The American Spectator : Conservative Fury at Rove Erupts

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.7.13 @ 6:24AM

During Christine O'Donnell's campaign, one of Karl Rove's big complaints about her was that she had no college degree. At that time, neither did Karl Rove. He was simply trashing her because his apple cart was upset.

Some better comments from Michelle Malkin:
http://michellemalkin.com/2013.....tea-party/
Rove and his Tea Party-bashing minions will point to the losses of Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, and others as justification to tighten his grip on the party in the role of Chief Decider. But those are all very disparate cases. It is ridiculous, for example, to continue smearing and lumping Mourdock (a bona fide, grass-roots candidate and fantastic State Treasurer whose sin was to honestly state his views on life) with establishment incumbent Republican Akin (whose indefensible Magical Uterus Meme idiocy cost the GOP a winnable Senate seat).
Rove is a master of distraction. And that’s what this Tea Party attack is all about. You want to talk about losing records? Don’t forget:
Karl Rove and his investors were the biggest losers on Election Day.
The Republican strategist created the model for outside money groups that raised and spent more than $1 billion on the Nov. 6 elections — many of which saw almost no return for their money.

Aristocat| 2.7.13 @ 6:57AM

Todd Aiken may have cost the Republicans as many as 10 Senate seats...4 in states won by Romney.. ..Democrats won 75% of the Senate races in 2012...24-8...So why is McConnell still Republican leader? At least Rove is a loyal Republican.

arlo price| 2.7.13 @ 7:20AM

It's absurd to infer that Aiken cost 10 Senate seats.....sheer folly. Rove's track record as of late clearly demonstrates how completely out-of-touch he is with conservatives. Pure rino.
Memo to Karl: Please sir, leave quietly as you have absolutely no concept of political reality. AMF

Let's Roll

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:04AM

It is conceivable Akin and Murdock cost the GOP seats in ND and MT. In 2004, the GOP won every single competitive senate contest in states won by Bush. In 2012 the GOP lost 4 seats in states won by Romney. It wasnt Romney who was the problem. Akin was also an issue in the MA senate race.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:11AM

A lot of things are Conceivable.

If that's as High as your Bar is Set, than anybody can Claim anything.

It's Conceivable that Akin didn't cost anybody, anything.

It's Conceivable that the people in Akin's State are as Stupid as they are in other States. States like California, New York and Illinois.

It's Conceivable that, if the Women in this Country stopped basing their Votes on their Vaginas, and how to get Free Stuff for them, just in case they wanna go out and Whore around the Town all night, that a lot of Republicans might've Won a lot more Seats.

It's a lot more Conceivable, that we need people in our Party to STOP APOLOGIZING for Conservative Principles. Jeb Bush. Karl Rove. John McCain. Lindsey Graham. Just to name a few.

I never , EVER, heard a Liberal Apologize to a Conservative for ANYTHING.

It's time we Learned Something of our Enemy's Ways.

It's time to be MEN, again.

This bunch that runs around with Rove: Kristol, Colin Powell and David Brooks, are the Antithesis of the kind of people we need, if we're gonna right this Ship.

If we listen to them?

We could CONCEIVABLY be looking at a Third Party, and Total Democrat Dominion over this Country for the next 60 Years.

Conceivably.

philippic| 2.7.13 @ 3:01PM

nail on the head.

Controse| 2.7.13 @ 5:13PM

So exactly how is the voting base going to retake the Party from those controlling the Republican National Committee when they can't seat their chosen delegates to the national convention without the permission of the National Committee?

Face it TLP, a party government putsch occurred in Tampa last August. We can expend our time and money trying first to wrest control of the Republican Party away from the likes of Karl Rove's contributors and next turn toward facing down the evil of leftist control of America, or we can begin immediately to corral the evil under a different banner. Third party success is far from a long shot if the base is as fervent in their conservative demands, and the RNC is as thorough-goingly intransigent as it appears.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 5:25PM

If the RNC is the problem?

Don't give the RNC any Money.

Like Sean Connery said, in the Movie: The Untouchables: "If you want a good apple? Don't take it from the Barrel. Get it off the Tree."

Give your Money, directly to the Candidates that you like.

I don't know who said it, but someone said: "Every Journey of a Thousand Miles, begins with a Single Step."

It's gonna take time. But that's no reason to give up.

We need to elect more CONSERVATIVES. We need to Primary these RINOS, and get OUR PEOPLE in there.

We got rid of Lugar. We got rid of Charlie Crist.

We got Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio elected.

I predict that we are gonna ROMP, come 2014.

Never Surrender. Never Give Up.

We can do this.

Trust me.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 5:26PM

Failure, is not an option.

davidh| 2.7.13 @ 6:14PM

Does it take a death to learn what a life is worth?

One party is for the murder of 55 million unborn children and counting. Let's start there. Who cares about the rest of this dialog? America is surely doomed as penance for this atrocity.

We as a country, as a people deserve the worst for this unthinkable act.

darcy| 2.7.13 @ 10:30PM

The disaffection with the GOP is reaching critical mass; I see a third party on the near horizon -- and not a moment too soon. I recommend this analysis to you, as evidence of which I speak: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/024236.html
I hope you read it and also others who believe as I do that the Republican Party does not deserve another penny much less another vote. I pray the last few decent conservatives in Congress consider wisely their future in another party.

IzeHavitt| 2.9.13 @ 10:25PM

One's own view is that (paraphrased) "you can't put new wine into an old wineskin/ bottle, lest the bottle break and both be...lost."

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 10:21AM

All this blather about Akin's statement was a joke during the election, and it's a joke, now.

The GOP-establishment sat by and watched Akin be systematically smeared as some anti-woman neanderthal by the Party of Ted Kennedy (drunken lech and drowner of women), Bill Clinton (lecherous rapist), Mel White (child rapist), Bob Menendez (lover of under-age hookers), Barney Frank (detestable Friend-of-Dorothy), John Kerry (gigolo), Jim McGreevey ("I'm a gay American"), Elliot Spitzer ("Client #9), Anthony "Shows His" Weiner, Gary Condit ("Chandra who?"), etc, etc.

The fact that so many women on the GOP side allowed themselves to be duped by the left's full-frontal assault on Akin is a disgrace.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:26AM

Agree. Regardless of the situation the default position of the GOP is to grovel and cower.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 10:37AM

Akin destroyed himself. Obviously the fact that Clinton was a philanderer has been lost on you. Had Monica Lewinsky never happened, Gore would have won in 2000. So yes, Clinton's behavior and the Dem defense of Clinton cost them dearly

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 5:27PM

HE LOST HIS OWN STATE.

It had nothing to do with Monica Lewinsky.

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 10:53AM

excellent, excellent points that cannot be refuted.

canuckistani| 2.7.13 @ 11:14AM

Yes they can, because women, especially adults can separate the man from the policy.
The GOP is larded with men holding the KJV in one hand and a condom in the other. The dems never claim divine support for their policy babble, so they can avoid the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Ensigns and Vitters of the party.

Gore did win in 2000. More revisionism from the pious right. If you can't pound the facts, pound the table, or stack the SCOTUS and facts become irrelevant. But please don't whine when your creation sometimes evolves and bites back.

snipelee25| 2.7.13 @ 11:32AM

The more Florida was re-counted, the further Gore moved backwards. Get a grip!

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 12:32PM

Wrong.

According to Aljazeera News, a/k/a AljazeeraGore News, Gore won in 2000, Kerry won in 2004, McGovern won in 1972, and Ronald Reagan stole the election in 1984 with only 49 of the 57 states,

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 1:57PM

He was so close.

If only he hadn't LOST HIS OWN STATE.

Kingofthenet| 2.7.13 @ 2:13PM

Yeah, good thing too otherwise we wouldn't have had those eight great years of G.W.B. I especially like the firm finicial footing he left this country in at the end of his second term.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 3:59PM

Actually, things were going swimmingly, until Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over both Houses of Congress.

Coincidence?

I don't think so.

Rhoetus| 2.10.13 @ 11:21PM

W's motto was Spend! Spend! Spend! Build a bigger Pyramid than my daddy. Don't forget the UN-Constitutional "Patriot [sic] Act" ;-)

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 2:54PM

"Yes they can, because women, especially adults can separate the man from the policy."

Riiiiight. I guess that's why they reflexively scream for chivalry whenever their feminine whims are offended???

