« Previous — Next »

Gingrich Writes Reagan Era Obituary, Rush Limbaugh Apoplectic

14 January 2008

For weeks now Rush and others have been decrying the fact that all the Republican candidates claim the Reagan legacy when none are actually conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan. Then, of course, Huckabee advisor Ed Rollins had the audacity to say the Reagan coalition is gone. That sent Rush over the edge.

Now Newt Gingrich is saying much the same thing. From This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

We are at the end of the George W. Bush era. We are at the end of the Reagan era. We’re at a point in time when we’re about to start redefining — as a number of people started talking about, starting to redefine — the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs.

Rush just didn’t know what to do with that. He’s been a Gingrich supporter for years and Newt says something like that. It put Rush in a spot.

Rush had this to say on his show today:

Every one of these Republicans is starting to talk about redefining the party, and this has been going on since the early days of this, not just now. If you recall, all during last year, I told you this was my big concern: that Reaganism and conservatism were going to be redefined so as to fit the mold of whoever these guys on our primary roster are. One of the things that Newt said is "redefine the nature of the Republican Party in response to what the country needs." Something about that rubs me wrong. Something about that sort of grates on me. The Republican Party is supposed to sit out there and I guess (slurps) moisten its index finger, stick it in the air, find out what people want, and be that? That’s not who we are! Now, it may be who populists are. In fact, it is exactly who populists are. Even if you have no intention of following through on what you plan to do as you promise all these wonderful things to your supporters, as a populist. But this is not what the Republican Party has been. It’s what the Democrat Party had been.

This fits right in with what’s been going on with the Republican race for the nomination. The lines are drawn, the assumptions have all been made and everyone is hearing what they expect to hear rather than what is actually being said.

Newt was on Hannity and Colmes tonight and Sean asked him about the comment. Newt went on the explain that the Republican Party cannot continue trying to hold on to the issues of the eighties. He pointed out that most of the major concerns we have today didn’t exist when Reagan was in office. Gingrich made the point that if Reagan was in office today he’d be tackling today’s issues, not the issues of the eighties. In effect, the Reagan era is over and it’s time for a new era if Republicans want to win.

Newt was NOT denigrating the Reagan legacy or conservatism. He made it clear that he was always a Reagan supporter. But what Rush and others seem to want is Reagan himself. Too bad.

No one is a bigger fan of Ronald Reagan than I am. Reagan stood for conservatism long before it was fashionable and he is the model of conservatism. But we aren’t facing the Soviet Union, Reagan defeated that. We aren’t facing many of the problems we faced in the eighties. We have a whole new set of problems and we have to face them head on as a party and decided how we’ll deal with them and articulate that to the electorate. We can’t do that if we’re constantly bickering over Reagan.

It’s not going to happen but Rush, Laura Ingraham and the rest of the right leaning pundits need to stop living in the past and take a look at the present. Reagan is dead. We aren’t going to return to the eighties much as some of those pundits might wish we could.

I want conservatives in office. But if every candidate that takes a look at the changing landscape ends up characterized as a populist we’re facing a long uphill battle.