has expanded spending, I think that his general tendencies have been to move in a pro-reform direction. He pushed for vouchers and while it was killed in a Democratic Senate, he pushed for it again and again and now it looks like we may have a pilot program in Washington DC. He has been a consistent advocate of Social Security reform (which needs to be enacted before the baby boom generation retires) even with a lot of GOPers were afraid to talk about the issue during the mid-term election and that is telling. Moreover, while his prescription drug benefit (which was probably inevitable) is bad (but not as bad as any of the Democratic alternatives), he does introduce some elements of competition into the program, which is a step in the right direction.

So yes, by all means he deserves criticism for the spending and the amnesty for illegal aliens but he has done a number of things right. For me at least it will not just be a matter of voting for the ?lesser evil? on spending (which Bush is compared to any of the Democratic contenders) who has done a good job on foreign policy ? it will also be voting for the candidate must likely to enact substantive free market or at least quasi-market reforms of our government in areas of health care, education, Social Security and Medicare; who is pushing for some constructionist rather than activist judicial nominees; and who is focused on long term economic growth.

[Rovewatch]

Lefty talk radio jock Bernie Ward claims that the whole "Bush is losing his conservative base" meme was started by none other than...Karl Rove. That is, it's a conscious strategy to make Bush more attractive to middle-of-the-road voters, centrist Dems, liberal Repubs, etc. Ward claims the initial stories were planted in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, etc. and consequently picked up and spread by liberal journalists, bloggers, and so on, which is allegedly exactly what Rove & Co. planned, the assumption being that in the end the righties will always come together behind "their" guy no matter how he's behaved during his first term (probably a fairly safe assumption, actually).

I don't necessarily buy Ward's theory myself, but it's worth considering.

[joe]

Liberal Democratic base voters weren't too thrilled with Clinton, but he picked up enough swing voters to make up for the liberals who stayed home and win both of his presidential elections.

However, the Democratic Party paid the price for this strategy, in 1994 (low turnout among Dems) and 2000 (third party defections). Arguably the worst years for Democrats since 1972. You don't get coat tails by attracting swing voters - they're just as likely to vote party line against you on everything else.

[Stephen Fetchet]

Hmmm... conservatives bash Bush because they are in favor of tax cuts and reduced government spending, a restrained foreign policy, and controlled borders.

Well, that cinches it. If the conservatives are for it, then by God, me and the big-L libertarians be against it.

So let's have some tax hikes, some spending increases, and maybe a little war or two, just to show them irritating, pious conservatives what's what.

And remember...

Vote Dean! Choosy Libertarians for Dean Choose Dean! More often than not! Usually! Aaarrrrrraiiieeeeeee - aah,yeeeh-haaah.

[Lonewacko]

"Ward claims the initial stories were planted in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, etc. and consequently picked up and spread by liberal journalists, bloggers, and so on, which is allegedly exactly what Rove & Co. planned"

Yeah, that Karl Rove is a real genius. He's pissed off millions of Bush voters in order to try to get lefties to vote for Bush. I think Karl Rove is a DNC plant, pass it on.

BTW, Michelle Malkin, Phyllis Schafly, and the Enemy are featured at the CPAC 2004 panel discussion on immigration audio links.

[Zathras]

Politically, Bush's strength is based on his response to 9/11. No President serving during a period when the economy lost hundreds of thousands of jobs could expect to win reelection unless foreign policy and security issues where very, very high up on voters' list of priorities.

A Republican administration could respond to this by engaging in advocacy for its principles, reasoning that what worked for Reagan -- people gave him credit for his convictions even when they disagreed with him -- might work for Bush. But Reagan and his team not only had convictions but were skilled in articulating them. Bush is not, and his domestic policy "team" is so completely under the thumb of his political adviser that he has no one who can make his arguments for him.

Beyond the question of presentation, of course, is the question of substance. What does Bush believe in? Well, his family and most of the people he knows are wealthy, so it stands to reason that he doesn't hear many arguments against tax cuts. Friends and campaign contributors doubtless have impressed on him the need to take care of them in other ways as well. But that's about it. This is not a guy with any record of concern for cutting government spending or any of the other major conservative causes; the causes he has been supportive of, like vouchers and tort reform, are for him mostly a matter of political positioning -- for groups that might support him (religious conservatives and business) and against groups that probably won't (teachers' unions and trial lawyers).