And please...stop spreading idiocy. Gore LOST in 2000. He lost the Electoral College, and he lost Florida.

Now crawl back to the Craplakistan that spawned you.

Bob K| 2.7.13 @ 11:04PM

Yeah!

SCOTUS outranks the Florida Supreme Court.

Too bad for you and Gore.

Controse| 2.7.13 @ 5:16PM

Hear, hear! Well said.

TNcracker | 2.7.13 @ 9:37PM

There are so many stupid women who do not think beyond their access to abortion, and the dems will continue to play this card over and over.

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 6:59AM

Jeff: This one is way to windy again. Keep your stuff down to no more then 2 pages. Tokyo Rove is the guy who gave us nothing in the last election despite spending over 100 million dollars. Here in this state the Republican establishment stuck us with Tommy Thompson. Tommy and I used to drink together. But he was long past his prime. He lost to an extreme liberal. This is the guy who pushed Elizabeth Dole as a replacement for Jesse Helms. All during Bush's 2 terms Rove did his best to sell conservative candidates down the river in favor of the elites kind of candidate. Their perfect candidate is someone like Christy Todd Whitman. This gang has run the Republican Party forever. They somehow let Reagan get the nomination in 1980. He had to take Bush for VP to try to keep them happy. Even then they ran John Anderson to divide the vote. The 80% prolife majority has to take control of the party. The Rockefeller-Bush-neocon gang has to be put on the ash heap of history.

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 8:57AM

At least Mr. Lord eschews trite phrases such as : that said, having said that , that being said.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:27AM

Talk about windy. Jacksh*t rambles on and on while saying nothing.

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 3:28PM

If you can not dazzle them with brilliance.................etc.

Crassus| 2.7.13 @ 9:50AM

NEOCON! NEOCON! NEOCON!

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 1:00PM

A conversation Please ...

Conservatism has, sadly, been only an anomaly within the Republican Party. In nearly a century Conservatives have enjoyed only two conservative administrations (Harding/Coolidge and Reagan).

Each followed by moderate (at best) Republican Presidents who sought, quite intentionally, to walk back (strange how progressive policies carry us backwards rather than forward despite their name) conservative's hard fought gains.

Hoover set about crafting policies (in the high minded manner of a man who believes in himself and his government rather than in principles and the people he ostensibly serves) which not only left, wheezing and coughing a once robust economy ... but set the stage for the Imperial FDR and the New Deal.

A very long 50 years later, Ronald Reagan emerged. A conservative through and through ... not by design but by conviction ... he crafted policies and responded to crisis out of a deeply embedded and full orbed conservative philosophy which not only yielded (by and large) remarkably consistent policies ... but immensely successful ones as well.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 1:03PM

Then came Bush I. With an ideological ax to grind (and not a little ego) he brashly announced his intention to set all right during his inaugural speech famously declaring that he would seek to craft policy which reflected a "kinder, gentler nation". Nancy famously quipped as she leaned into Ronny ... "kinder and gentler than whom".

And so the man who coined the inane phrase "voodoo economics" proceeded to give us just that. He too oversaw and unwittingly engineered the unraveling of conservative hard fought gains and, like Hoover before him ... rolled out the red carpet for a liberal Democrat to follow him.

The Reagan legacy showed some remarkable lasting power though. In only two short years, Newt Gingrich and a host of Reagan's ideological offspring turned Washington on its ear. Echoing and championing Regan styled conservatism they promised (and delivered) a deeply conservative agenda and its attendant policies (and outcomes).

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 1:03PM

So successful were these initiatives that despite having fought them Clinton now claims them as his own legacy.

Bush II would follow Clinton into the White House … barely. Equipped with something approaching conservative instincts (but deeply void of any meaningfully internalized and cogent conservative philosophy) George W. Bush only occasionally veered right. With his father’s same patrician bearing he sought to enlarge the breasts of the nanny state and increase her reach into American’s lives. He barely survived another election (conservatives win in landslides … moderates both barely and rarely win) only to oversee a Hoover like economic meltdown … setting the stage for FDR II.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 1:06PM

I say all of this to simply note, again, the obvious. Conservatism within the Republican Party, while providing it with its most winning and deeply influential moments … is an anomaly rather than a trend. Is it really worth all of the time, energy and resources of the Right to continue investing so much in that which yields so little?

Perhaps we have arrived at a time and place where we not only ought to survey objectively the effect of our efforts, but also acknowledge that the present technologies and mood of so many might well suggest that it is high time to begin the hard work of building a viable and successful Conservative Party?

Not by attempting yet again to rehabilitate the GOP (an effort with surprisingly short lived results) but by building from the ground up a party not infected at every level with grasping politicians and their minions.

When Reagan counseled otherwise, instead urging conservatives to rebuild a new Republican party, his advice seemed wise and possible. History has told another story.

We now have the ability, through both advanced information technology and a much more informed and engaged base (each absent only 35 years ago) to achieve this within a relatively short period of time.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 1:07PM

Ought we? I do not know. But it seems to me that its time for an objective, adult conversation about that very thing.

Hauling out nostrums from the past to squelch the voices of those calling for this conversation serves only the purposes of those who rely on the status quo to retain power.

A conversation please. I’m 51 years old … I’d like to think that conservative administrations are more lasting and frequent than Halley’s comet.

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 2:48PM

You have far too much time on your hands. Comments aren't supposed to be longer than the article. May I suggest mah jong?

TNcracker | 2.7.13 @ 9:44PM

Remember the inauguration speech of H.W. Bush? Before Ronaldus Magnus could even get out of town, 41 was promising "a kinder, gentler nation." I remember thinking, "oh Lord".

markinla| 2.8.13 @ 6:17PM

What is so "conservative" about wasting hundreds of billions on weapons that mostly never worked as intended even when you knew the USSR was about to collapse? What was so conservative about letting illegals flood the country and then amnestying them by the millions? What was so conservative about "guest" workers and free trade? What was so conservative about allowing bankers in the S&Ls; and on Wall Street to run wild such that the taxpayers had to bail them out?

Reagan talked a good game but nothing about him was conservative.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 1:02PM

A conversation Please ...

Conservatism has, sadly, been only an anomaly within the Republican Party. In nearly a century Conservatives have enjoyed only two conservative administrations (Harding/Coolidge and Reagan).

Each followed by moderate (at best) Republican Presidents who sought, quite intentionally, to walk back (strange how progressive policies carry us backwards rather than forward despite their name) conservative's hard fought gains.

Hoover set about crafting policies (in the high minded manner of a man who believes in himself and his government rather than in principles and the people he ostensibly serves) which not only left, wheezing and coughing a once robust economy ... but set the stage for the Imperial FDR and the New Deal.

A very long 50 years later, Ronald Reagan emerged. A conservative through and through ... not by design but by conviction ... he crafted policies and responded to crisis out of a deeply embedded and full orbed conservative philosophy which not only yielded (by and large) remarkably consistent policies ... but immensely successful ones as well.

AlanAnti-RoveCheneyBrooks | 2.7.13 @ 5:05PM

Rove believes in Rove.

AlanAnti-RoveCheneyBrooks | 2.7.13 @ 5:09PM

BTW, Larry E. alludes to the fact (not opinion) that all during the '80s Reagan may not have been liked by his opponents-- but he was somewhat respected and trusted. The Gipper could not have won forty nine states in 1984 otherwise.

NOW where are you?

Appleby| 2.7.13 @ 6:46AM

Okay, now let's hear how the next East Coast Liberal in the Republican Establishment Line is the last hope of the country, even though the base of the party neither trusts nor supports him ... and how all of us who support a man with our values, from a Southern or Southwestern state, who has already made a success of both his life and his governorship, are "haters" and foolish children who don't know what's best for us -- and how only residents of Gucci Gulch can ever win the Presidency for the Republicans. (Democrats are free to run anybody at all, especially people who spring out of nowhere with no background records of any kind, whose clear and obvious mission is to destroy 300 years of American exceptionalism and remake us into a failed European clone.) Yep, that trick never works, so let's force all the Flyover People into line to give it another shot. WHEN are you guys going to wake up and realize your country is being destroyed in front of you and you are pouring gasoline on the fire?

