The Winter of Viguerie's Discontent
The Boston Globe reported:
I feel very angry and betrayed" by the GOP, some of whose elected officials have backed a "guest worker" immigration plan, abortion rights and tax increases, said Richard Viguerie, chairman of Conservative-HQ.com. "We should withhold support from all major Republican [presidential] candidates today. Not one of them deserves our support today," he told a ballroom full of activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference annual meeting Thursday. While it is not clear that the conservative activists that make GOP presidential campaigns hum -- or ho hum -- will follow Viguerie's lead on this, there are certainly many signs and sounds of discord. Eighty-something Phyllis Schlafly, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement and rising star Ken Blackwell seemed to share Viguerie's discontent. The Houston Chronicle reported: For a party that grew and achieved in large part by force of its unity, this rift between conservatives and the Republican power structure is profound. It could be either the ruin of the GOP or the re-making of it. The Globe continued:
At least one conference attendant sported a sticker that featured a circle with a line drawn through the words "Rudy McRomney" -- broadcasting the wearer's opposition to the early leaders in polls for the GOP nomination, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. All of the GOP presidential hopefuls except McCain are expected to address the gathering over the next few days. The prepared text of Viguerie's panel presentation is available at his book promo web site, Conservatives Betrayed. Here are a few excerpts:
How's that working for you conservatives - to be an appendage of the Republican Party?
Let's re-launch the conservative movement.
Let's withhold support from all Republican National Committees because they spend our money in primaries to defeat conservatives.
I congratulate CPAC for not having the Chairman of the Republican National Committee at CPAC for the first time in memory.
And conservatives--this is important - for the time being, we should withhold our support from all of the top tier 2008 Presidential wannabees.
I don't know about you, but I'm angry and I feel betrayed, but fortunately there are things we conservatives can do to become a governing majority in America. For all of Viguerie's disgruntlement, it may not be of any help to the tiny-but-persistent Constitution Party, however. The theocratic third party has waited in the wings for a prominent defector from the GOP to serve as their standard bearer for several presidential election cycles, and so far, no one has fallen sufficiently out of the fold. There are often rumblings of this sort in the conservative movement. But time will tell. Last summer I wrote: Back in 1976, conservatives faced a dillemma. Gerald Ford was narrowly nominated as the GOP candidate for president, after having been appointed as vice-president and then assuming the presidency, after the resignation of Richard Nixon. Ford was not conservative enough for movement conservatives. So, led by conservative direct mail entrepreneur Richard Viguerie, top movement leaders Howard Phillips, William Rusher, Paul Weyrich and Lee Edwards, among others, sought to join forces with the American Independent Party, of former Alabama Governor George Wallace. When AIP wouldn't have them, movement conservatives mostly sat-out the 1976 presidential election. They decided four years of Jimmy Carter would be better than eight years of Gerald Ford. They began to create the organization of what was then known as the "New Right," (part of which now clearly defines elements of the religious right), and to prepare for Reagan's next run for president.
The Winter of Viguerie's Discontent | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
The Winter of Viguerie's Discontent | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
|
||||||||||||
|