Conservatives jumping gun on elections
Last week, conservatives all across the country gathered to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference. People such as Gov. Tim Pawlenty, of Minnesota, Sen. Jim Demint, R-S.C., and even former Vice President Dick Cheney, swooped in on Washington, D.C., to speak at the annual conference. And as expected, we heard the over-the-top rhetoric about the Obama administration’s “socialism,” its “infringement” on our liberties and even a strange comparison to the Tiger Woods sex scandal. But all of that is fine because politics is politics, but it seems like the GOP is jumping the gun on the future of the electorate.
Just as this administration was overly optimistic about the stimulus keeping unemployment under 8 percent, the GOP is just a little off base when it declares that it can take back the House and Senate and say that President Barack Obama is a one-term president.
Conservatives are still giddy and love to reference Sen. Scott Brown’s recent win in Massachusetts as proof that conservatives are on a comeback. The interesting thing that they fail to mention is that, Brown is not a staunch right-wing conservative. He ran his campaign as an independent, but ultimately is a moderate Republican, something that is a dying breed in the conservative ranks. When Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, who are known to buck their party, were mentioned at CPAC, there were boos from the crowd.
Many Republicans are praising the Tea Party movement and even hailing it as the next big rise in the conservative movement. But before they try to ride this angry wave into a November 2010 win, they might want to open their eyes and see where that wave might be headed. Reports came out a few weeks ago that in Nevada, the Tea Party has qualified as a third party in order to run against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Since most of the Tea Party people are either conservative or libertarian, take a wild guess at which party they might take votes away from this fall. And I can guarantee that Nevada isn’t the only state that they will push to qualify as a third party in.
We still have about eight months before the November elections and much can happen in that amount of time. The conservatives do have the energy on their side but at the same time, the energy is as intense as it is polarizing. The base is fired up but they have to be careful because some of the rhetoric that they are using to energize the base could very well turn away the moderates and independents that are necessary to gain the victories that they desperately need for an electoral sweep this November.
Posted by Ian Bridgeforth
on Feb 26 2010. Filed under Opinion.
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