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 7:09AM

Appleby: This gang wants endless war and endless bailouts. The rest of us are supposed to sit still fro all their lies, crime, and corruption. Rove has to be put down like a mad dog. Not by killing, him but by making him anthelma to any real conservative. Shame on Hannity for having this guy still on his show. How could this guy get his contract renewed at Lox Snews? Most real conservatives must turn him off as soon as he comes on. The best thing I ever did 10 years ago was turn off Fox News, Rush and cancel my 42 year old subscription to National Review. It is time for real conservative to do their own thinking, instead of listening to people like that.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 8:25AM

"Lox" ???
Jack, I'm Jewish, and I didn't even know what "Lox" was until you mentioned it, Smegma Breath.
Do I insult your heritage, whatever it was, and "Buggery-aria" ain't no Country I ever heard off(HT Jules Winfield).
And I guess Wisconsin hasn't fallen to Al Quaida yet, might wanta thank my (Jewish) Daughter who's about to graduate Marine Officer Training(I've got Pictures!). I know, they wouldn't let Homos serve when you were technically old enough to join, and it might be awhile before they become Pediofile-Friendly(probably next year)
And whats wrong with Rush?, "Tom Sawyer" kicks ass, oh yeah, you're a Homo.

Frank "100% Kosher" Drackman

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 9:03AM

Frank, what does your good buddy Jack mean by anthelma? If he means castrate Karl and inject him with estrogen to make him more feminine, then it would be, "Make him Anthelma." Nez pas?

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 9:55AM

Jack sure doesn't miss a chance to take a shot at Jews, does he? "Lox Snews". Pathetic.

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 10:03AM

Please do not be so hard on the other Jack, he is only throwing out bait to fire up the good Dr. Drackman.

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:22AM

Al, Well said, especially the last two sentences. In fairness, though. While Rove hurt us badly in the last election, his underlying point is basically correct. I agree his motives are not, but the underling point is. For example, yesterday, down here in God's Beautiful State of Georgia, Congressman Paul Broun announced his candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Saxby "I never met a Democrat I didn't like" Chamblis. Described as the most conservative member of the Georgia Republican delegation, he
DOES get some things right. For example, he was the only Republican congressman to vote against Boehnor for Speaker. On the other hand, Broun has stated he believes the Earth is really only 8,000 years or so old, evolution is nonsense, he continues to claim Obamarx was not born in the U. S. (whether that is or is not true is irrelevant at this stage of the game and moderates are tired of hearing it from us), etc., etc., etc.

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:24AM

He cannot win a statewide race, not even in this, the reddest of the red states. We have a few other truly conservative folks who will probably get the nomination (Jack Kingston or Tom Price) and will win, easily. To the extent that we, as conservatives who genuinly care about this Country, need to be more pragmatic in our approach to conservative nominees, Rove has a point. That's not to say I don't think he's an ass, because I do and his motives are, to me, self-serving at best. By the way, by "pragmatic" I don't mean sacrifice our principles for the sake of power, I mean work to get the most electable conservative on the ballot. Now, where have I heard that before?

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:25AM

Both of the above posts were in response to Al, Jr's, post below. How they got here is beyond me (obviously).

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:25AM

Both of the above posts were in response to Al, Jr's, post below. How they got here is beyond me (obviously).

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:35AM

AGH!

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 10:36AM

The Earth's 8,000 years old?? What Hogwash! What Luddite-ism!! What Stew-piditiy!!!!
Everyone knows its 5,000 years old, 5,500 tops.
And if Evil-lutions true how did we go from George Washington to EICSSOTUS(Evolver in Chief Skeet Shooter of the United States) in a little over 200 years??

Frank

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:49AM

Frank, did you read the article in the AJC this morning? This is precisely what Rove is talking about. Difference is, here in Georgia, we don't have to go to a bench full of RINO's. BTW, no offense meant but LAX is the WORST airport in the country. Maybe you could have picked a different one - or maybe not.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 11:23AM

You mean the Atlanta Urinal/Constipation? Stopped reading it when Calvin & Hobbes went away.
I just said LAX cause its capable of handling JUMBO ummm "Packages" Nome, Sane??

Frank

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 10:58AM

No, you are wrong. Earth's creation coincided with the birth of Barack Obama. A mighty star was seen in the heavens at that moment and the universe burst into being.

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 11:48AM

I used to live in Lox Point and Bagelside. That is what we gentiles called Fox Point and Bayside. They are the most Jewish towns in Wi. I must say that my Jewish neighbors were far nicer and more intelligent then the schlmiel 5th columnists of a putrid, Middle East state who hang around here. Dreck, Occam, and Chislor are the dumbest of the dumb.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 12:52PM

I'm usually opposed to Gentile Mutilation but in Jacks case I'll be glad to oblige...

7-08| 2.7.13 @ 7:50PM

Clap for the Nazi
“ClapClapClap”
He’s gonna raise his right hand high
Clap for the Nazi
He gonna Goosestep till the day he dies
*Apologies to the Wolfman

C. Vernon Crisler | 2.7.13 @ 9:54AM

I really don't think anyone wants endless wars. However, most believe that America needs to defend itself, and look out for its national interests. This is apparently lost on the hyper-libertarians, who prattle on and on about neocons.

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 11:55AM

You Neocons don't worry about the national intrests of the USA. You are only intrested in the national intrests of Israel. We have been fighting wars for Israel for 2o years. Enough blood and treasure has been spilled. All you neocons put your own kids in the IDF and do your own fighting. The USA uses the kids of poor minorites and dumb as a stump evangelicals, to fight endless wars for no sane reason.

RCV| 2.7.13 @ 12:03PM

"We have been fighting wars for Israel for 20 years."? So we attacked Serbia and gave birth to the independent Muslim republics of Kosovo and Bosnia for Israel's benefit? I'm missing the logic there, Jack, but you of course see Israel's sinister hand in everything.

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 3:03PM

ALL the wars this country have ever fought have been for Israel...even before there was no Israel, we were being manipulated by the global Zionist conspiracy, led by the Rothschilds in Paris and in London.

Every President we've ever had has been a bought-and-paid for Agent of Z.O.G. - "Zionist Occupied Government."

Z.O.G. even nurtured and bankrolled Hitler! The Holocaust was nothing but a false-flag operation meant to throw us off the scent! And we were getting close, too!

It all fell apart with the Balfour Declaration in 1948! The ZOG-controlled British Government, with the assistance of the ZOG-controlled Soviet Government (the Soviet vote in the UN was the final vote that culminated in the creation of the modern State of Israel) secretly plotted to throw the Palestinians out of the Holy Land for their Jewish masters!

Stalin's real name was Stalinsky; and Clement Atlee was a tailor's son from Pskov who infiltrated the upper echelons of British society in the 1920's. If you doubt me, try and find ANY reference to Clement Atlee from BEFORE 1918...the man is a GHOST!

(Jack...stop me when this sounds crazy...OK? Seriously...)

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 10:22PM

Right: I didn't know you were so well read. Keep writing. All your pals will love you.

C. Vernon Crisler | 2.7.13 @ 12:33PM

The national interest of America coincides with the national interests of Israel. We prefer a democratic state in the Middle East vis-a-vis backward and destructive Moslem polities.

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 10:26PM

Israel is a democracy like South Africa under Apartheid, the American South during segregation, or Iran right now. In fact Iran and Turkey, and Egypt probably have better democracies then Israel. They are certainly not any worse.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 1:55PM

Jack in Wi, posterboy for Female Gentile Mutilation...

Frank

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 3:04PM

Jack in Wi - Defender of downtrodden minorities!

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 11:58AM

He meant his Aunt Thelma. Or Thelma and Louise. Or Thelma Ritter. Or Selma, Alabama. Or the first Law of Thermodynamics. Boys and girls, this is one mucked-up gringo. I here and now challenge him to a spelling bee.

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 12:34PM

Jack

Why do you refer to Fox News as Lox Snews?

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 3:24PM

Do you REALLY have to ask?

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 4:19PM

Yes, I would like him to answer. You never know what he will say.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 5:32PM

He'll say you're a Jew, and Doctor Dementia's an Idiot.

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 2:56PM

...And Jack talks endlessly about endless wars and endless bailouts.

Good grief...Get some new boilerplate!

TNcracker | 2.7.13 @ 9:51PM

Aunt Thelma? What does she have to do with this? You must have meant anathema.

Brother John| 2.7.13 @ 6:59AM

Rove is, amongst other things, the man who urged Bush into a position of Clintonian triangulation, but from the other side of the aisle.