Does that spell political trouble on Bush's right?
No. "Bushlickers" -- committed GOP activists -- are motivated much more by their alienation from liberals than by policy issues like the size of government. In other words they define themselves by what they are against more than by what they are for, and as long as Bush is against the same things they are, he'll be their guy. Remember, the only strong criticism Bush has gotten on spending (apart from ineffectual grumbling from some CPAC groupies) has come from the guy most GOP activists thought should become a Democrat four years ago -- John McCain.

The one issue that could be a problem for Bush is immigration. It is something that has to be addressed somehow, but there may not be a way of doing it that doesn't alienate (pun intended!) some conservative voters who passionately dislike lawbreaking, people who don't speak English, or both. That issue aside, the risk for Bush comes not from self-identified strong conservatives, but from people without strong party identification, who could see the exploding deficit as evidence of a guy not in control of the government. The right wing activists will be the last people Bush loses.

[B.P.]

What's most confounding about GWB's spending spree is that he's gotten nothing for it -- the left still portrays him as some sort of fiscal hawk. I heard Daniel Schorr prattling on the other day about the usual -- evil republicans stealing food from the mouths of babes, etc. Pay attention you old fart, this is one of the biggest social spenders ever! I never dreamed I'd say this a few years ago, but I'd take another dose of Bill Clinton in a heartbeat, so long as the R's controlled Congress.

[Matthew]

As evidence that people see what they want to regardless of the facts:

"Moby told me: "The only good to come of this is that the extreme right has shown their true colors. ...Bush is masquerading as a 'compassionate conservative,' but they've now exposed their extremely right-wing, misogynistic, racist agenda."

Anyone who can come forth and, with a straight face, call GWB "extremely right-wing" clearly has not read a single news article regarding the majority of his positions during his entire presidential term. I have no doubt that this absurd belief is not restricted to simple-minded entertainers ensconced in a Hollywood shell. Again, people clearly see what they want to, and only what they want to. I'd send Moby the figures on Bush's $400B national health care package, but I don't think he'd really care.

[Dan]

However, the Democratic Party paid the price for [focusing on swing votes], in 1994 (low turnout among Dems) and 2000 (third party defections)

That's a misreading of history. Gore lost in 2000 because he *abandoned* the strategy of attracting swing voters, and focused on attracting the fringe Left. Gore ran far to the left of where Clinton would have run; that's why he lost.

Anyway, I seriously doubt Bush is in any trouble at all. You're hearing a lot of conservative and libertarian anger within the Republican Party *because* they feel Bush has a lock on the election. "If he's sure to win", they're thinking, "he should stop buying off the swing voters and do more stuff WE want".

But that mindset will only last as long as it looks like Bush is sure to win. The minute it looks like Kerry/Dean/whoever looks like he has a good chance of winning -- should that ever happen -- Bush's base will rally.

[alma hadayn]

"What's most confounding about GWB's spending spree is that he's gotten nothing for it -- the left still portrays him as some sort of fiscal hawk."

Bush is not aiming to appease "the left", which he could never do anyway w/o changing his name- he's going for lower-income folks who may not like liberals but do want free health-care, etc.

[joe]

Wacko: "Yeah, that Karl Rove is a real genius. He's pissed off millions of Bush voters in order to try to get lefties to vote for Bush."

BP: "What's most confounding about GWB's spending spree is that he's gotten nothing for it -- the left still portrays him as some sort of fiscal hawk. I heard Daniel Schorr prattling on the other day about the usual -- evil republicans stealing food from the mouths of babes, etc."

Methinks you misunderstand. It's not about getting left-wingers to vote for him by appearing to be left wing, but about getting moderates/swing voters to vote for him by NOT appearing to be ultra-right. Remember when Rove rounded up black people and Hispanics to sit on stage during the 2000 RNC convention? It's the same idea, except backwards.

[Pete Guither]

Despite what they'd like, I don't believe that any of the Democrat candidates would actually be able to spend as much as Bush, unless they also controlled Congress.