The trouble is, such moves don't work in reverse, because it deprives voters of any opposition to statist government, and we get such disasters as NCLB and Part D.

In other words, Rove is chiefly responsible for Bush governing from far to the left of where he ought to, and as such, bears a large degree of responsibility for the mess we are in now.

It's about time he was chucked overboard.

donserge| 2.7.13 @ 7:02AM

My deep feeling is that Rove and others are pushing conservatives to start a third party. Why? I can't fathom a reason because that would make the present Republican party irrelevant for years to come no matter what the eventual results of a third party movement.

Jack in Wi| 2.7.13 @ 7:16AM

donsege correct: The reason Rove and the people who finance him want conservatives gone is because they would rather have Obama, Clinton, even Gore, then real honest conservatives. These people live off the rest of us and want big government. These so-called elites can't stand the idea of the '"little " people having any real say in government.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 8:56AM

Jack, you're way too interested in "little" people already...

Frank

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:31AM

hehehe

Guimo| 2.7.13 @ 2:27PM

Is Frank a law school professor?

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 4:01PM

Nope, Gas Man with a little too much time with the Nitrous oxide.

darcy| 2.7.13 @ 9:00AM

It's not already irrelevant? Look at its leaders, Boehner, McConnell, Cantor, all of whom offer mere token resistance to statism. Look at its governors, Kasich and Brewer, for example, once considered solid conservatives and now setting up exchanges in their states to implement Obamacare. Or Virginia's governor, turning a blind eye to the legislature's efforts to enact Agenda21 laws in the state. And don't get me started on Rubio; I'm surprised you can't see through him, Mr. Lord.

Republican Party, thy name is pragmatism, expediency, betrayal.

Let's face it, the reason Rove submarined O'Donnell was because she wasn't one of "them," "them" being very protective of their power and determined in their globalist agenda.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:32AM

Rove had one of his meltdowns on the air after O'Donnell won the primary. He then proceeded to sabotage her campaign.

The Incubus Rove needs to exit the stage. Pronto.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:36AM

The establishment GOP are the one who should start a third party. The remaining conservative Republicans are the stronger of the two. The RINOs keep diluting the conservative message. They need to go. Pronto.

MelvinNC| 2.7.13 @ 7:10AM

The long view of all this is, that we Conservatives live and breath with our convictions and Conservative ideology right down to our last breath.
Unfortunately the political elite and Consultant class don't share our convictions, nor the Conservative ideology for that matter, to them politics is a business. They're very livelihood depends on big government, the bigger the more profitable.
This snot nosed whelp of a staffer thinks he has Conservatives all figured out and Mr. Bozell is just another Tea Party ignorant savage who hasn't the capacity to even be in the same room with him.
I have said this a million times and I'll say it a million more. President Ronald Reagan proved to the Conservative movement and the political class that he didn't need establishment Republicans and they're organization to be elected President. He literally made asses out of them and dismissed them.
From that point on the Establishment Republicans made a blood oath to never, never, allow a Conservative to carry the mantle of Republican Candidate.
Every Conservative knows this war has been brewing for a long time. I personally believe politically that Conservatives should make the offices of the Republican Establishment run red with their blood. A political pogrom if you will.
If Conservatives don't crush the Establishment Republicans and Consultant class today, we will have to just shed more blood later on of a political civil war that needs to be fought.

Nancy in NC| 2.7.13 @ 7:58AM

Amen, Melvin.

Quartermaster| 2.7.13 @ 8:51AM

The GOP establishment must be brought to heel, or we may well see a true civil war (1860-1865 was *not* a civil war). The left seems hell bent to precipitate a civil war, and the RINO establishment has been the left's chief enabler.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:36AM

Agree.

Von Mises Jr| 2.7.13 @ 9:52AM

The epiphany that should be realized is not only that Rove and Collegio are not conservatives or Constitutionalist, is that they are not that bright. These are supposed to be the "best and brightest" and Rover is called "The Architect" while his house is imploding. I don't think Christine O’Donnell or Todd Aiken could have mucked this up any worse than Rover and Collegio-drop-out.

This gets to the point that should be obvious especially if you saw black, Muslim and Marxist Keith Ellison on the Varney Show the other day. Ellison, clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, admonished Varney and Mickelson for not happily paying sixty-three cents on the dollar for waste, fraud and abuse using non sequitur nonsense and attempting to shame and "shut up" conservatives. Well who the hell is Ellison? I don't give a crap if he is black, and take offense that he is a Muslim and Marxist who only holds any power (1 or 535) because he has low-life welfare scum elect him to steal other people's stuff. I think the question needs to be asked: "Who the hell do these people think that they are?"

Russel| 2.7.13 @ 10:43AM

Well in Rove's case maybe what would be more apropo ? . He thinks he's " the Architect " after getting Bush elected and taking credit ? . A blue-blood inside the beltway elistist who belives his own bs ? . At any rate , his ilk live INSIDE DC and love it , just like oue problem RINO's . They gave us all the losers for the last ___ elections . Cue up the Dr Right and TLP fight -- a third party or not ? .

Job| 2.7.13 @ 4:54PM

"What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea—a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law."

When Bush 1 uttered these words I knew the Reagan era was over.

astorian| 2.7.13 @ 7:12AM

Even before the debacle of 2012, I never understood why so many people (especially on the far Left) regarded Karl Rove as a genius.

What did he ever accomplish to make anyone think he was a mastermind? His only success story was GEorge W. Bush- and did it really take a genius to get Bush where he got?

When George W. Bush first ran for governor of Texas, was a likable guy with 100% name recognition in what was becoming a solidly Republican state. ANY campaign manager could have gotten Bush elected governor of Texas.

And after that? Bush won the Republican nomination against a tiny, weak field, in which his only real competitor was John McCain, who made the stupid mistake of running to the Left. So again, Bush didn't need any of Rove's alleged brilliance to get the GOP nomination! Bush had 100% name recognition and a pitiful field to run against.

And in the Presidential elections? Bush LOST the popular vote in 2000 (maybe the electoral vote too; we'll never know for sure) and squeaked by a lame opponent in 2008.

Does that sound like the work of a genius? Of course not! Rove was LUCKY to have hitched his star to Bush. The results Rove got in 2012 prove conclusively what a lousy strategist he always was.

C. Vernon Crisler | 2.7.13 @ 9:57AM

Short answer: He had the gift of running against losers like boring Al Gore and traitorous John Kerry. David Duke or Jackboot in WI could have won against them.

Aristocat| 2.7.13 @ 10:54AM

If treason is defined as "giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war", then a traitor was just confirmsed as Secretary of State with only three dissenting votes....(Ted Cruz for President, p.1).

C. Vernon Crisler | 2.7.13 @ 4:07PM

Well, I didn't want to come right out and say it...Nah, I have no problem in calling Kerry a traitor.

AllAmericanAmerican| 2.7.13 @ 7:47AM

Win or lose elections are win/win for guys like Rove. Their candidate wins, they're geniuses. He loses, they get to put out the call for more $$$$$ to work to defeat the evil dem.

Look, I'm tired of being a "good republican." My guy did not win in the primary, but I rallied around Romney. But if this is the thanks we get, then I'm done. No more votes for establishment rinos from me. In 2016 give me a Rand Paul or I sit out. What's the difference anyway?

John Navratil| 2.7.13 @ 9:36AM

AllAmericanAmerican,

(1) I'm conservative, not Republican. I donate to the candidates not the party.
(2) I find my Congressman pointed in the right direction but his middle name is not "Umph".
(3) I would prefer a Bucklin Voting system (all systems have their flaws),

I generally vote Republican to minimize the size of the clothes pin I must wear into the voting booth. This is typical when there are just the two parties.

If there are three parties on the ballot, I remove the Democrat from consideration (actually there are a VERY few Democrats I have voted for in the past - a Texas Democrat ain't quite like one from New Yawk) and vote my preference. Often that means I vote for the Libertarian candidate.

In all things there are limits where the prospect of a Democrat victory compels me to vote Republican - Romney and McCain come to mind.

My results have been that I support the candidate I like and get my second choice. I've not yet gotten my third choice using the modified Navratil-Bucklin method.