Neither of the two parties currently in power shows any fiscal restraint or discipline. The only way they can be even slowed somewhat is by having divided government so they're too busy fighting each other to do as much to us.

[thoreau]

Pete-

Rule #1 of Hit and Run is that advocating divided government means you're a leftist who wants big government. Didn't you get the memo?

Seriously, any time I trot out that notion it gets blasted as being pro-Democrat. Somehow people think that the Bush years, with GOP control of the White House and House of Representatives, as well as control of the Senate for 2.5 years out of 4, has been a paragon of limited government while the Clinton years represented spending run amok. In fact, the Clinton years, as profligate as they were, were nothing compared to the Bush administration.

But good luck at getting people to believe the facts.

[Andrew]

Absent 9/11 and the war, Bush would have governed the country in a different way-- he would have been a far more conservative and combative president, and he would have been successful, for the most part. Arnold in California will probably be a good example of what you might have expected...for better and worse.
(Arnold has divided government, and he doesn't have Bush's pro-life and other culture-conservative baggage. Of the two, divided government will probably prove to be more important-- Arnold may NOT be especially successful.)

[Andrew]

Add to the above, if in the absence of the national security issues, Bush HAD run the country the way he has (unlikely, I believe) I honestly believe he would have been unseated in a primary challenge-- the Republican party Right has become both stronger and bolder with the passing years, and given a chance to do it over again, would NOT have re-nominated Bush's father (why be loyal to a loser?).

[joe]

Dan, I'm not blaming Gore's campaign strategy for alienating lefties. I'm blaming Clinton. The defections to the Greens were the result of 8 years of "Republican lite." Gore was merely the vessel into which certain lefties poured their anger. His liberal-populist strategy (on again, off again at best) was the consequence of his electoral troubles, not the cause.

I was around a number of normally-Democratic voters who picked Nader in 2000, and they were all about "Occidental Petroleum this" and "AIDS drug patents that." They were against Gore from the beginning, and that Clinton's fault.

[Thorley Winston]

Despite what they'd like, I don't believe that any of the Democrat candidates would actually be able to spend as much as Bush, unless they also controlled Congress.

A couple of points, first each of the Democratic candidates in addition to wanting to kept the current increases in spending is on record as wanting to spend billions above and beyond the current new levels of spending.

http://www.ntu.org/main/press_printable.php?PressID=548&org_name=NTUF

Whether or not they would be able to do so is another matter, however it is clear that none of them would be better than Bush when it came to spending and chance are they would be able to get at least some of their new spending increases through.

Neither of the two parties currently in power shows any fiscal restraint or discipline. The only way they can be even slowed somewhat is by having divided government so they're too busy fighting each other to do as much to us.

I disagree for two reasons. First, we had a period where Democrats controlled the Senate and we got the education bill and the agricultural subsidies in contrast to before when Bush was actually making some cuts in discretionary spending.

Second spending on federal entitlement programs is a lot larger than spending on discretionary programs and projected to exceed all other federal spending when the baby boom generation hits retirement age unless we enact some major reforms. Having gridlock only means that we have less chance of reforming these programs before the baby boom retirement, which makes them even costlier to deal with. What we need are pro-reform candidates who are willing to actually move some reforms forward to mitigate the cost, not just gridlock and like it or not, the only pro-reform presidential candidate is Bush (who to his credit has been consistently pro-reform) and the impediment to reform has been the ability of Senate Democrats to sustain a filibuster.

[junyo]

I was around a number of normally-Democratic voters who picked Nader in 2000, and they were all about "Occidental Petroleum this" and "AIDS drug patents that." They were against Gore from the beginning, and that Clinton's fault.

It was Nader's fault. The people you mention had a protest alternative to Gore, and so the ultraliberal wing of the Democratic party, bound and gagged in a closet during the Clinton era, defected in mass. Bush doesn't have that problem because as little as conservatives might like his "spend it like a sailor in a Bangkok whorehouse" budget theory, honestly, they don't have an alternative. There isn't a Democrat that's legitimately acceptable to them. Now, somebody throws a conservative penny pincher out there as a third party candidate and you'll see the CPAC attendees migrate. However, one gets the feeling that the GOP learned that the last time around, drugged Alan Keyes and Pat Buchanan months ago, and replaced them with harmless androids.