AllAmericanAmerican| 2.7.13 @ 10:23AM

All I'm saying John is it seems like folks like you or me, people who are "conservative" versus just "republican," are always the ones compromising with Establishment Republicans, who in turn compromise with the Progressive Democrats in DC. So it ends up Progressive Commie Dems get what they want, Establishment RINOS get some of what they want, and guys like you and me, what do we get? Nothing. Not even to be just left alone, which is what I'd like more than anything, to be honest.

I had my choice in the primaries and it didn't work out. In fact at the time when Gingrich was making noise and folks on these very pages were saying they wouldn't vote for him if he were the candidate, I posted that we can't have 4 more years of Zero and we need to come together and support whoever the candidate was. I did that. I voted Romney, knocked on doors, etc etc etc. He lost. OK. Instead of rallying us all together the Establishment BLAMES us. Our candidates who DID win, they get ostracized or shunned or removed from key committee leadership positions. Guys who were all fire and brimstone when they NEEDED Tea Party support are now gonna deliver SOTU rebuttals in SPANISH for gawd's sake.

Me, I'm checking out. Done. They couldn't win with us so they blame us? Try winning WITHOUT us. Good luck.

Zeppo| 2.7.13 @ 12:48PM

Thanks to Prop. 14 in California, I now get a choice of one party and try to work out which of the odious Dems on the ballot will be less destructive.
Whereas before I had the option of voting for the unknown hobbyist running as a Republican.

John Navratil| 2.7.13 @ 4:01PM

Zeppo,

I love visiting California. I just don't get California.

Alan| 2.7.13 @ 7:50AM

They are already setting up Jeb Bush as the next "its my turn" RINO candidate. No thanks, the Rinos are cutting their throats, they want no part of the conservative base and anything Rove has his hands on I won't vote for. As far as the "TV" conservatives like Hannity, if he wants his buddy Rove on his show then then by all means go ahead. This is a clear shot across the bow, conservatives are RINO cattle to be used, nothing more. I'll take the third party option or vote locals that share my views and when I'm retired in a couple years we are definately moving to a conservative friendly state out west and stand with others I can believe in.

Nancy in NC| 2.7.13 @ 8:01AM

I will vote for Jeb Bush when pigs fly. We need another Bush like we needed four more years of obama.

Alan| 2.7.13 @ 8:10AM

The RINO party sees conservatives as threatening the DC game and any that do get elected and "muck up the works" are to be knee capped and dealt with or have the slats kicked out from under them before they are elected. The establishment RINOs want no part of an ideological war with the marxists, that thought terrifies them, the whole DC game could be in jeopardy, uh uh, no sir.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 8:18AM

I could always use some more Bush...

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 8:22AM

I would have thought the Doctor was a fan of a more Brazilian political dynasty.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 8:27AM

Nah, I came of age(12)in the early 70's, I appreciate old growth foilage...
Gotta go with the times though, and with Mrs. Drackman its like final approach into LAX...

arlo price| 2.7.13 @ 8:53AM

Love the foliage, neatly trimmed is especially nice.... Runways are nice.....You can't grow grass on a busy street.......It's ALL good!!!

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:18AM

Yeah, it's all good, until it Stinks.

And I like the ones that are smooth..

We're still talking about "Plants" right?

PJ| 2.7.13 @ 9:12AM

A few yrs ago I thought that Jeb would have made the better president compared to GW. Now I know he would not have been any better given his attitude towards illegal immigration.

I am so Bush family weary the same way I am so Kennedy family weary.

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 10:00AM

And Clinton family weary.....

Anthony| 2.7.13 @ 9:35AM

As Jessie Jackson said "stay outta da bushes". Of course, ole Jessie never did listen to his own advise. He strayed into the bushes, got a bad case of jungle fever, and ended up with a bastard child.
And now Jr. is headed for a serious prison sentence. Imagine, nobody knows a thing about what the hell Jessie Jr. did, thanks to the MSM.
The RINOS will be flushed along with the Ds when the American economy finally tanks.

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 9:48AM

Not to worry. Hillary is a lock for 2016. Wouldn't matter if she ran against a Bush or a Reagan or a Taft. She ain't going to lose. The gutter is coming to power.

Aristocat| 2.7.13 @ 10:57AM

No way that pro-abortion old hag (she'll be 70) is going to win anything...I hope they do nominate her.

Santiago| 2.8.13 @ 9:42AM

Or you can make a more logical decision and move out of the US.

JimH| 2.7.13 @ 7:54AM

Once small government advocates, conservatives, libertarians and Tea Partiers leave the GOP Rove thinks he can then triangulate between them and the Dems and sell the GOP to America as the party of competence and moderation. Good luck with that.

Nancy in NC| 2.7.13 @ 7:57AM

Jeff, this is one of your better pieces, IMHO.

If I never see Rove again it will be too soon. He is the epitome of what is wrong with the GOP and the RNC won't see a penny from me as long he and his ilk are on the scene. I tell them exactly that every time they call me begging for money.

We will continue to lose as long as the GOP fails to see we want real conservatives with principles and backbone.

I'm no more interested in progressive Republicans than I am progressive Dims.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 8:16AM

Strategy, Schmategy,
I just don't like Rove cause he talks like a Sissy, Brags about how un-athletic he was in highschool, and has a head the size of a Weather Baloon.
Oh, and that stupid Whiteboard that he uses to point out such Pontificities as that 99% of Afro-Americans(HT Colon Powell) vote DemoKKKrat...
And throwing Christy McConnell under the bus was the last straw that broke the Camel's back, Even I, Me, Mwoi', gave 25$ to ChristyPAC or whatever it was called, and this from someone who only buys Girl Scout Cookies on the Black Market...
Christy's still sending me e-mails...:)
Christy McConnell, not that 400lb Jaba the Hut from New Jersey, who I predict won't make it to next years Superbowl...
No Assassination, Acute Coronary Syndrome, 120.0 in ICD-ese, you know those counters they have for the National Deficiit? they should have one of those for Christy's BMI...

Frank

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 8:27AM

Christy McConnell? You have managed to change the visual image of an easy on the eyes babe like Christine O'Donnell to a creature with a head that looks like Franklin the Turtle, and a body that resembles the hungry apparition from Ghostbusters II.

Thanks, Frank, it looks like I'll be skipping breakfast today.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 8:58AM

I meant Odonnell, the one who said she wasn't a bitch, not the one on NBC, who'd be hot if she'd lose 20 lbs...

Frank

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:16AM

Christine Odonnell lost by 17 points. Rove wasnt responsible for that.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:22AM

He didn't help, either.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:42AM

Oh yes he was.
Rove actively undermined her and supported the Democrat.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 12:18PM

Wow Rove is really powerful then isnt he?? He cna turn a victory into a 17 point loss. Oh yeah Rove's PAC failed in 2012. You cant have it both ways. You can say Rove was a failure in 2012 and then say he had the power to save candidates like ODonnell.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 9:22AM

...and speaking of Chris Christie:

(Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie responded angrily on Wednesday to a former White House physician's comment that he could die in office if he does not lose weight, calling the doctor a "hack" for offering advice without examining him.

Connie Mariano, a doctor in the White House medical unit from 1992 to 2001, said in an interview on CNN that Christie, a blunt-spoken Republican who is seen as a strong contender if he decides to run for president in 2016, risks a heart attack or a stroke if he does not slim down.

Doctor Drackman, if a call comes in from the 609 area code (or whatever Trenton is these days), have your best material ready for a talk with the Big Guy.

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 9:50AM

I can't decide: is he Elmer Fudd or Baby Huey? I notice characteristics of both.

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 10:08AM

More like Humphrey Pennyworth.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:24AM

Michelle's Ass?

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 3:39PM

No, her ass occupies the Oral Office and shoots at skeets when he is not shooting birdies.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:45AM

He looks like an embryo.

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 11:05AM

After a D&C

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 11:05AM

After a D&C

Pecos Pete| 2.7.13 @ 8:27AM

Mr. Lord: Thank you for an intelligent article that somewhat explains the battle between RINOs and Conservatives.

The GOP hierarchy consists of RINOs who simply want to retain their Big Government Power and taxpayer funded lifestyles. Conservatives must support local and state Conservatives, and national Conservatives when they are obviously Conservative (e.g., Ted Cruz).

Karl Rove is a member of the Ruling Class and deserves no support from Conservatives.

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 8:52AM

Senor Pete
Where's Tim.? This is a perfect issue for his next contest, what to do we do? As Clemenza said to Mikey, "You gotta have a war every once inna while to clean out the bad blood, last one was twenty years ago."