[Dan]

Dan, I'm not blaming Gore's campaign strategy for alienating lefties. I'm blaming Clinton. The defections to the Greens were the result of 8 years of "Republican lite."

Gore didn't lose because he lost the Greens. He lost because he lost the moderate voters Clinton had coaxed away from the Republican Party. Sure, the Greens ditched him because they hated "Republican lite" -- but the moderates ditched him because he ran like a Green.

[Kevin Carson]

Thorley Winston,

Washington is the only place in the country where the issue of vouchers is even remotely Bush's business--assuming that he and the Congress should be involved in the issue, instead of the residents and their local government.

And Bush's "reforms" also include the No Child's Behind Left Unreamed Act, which is fairly typical of neoconservative social policy. All the rhetoric about "states' rights" refers, in practice, to a little more administrative autonomy in administering intergovernmental grants in aid. But even that administrative autonomy exists only within the broad context of a "conservative" social engineering agenda. Federalizing social policy is quite acceptable, so long as the "faith-based initiatives," vouchers, etc., etc., reflect the activist agenda of Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp.

My idea of a "small government" agenda for education would be to eliminate all federal education grants to states and localities, dismantle the Department of Education, and tell George Bush and Ted Kennedy to mind their own damned business.

[Dan]

Rule #1 of Hit and Run is that advocating divided government means you're a leftist who wants big government

No, but it does mean you're ignorant of any American political history pre-Clinton. There is no consistent correlation between divided government and limited spending -- witness, to name one GLARINGLY OBVIOUS example, the deficit explosion under the divided government of the Reagan era.

Yes, spending was held in check under Clinton, because the Republicans in Congress held it in check by rejecting Clinton's spending increases. That was then. After the voters slapped Gingrich on the nose with a rolled-up copy of his "Contract With America", the Republicans learned their lesson -- namely, that American voters have the financial discipline of 11-year-olds, and expect the same from Congress.

The current crop of Congressional Republicans is spending money like drunken sailors. Splitting the government will do nothing, since the Congressional Republicans will still pass massive spending increases and the Democratic President's sole complaint will be that the spending increases aren't nearly big *enough*.

[thoreau]

Dan-

First, people of any stripe can say "Gore didn't lose because he alienated constituency X, he really lost because he alienated Y." When there's a margin of a few hundred or a few thousand votes in FL (pick your favorite version), and when a few other key states are lost by one or two percent, any constituency can be deemed "pivotal."

Second, on divided government: President's get credit for everything that happens, good or bad, including things they had no control over. Spending to buy votes mostly helps the President. No politician, GOP or Dem, can resist the urge to spend more money to help a President from his own party. Republicans, however, have just enough fiscally conservative instincts to reject spending that makes a Democrat popular. Democrats, on the other hand, are so devoid of fiscal restraint that when a Republican President will benefit from some spending the only complaint they can muster is "He didn't spend enough!"

So I'll take a GOP Congress and Democratic President any day of the week.

[Kevin Carson]

thoreau,

That's a pretty good assessment, IMO. With a GOP president and a Democratic Congress, the two parties just negotiate a welfare-warfare quid pro quo where everybody gets a present from Santa Claus. Under the reverse situation, though, as with Clinton post-1994, the standoff seemed to work a lot better. And that was even with a big government/"national greatness" conservative like Gingrich leading the opposition.

[R. C. Dean]

Well, absent the war, I think GWB would probably lose to just about any legitimate Dem nominee. His base has been grumbling for years now about his domestic agenda, which so far has produced exactly one thing they like (the tax cuts) and a whole raft of things they don't like. Absent the war, his reelection campaign would be a dead ringer for that of his father - a fruitless attempt to re-energize a base that is disgusted with him.

Its not that many Republicans/conservatives would cross over and vote for a Dem who is worse than Bush on these issues from their perspective. Rather, they will just stay home and the Dem turnout machine would deliver another election.

However, the war tends to swamp these other issues for a lot of people. Plus, with a rebounding economy not that many "undecideds" are going to vote to fire the incumbent.