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 8:59AM

I was thinking of the same scene as I read the article.

mike 3/505| 2.7.13 @ 9:09AM

And, "Don't forget the cannoli."

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 9:40AM

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli".

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 10:07AM

"when ya gotta go, ya gotta go"

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 10:28AM

Doc
With that line you must now participate in the contest.

mike 3/505| 2.7.13 @ 10:50AM

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli".

Showoff.

Frank Drackman| 2.7.13 @ 12:14PM

"I dont want my brutha comin out of that toilet with just his dick in his hands"

mike 3/505| 2.7.13 @ 12:31PM

You come here on this conservative blog & spew your liberal/statist tripe. What did I ever do to you that youy treat me with such dizrespect?

OK...I'm out.

Doctor Right| 2.7.13 @ 5:39PM

"Bonasera, Bonasera...what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully?"

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 9:42AM

...more important than the line, and relevant to Mr. Lord's article (and perhaps the fate of Mr. Rove), was that the line was uttered after they had taken out the traitor bodyguard who was out sick when Don Vito was shot...

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 10:34AM

We can have analogies to the traitors. How about Carlo who got Sonny killed?

Speaking of Carlo, I saw him at a club where he was appearing as a singer. Did not recognize him, then he announced he was Carlo who got Sonny killed, and the audience booed.

How about Frankie Fratangelo who told Mikey, "This is a street thing, let's kill them all while we have the muscle."

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 11:06AM

Oh, Paulie. Ain't gonna see him no more.

JimH| 2.7.13 @ 1:02PM

As we used to say back in Queens: Fuhgettaboutit .

Pecos Pete| 2.7.13 @ 9:46AM

Tim is hangout out with Dr. Right over at Beyonce's place.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:27AM

That's pretty close.

I'm actually Hanging the Stupid B*st*rd from a Bridge Beam at the GWB.

I'm busy, but I'll be back.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 8:58AM

What I continue to think was telling about the 2010 Castle-O’Donnell race was the presumption that Castle was going to win. While Castle had not lost an election in forty years, he had never faced a primary. As a result, he pandered left to expand his appeal to Democrats and moderates, which helped him unnecessarily increase his margin of victory (he never got less than 53%, and won some elections with 70%). He took the conservative base for granted because he assumed there was nowhere else for them (which includes me) to go.

Nonetheless, the first time he faced a primary opponent (even the highly flawed Ms. O’Donnell, whose shortcomings as a candidate were not unknown to the primary electorate), he was defeated handily; because it was the first time, though, that Delaware’s Republican voters had an opportunity to vote for someone who articulated most of the conservative positions that they possessed, and Castle, who was squishy or on the wrong side about everything except fiscal restraint (and his support of Cap & Trade brought his economic conservative credentials into question) wasn’t that guy.

That Castle then reversed his position on party unity after his loss validated everything that those who did not vote for him knew; that he was not a reliable candidate worthy of conservative support. Rove’s actions in that election and his current activities demonstrates much of the same.

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 10:41AM

I read Rove's book and believe he is overrated. He almost cost the 2000 election to crazy Aljazeera Gore.

The Dems brought out Bush's old DUI the weekend before the election, and Bush's numbers tanked. Rove should have disclosed that during the primaries, or after, and then Bush could have explained it. Instead it appeared Bush was hiding it, which he was.

The 2004 campaign was better run with the evangelicals strongly supporting Bush.

Aristocat| 2.7.13 @ 11:01AM

Christine O'Donnell would make a great Senator...She is a very likable person and would have done a wonderful job. Too bad people in Delaware or brain-dead leftists.

KennesawJack| 2.7.13 @ 3:10PM

CJ, I replied to this but somehow the reply is way above here and directly beneath Frank "my great, great, great, great granddaddy was Nathan Bedfore Forrest Rosenbaum Drackman" Drackman's soliloquy in response to our resident anti-Semite.

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 4:34PM

KJack
Thanks, but I could not find it. Maybe Frank Forrest erased it.

RAMIII| 2.7.13 @ 10:29AM

It is my firm opinion that Karl Rove is a hack who has only self interest in mind. I would suggest that Hannity and Fox keep him on the air just so that we have the intel we need on how to combat their (RINO's etc.) vitriol and mis-information campaigns that attempt to undermine conservatives and their principles.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:33AM

Geez, Pesco. What's with all of the "Thank You for Writing an Article for me to read" lately?

You sound like you're on like Step 5 of a 12 Step Program.

Step 5: Kiss Everybody's Ass.

I think you're gonna need a Condom to give to everybody for Step 6 and beyond.

Pecos Pete| 2.7.13 @ 10:58AM

Sometimes I even thank you. Or, Dr. Right.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 11:38AM

Point taken.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 8:30AM

Conservatism has, sadly, been only an anomaly within the Republican Party. In nearly a century Conservative have enjoyed only two conservative administrations (Harding/Coolidge and Reagan).

Each followed by moderate (at best) Republican Presidents who sought, quite intentionally, to walk back (strange how progressive policies carry us back wards rather than forward despite conservative's hard fought gains.

Hoover set about crafting policies (in the high minded manner of a man who believes in himself and his government rather than in principles and the people he ostensibly serves) which not only left, wheezing and coughing a once robust economy ... but set the stage for the Imperial FDR and the New Deal.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 8:31AM

A very long 50 years later, Ronald Reagan emerged. A conservative through and through ... not by design but by conviction ... he crafted policies and responded to crisis out of a deeply embedded and full orbed conservative philosophy which not only yielded (by and large) remarkably consistent policies ... but immensely successful ones as well.

Then came Bush I. With an ideological ax to grind (and not a little ego) he brashly announced his intention to set all right during his inaugural speech famously declaring that he would seek to craft policy which reflected a "kinder, gentler nation". Nancy famously quipped as she leaned into Ronny ... "kinder and gentler than whom".

And so the man who coined the inane phrase "voodoo economics" proceeded to give us just that. He too oversaw and unwittingly engineered the unraveling of conservative hard fought gains and, like Hoover before him ... rolled out the red carpet for a liberal Democrat to follow him.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 8:33AM

The Reagan legacy showed some remarkable lasting power though. In only two short years, Newt Gingrich and a host of Reagan's ideological offspring turned Washington on its ear. Echoing and championing Regan styled conservatism they promised (and delivered) a deeply conservative agenda and its attendant policies (and outcomes).

So successful were these initiatives that despite having fought them Clinton now claims them as his own legacy.

Bush II would follow Clinton into the White House … barely. Equipped with something approaching conservative instincts (but deeply void of any meaningfully internalized and cogent conservative philosophy) George W. Bush only occasionally veered right. With his father’s same patrician bearing he sought to enlarge the breasts of the nanny state and increase her reach into American’s lives. He barely survived another election (conservatives win in landslides … moderates both barely and rarely win) only to oversee a Hoover like economic meltdown … setting the stage for FDR II.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 8:34AM

I say all of this to simply note, again, the obvious. Conservatism within the Republican Party, while providing it with its most winning and deeply influential moments … is an anomaly rather than a trend. Is it really worth all of the time, energy and resources of the Right to continue investing in so much which yields so little? Have we arrived at a time and place where we not only ought to survey objectively the effect of our efforts, but also acknowledge that the present technologies and mood of so many might well suggest that it is high time to begin the hard work of building a viable and successful Conservative Party? Not by attempting yet again to rehabilitate the GOP (an effort with surprisingly short lived results) but by building from the ground up a party not infected at every level with grasping politicians and their minions.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 8:34AM

When Reagan counseled otherwise, instead urging conservatives to rebuild a new Republican party, it seemed possible. History and told another story. We now have the ability, through both information technology and much more informed and engaged base (each absent only 35 years ago) to achieve this within a relatively short period of time. Ought we? I do not know. But it seems to me that its time that we had an objective, adult conversation about that very thing. Hauling out nostrums from the past to squelch the voices of those calling for this conversation serves only the purposes of those who rely on the status quo to retain power.

A conversation please. I’m 51 years old … I’d like to think that conservative administrations are more lasting and frequent than Haley’s comet.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 8:48AM

oops ... typos. Should read:

Conservatism has, sadly, been only an anomaly within the Republican Party. In nearly a century Conservatives have enjoyed only two conservative administrations (Harding/Coolidge and Reagan).

Each followed by moderate (at best) Republican Presidents who sought, quite intentionally, to walk back (strange how progressive policies carry us backwards rather than forward despite their name) conservative's hard fought gains.

Hoover set about crafting policies (in the high minded manner of a man who believes in himself and his government rather than in principles and the people he ostensibly serves) which not only left, wheezing and coughing a once robust economy ... but set the stage for the Imperial FDR and the New Deal.

Quartermaster| 2.7.13 @ 8:58AM

You could extend that time period from 100 years back to the founding of the GOP and the statement would still be true. Lincoln was leftist, big government type as was his political daddy, Henry Clay. Coolidge was certainly a conservative. But Reagan was a very distant second. The GOP needs to take a very hard look at Silent Cal to see what a real conservative was like, and look for more of them. They are out there but they are few and far between. There are few that comment here that are real conservatives. And in comparison to Coolidge, AmSpec is a loony left rag.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 9:05AM

When someone casually refers to the American Spectator as a "loony left rag" ... its very difficult to take them seriously.

A conversation is poorly served by baseless ad hominem attacks.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:51AM

Oh please...
Get over yourself.

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 11:35AM

Larry,
A little light on the subject.

Quartermaster is a Libretarian. Not that there is anything wrong with that but he is of the particular breed that if you are not as far right as him you must be a liberal.

Enjoyed your post.

C. Vernon Crisler | 2.7.13 @ 10:00AM

Lincoln was certainly not a "leftist" in any modern sense of that term. Does being opposed to slavery make one a leftist? The real problem for the GOP started with TR, who aped the Progressivism of William Jennings Bryan.

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 10:45AM

TR was a disaster in the 1912 election where he ran as third party, split the Rep vote, and we got the racist Dem Wilson and WWI. Taft and TR got over 50% of the vote,that would have been all for Taft.
Not surprisingly McCain said TR was his model/hero as a Rep.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 12:37PM

Ironically, we got Lincoln because the Democrats split, and ran a Northern and Southern candidate. While he received almost 60% of the electoral votes, he received less than 40% of the popular vote. Though Republican Lincoln ran with a Democratic Vice President on the National Union ticket when reelected in 1864, as a result of splitting the party (and secession/ war/ reconstruction), Democrats did not have a successful Presidential candidate from 1860-1884.

CJW| 2.7.13 @ 4:29PM

Yes, we had a list of these third party elections during the past few days, forgot which article.
Ralph Nader got votes in Florida which cost AljazeeraGore the election. George Wallace got Dem votes in 1968 again helping the good guys, Nixon, win. And of course, the egomaniac Perot took Rep votes in 92 and 96, enough said.
Division in your forces helps the enemy.

Russel| 2.7.13 @ 10:53AM

Cue up the Dr. Right and TLP fight " Should we have a third party or not ? ". So long Whig party ?. GOPhers HAVE to stay in DC for fear for their lives ? . Wishful thinking .

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 11:54AM

A lot of things are Conceivable.

It's Conceivable that, if the Women in this Country stopped basing their Votes on their Vaginas, and how to get Free Stuff to put inside them ( just in case they wanna go out and Whore around the Town all night) that a lot of Republicans might've Won a lot more Seats.

It's a lot more Conceivable, that we need people in our Party to STOP APOLOGIZING for Conservative Principles. Jeb Bush. Karl Rove. John McCain. Lindsey Graham. Just to name a few.

I never , EVER, heard a Liberal Apologize to a Conservative for ANYTHING.

It's time we Learned Something of our Enemy's Ways.

It's time to be MEN, again.

This bunch that runs around with Rove: Kristol, Colin Powell and David Brooks, are the Antithesis of the kind of people we need, if we're gonna right this Ship.

If we listen to this crowd?

We could CONCEIVABLY be looking at a Third Party, and Total Democrat Dominion over this Country for the next 60 Years.

With the last 11 Words, being the most Actionable.

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 11:55AM

I think I spelled 11 wrong.

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 12:43PM

Should have been onety one

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 3:45PM

You deserve an extra tot of rum for that one.

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 4:04PM

Make it Bourbon and it's all good.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:10AM

The basic problem with conservatives is they have allowed ideology to trump competence. In 1980, the GOP won 12 Senate seats. They were won by conservatives. None of whom made rape, homosexuslity or abortion a centerpiece of their campaign. I contend we are seeing these types of candidates for two reasons. One, conservatism is dying and two the moronic Limbaugh Rule which replaced the Buckley Rule.

Kwan| 2.7.13 @ 9:14AM

Rove sees his mission as winning elections, that the candidate he's backing is a RINO seems not to matter. Problem is the current mess the country is in is partly a result of RINO's allowing the left to continue to move the country towards socialism.What Rove fails to understand is that although Christine O'Donnell lost by 17 points in the general election, in the primary O'Donnell defeated the moderate (RINO) Mike Castle whom voters now understood to be part of the problem. RINO's needed to understand that if they wanted to be part of the left's conspiracy to turn the United States into Venezuela they should run as Democrats.

arlo price| 2.7.13 @ 9:17AM

A large and robust 'THIRD' party is the obvious answer. The majority, if not all, true democracies & republics in the rest of the world are governed by a coalition of parties. To insist that everyone in America must either be a dhimocrapt or a repubican is as bogus as a unicorn. Factually, the number of registered independents proves the viability of a legitimate 3rd party. Further, the insinuation that no or very few dhims would join is preposterous.
The only hope for America as a strong Representative Constitutional Republic is with a THIRD party.

Lets Roll

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:43AM

Problem is third and fourth parties exist in countries with Parlimentary Democracies. Not systems like the USA has. Your logic that the number of registered independents means a third party is viable is at odds with this entire column. The conservative complaint is the GOP isn't conservative enough. A third party based on all the independents would be a moderated Eisenhower type party that would support higher taxes, just nit as high and would likely ceed all social issues to the left.

megapotamus | 2.7.13 @ 9:27AM

Two things: thing-the-lesser.... a bit more caution is in order discussing the young Senator Rubio. Certainly throwing him in with the more obvious allies of "Conservatism" is not consistent with his neutrality in the Fl GOP electoral assault on West. Also, he is not a Natural Born Citizen, look in to it.
Thing-the-greater, by far, is to expand my never sufficient encomium for Brent Bozell. This guy INVENTED media reporting. Back before there were even Betamax tapes, the Media Research Center was recording all media emanations possible, making possible the successful counters of Democrats and also, always, the squish or Liberal precincts of the Republicans. I put his actual contributions ABOVE even his famous kin. Buckley, quite sadly, abandoned the principles of individual responsibility very late in life, blaming the tobacco industry for the death of his wife (although at a rather advanced age). Bozell may yet commit such a disappointing act but even if he did, still he is a more foundational member of Movement Conservatism as he developed FACTS. Absent those the views and arguments that occasionally win the electoral day, so much to our benefit, would find no traction or perhaps would not even exist. Brent Bozell is a giant without whom the more famous pygmies would not exist. Long may he wave.
Thing-the-least: Rove, del enda este.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:31AM

""Senator Rubio. Certainly throwing him in with the more obvious allies of "Conservatism" is not consistent with his neutrality in the Fl GOP electoral assault on West. Also, he is not a Natural Born Citizen, look in to it."""

People like you are one reason the GOP keeps losing. Insisting that Rubio is constitutionally unqualified, belongs in the swamp that is FreeRepublic, not AS.

rjh| 2.7.13 @ 9:47AM

Read the Constitution. The only time you see the term "Natural Born" is in relation to the President and Vice President...why is that? Just because the Democrats and dumbed down voters have no respect for the Constitution doe not mean we have to follow them down that hole.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:55AM

I have read the constitution. Your definition of Natural Born is what is incorrect. No serious scholar believes both parents have to be US citizens at the time of your birth in order for you to be a NBC if you were born in the USA. I won't have a discussion with you because you Birthers are so beneath contempt, conservatism would be better off if all of you died in a plane crash while on your way to an Orly Taitz festival. Even Mark Levin hates you.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 10:54AM

No, YOU have not read the Constitution. A natural born citizen must have parents who are US citizens. Rubio is a "native born US citizen".