Sadly, the lesson that the Republican party will take from this is that more spending and bigger government is the way to win elections. The non-statist wing of the party will shrivel to even deeper insignificance.

[Jason Ligon]

The problem for any conservative not wanting Bush, or any small government libertarian (in my opinion, I know others may disagree) is if not Bush, who?

The liberal argument about the prescription drug benefit was that it was insufficient, remember.

We're screwed.

[Matthew]

I find all of this so bizarre. It seems like Bush should win in a landslide. He's made it a point to try to please absolutely everyone, adopt everyone's issue, and buy everyone's vote. He cut taxes for conservatives, and spent ungodly sums of money on terrible programs for liberals. The war wasn't the complete disaster that the left hoped it would be. He's still been a horrible president, but I'm saying that from a very libertarian, constitution-conscious perspective. For both Reps and Dems, it seems like he's worked hard to please everyone. Why do they all hate him? I guess it's because everyone didn't get the absolute entirety of what they wanted. But still, you would think that someone who's willing to whore himself to such a large degree would be more popular.

[joe]

I'm not sure, Matthew, but I think you just complimented the American people on their ability to see through obvious pandering.

[Rick Barton]

Thorley at 03:58 PM wrote:

"Second spending on federal entitlement programs is ...projected to exceed all other federal spending when the baby boom generation hits retirement age unless we enact some major reforms."

Right, but since Bush just added a huge new entitlement program it doesn't look too promising to take stock in him to enact these reforms. Bush has been the problem in the prescription drug mess. It's as if Gore had been elected with enough Dems. to pass this huge increase in the size of the entitlements.

..."when Bush was actually making some cuts in when Bush was actually making some cuts in discretionary spending. "

That sounds good, but when was that? Discretionary spending has gone up like 24 or 26% under Bush. Fastest since the Great Society 60s years. During the Reagan years discretionary spending actually fell two or three percent.

Bush just isn't our kind our Republican. But, don't despair There are a number of principled, limited government GOP folks in congress. We should work to increase their numbers.

[Rick Barton]

Bush's embrace of big government has left a huge gap in the political landscape, at least in the presidential race. How bad it's become is evident in this GOP press release bragging about how much more Bush has spent on education than Clinton:
http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/108th/education/funding/realgoprecord.htm From the 12/30 3:32 thread: "Right Wing Educators"

So we forget about Bush:
As limited government types desert they should be vocal about it. Let them know why Bush is unsatisfactory and what is desired: Budget cuts,(welfare, corporate welfare [World Bank, IMF], foreign aid, entitlements, military not essential for US defense,) regulatory cuts, Tax cuts. The implementation of an America first foreign policy and an end to hyper-interventionism. A freeze on Patriot Act enactments and other civil liberties threatening measures such as alteration of posse comitatus proscriptions against using federal troops against civilians. Also a jettisoning of the big government liberal types in the administration, including the neo-cons should be demanded.

Especially if it looks like Bush is going to win, this would be a great time to take out the frustration on liberal/big government Republicans. They are part of the problem. There are a number of good Republicans who are principled and worth fighting for. Increasing their numbers should be the top priority. But the really big spenders should be dumped. One can get a good idea of which are which at NTU.org. The Dems. in congress are far far worse but the dumping of the really bad Republicans won't hurt in the short run and may pay off
nicely in the long run.

The Libertarian Party should benefit from the neglect accorded to bad Republicans from the presidential race on down.

[Rick Barton]

Kevin Carson wrote:
"My idea of a "small government" agenda for education would be to eliminate all federal education grants to states and localities, dismantle the Department of Education, and tell George Bush and Ted Kennedy to mind their own damned business."

Yes! OK, What are we waiting for? Let's pool our money and elect Kevin! 🙂

[dj of raleigh]

> Bowler: Go Bush. You guys suck.
Volunteer: We don't ALL suck.
Bowler: Yeah, you do.

[dj of raleigh]

> Bowler: Go Bush. You guys suck.
Volunteer: We don't ALL suck.
Bowler: Yeah, you do.

[dj of raleigh]

> some suggested the grass roots right might stay home on Election Day