RCV| 2.7.13 @ 12:08PM

loulou: your interpretation of "natural born citizen" is nowhere in the Constitution. Nowhere. Read it. Not a single respected legal scholar or judge accepts your interpretation. None.

rjh| 2.7.13 @ 12:48PM

To the men who wrote the Constitution it had a very clear meaning...they did not feel that they had to include a glossary of terms in the Constitution. I repeat my question from another comment: Why did they ONLY use the term "natural born" with respect to the eligibility of the President and Vice President. The authors of the Constitution were neither careless nor stupid men. Also, I would be very careful when using terms such as "not a single" and "none".

rjh| 2.7.13 @ 10:59AM

Wow. Such a cogent and respectful argument. You must have been the captain of the debate team.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 12:21PM

We never had to debate reprehensible despicable people like Birthers.

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 11:48AM

GobBluethe,
I think the problems lies in the fact that Rubio was born in 1971 but his father did not become a naturalized citizen until 1975. His father though living in the US was not a US citizen at the time of Rubio's birth.

RCV| 2.7.13 @ 12:10PM

Irrelevant. Rubio was born in the US, became a citizen by birth, not naturalization, and is therefore a "natural born citizen". Period.

loulou| 2.7.13 @ 12:28PM

Rubio is a "native born citizen". Period.

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 1:50PM

Don't read me wrong RCV, not saying he isn't eligible. Just that is where the rub lies. I know what the 2011 Congressional Research Service report stated. Some do not understand that:

"It should be pointed out that citizenship through descent of the father was recognized by U.S. Naturalization law whereby children became citizens themselves as soon as their father had become a naturalized citizen, or were born in another country to a citizen father."

http://www.federalistblog.us/2.....n_defined/

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 9:42AM

Rove. Romney. Rockefeller. Republicans. Leftism light. Losers supreme.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:45AM

So which other gop candidate from the spring of 2012, could have done better than Romney?

Drunken Sailor| 2.7.13 @ 11:49AM

We may never know.

RCV| 2.7.13 @ 12:11PM

Goldwater. Rightism heavy. Supreme loser.

Marc Jeric| 2.7.13 @ 5:52PM

Excellent - Bandido! Decent RINO's! Compassionate conservatism nonsense; pride of ownership will cure the welfare recipients. Poor Romney "decently" never mentioned Ayers, Wright, Davis, phony birth certificates, lack of college data, lack of passport data, ACORN thugs, massive vote fraud,...

rjh| 2.7.13 @ 9:43AM

Thank you, Mr. Lord for another great article. I truly believe that the arrogance and overreaching of the Dems and obama have awakened the majority of Americans who believe in our country as it was founded. It is well past time to sweep the debris (the Roves, Bushes(all), McCains, Christies, etc) out of the Republican party. I do not believe that the TEA party and those who support their goals are foolish enough to go the third party route...that is exactly what the left wants. It may take another election cycle or two before this shakes out, but I think that those on the left who are celebrating the "implosion" of the Republican party will not be smiling when the house cleaning is complete. They will rue the day they chose to throw in with obama and his third world cronies.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 9:48AM

"""Thank you, Mr. Lord for another great article. I truly believe that the arrogance and overreaching of the Dems and obama have awakened the majority of Americans who believe in our country as it was founded"""

And you evidence of that is what exactly? Your mistake is believing those who love and revere the USA as it was founded are in the majority. They aren't.

rjh| 2.7.13 @ 10:57AM

"And you evidence of that is what exactly? Your mistake is believing those who love and revere the USA as it was founded are in the majority. They aren't."

And you evidence of that is what exactly?

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 12:21PM

2012 election. Youre awfully thick headed.

rjh| 2.7.13 @ 12:57PM

obama was re-elected by a small margin of the PEOPLE WHO VOTED. He did not win based on a large portion of the population. He received millions of fewer votes than he did in 2008. This is not evidence that will support your point. Based on your immature and insulting comments and responses on this site, this is my final response to you. By the way it is you're, not youre.

canuckistani| 2.7.13 @ 9:54AM

After reading all of Lord's effluent, it appears to me that Rove has hit a nerve dead on. The fact that letter signed by some legitimate conservative contributers is also larded with the clown class of Levin and Gaffney shows that the inmates have indeed seized the asylum once known as the conservative movement. They've turned it into another type of "movement" that reeks of hyperbole, babble and a strict adherence to revisionist history - pretty much any allegory to Saint Ron fits that indictment.

O'Donnell in Delaware clearly frames the departure the idealists in the party have made from real political influence. She was a bad candidate from the get-go, and no level of faux support from bruised wings of the party could have salvaged that walking disaster.

With even Demint cashing in and walking away from elected office goes to show that the mangled conservative movement is dead and connot be sold to the American voter with a straight face.

The American voter is not stupid. Easily persuaded, but not stupid.

As with the cold war, we know the democrat is not suicidal, so the concepts of MAD and containment need to be brought to bear, not stunts that insinuate ourselves into people's bedrooms or science classes.

When cons finally leave behind false impressions of the history of the conservative movement and its application to modern governing, we will have a new beginning. Until then, mercenaries like Rove will continue to have influence on lesser minds.

GobBluthe| 2.7.13 @ 10:08AM

Your post is correct. What is happening is this: Leftism is in ascent. The traditional GOP has not be able to stop it. Lacking conviction, beltwayitis and just plain fear are the reasons. Out in the country Conservstives are alarmed at the rise if leftism abd are throwing Hail Marys in order to stop the lefts advance. In their desperation the right has replaced competence and electibility with a simple requirement: Ideology. This is why we've seen not just a parade of buffoons as candidates but the lasting right wing love for a loser and quitter Sarah Palin.

Nearly all conservatives still think they are in the majority and that the nation is a center right nation. They are not and it is not. Thus they cannot reconcile themselves to what is happening to them and to the USA. So they lash out at the establishment for failing to stop the leftist ascendancy which itself is increasingly the majority position. Conservatives are unknowingly fighting against the majority and furious as to why they are losing.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 10:09AM

Facts not withstanding. Your view of things past and things presents seems framed more by myth than facts.

canuckistani| 2.7.13 @ 10:59AM

Name one?
History has granted RR the cold war battle of the bulge at the end, but his legacy is muddled on every other facet of governing, yet clingers-on like Levin and Gaffney - signatories of the Lord letter, seem to be spouting a false narrative about what really occurred on RR's watch and what happened in the decades since.

Permitting naive astro-turfed groups to stack primaries is a failure of leadership within the RNC, full stop.
The party has one objective only: win. Beyond an outlier 2010 with gerrymandered districts, the Baggers have only done damage to the prospects of a couterwieght to the reckless populists in the dem party, and now they have spurred on a internecine battle that was unneeded and badly damaging for years to come. Watching Boehner cede power to Pelosi and Cantor flailing around with daily flip-flops is embarrassing and sad.

Demint cashed in, Armey cashed in, Kibbe cashed in - ham-handedly, and many others drummed up energy in the electorate only to fall prey to typical self-interest.
That is what the skeptical voter knows about the "conservative" movement in this country - that and vaginal probes and namings of a state guns - not jobs and policy development.

Larry E| 2.7.13 @ 11:46AM

You appear to be well beyond the reach of argument but quite within the grasp of a post-modern's toxic brew of soulless grasping and self serving revisionism. You sound as if you're channeling Rove.

Deerknocker| 2.7.13 @ 10:06AM

The tea party was a gift to the Republican party, but it was not an appreciated or much used gift. The arrogant Republican elite mumbled a whispered thank you to the tea party and then promptly undertook to frustrate every tea party aspiration. In so doing, the Republican elite showed themselves to be both arrogant and inept.
Clearly, the Republican elite is more satisfied with being first in losing political party than being second in a winning political party.

Oldefarte| 2.7.13 @ 10:09AM

The last sentence of the following [from Dick Morris] indicates what I've claimed here a thousand times previously, in that 11/6/12 was the result of the STUPIDITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. It ain't Rove's, Morris' etc fault either:

"....He said his expectations for Romney ended up far off because he expected enthusiasm for Obama by Democratic voters to have waned from 2008 levels, as GOP energy to defeat Obama rose. But the opposite happened, Morris said, as Obama voters came out in droves and more than 8 million white voters stayed at home and didn't vote for Romney....."

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 10:38AM

Where have you been?

I actually got emails aski g if I knew how to get a hold a ya.

How ya doin?

Are you all right?

ANSWER ME, ya Oldefarte.

mike 3/505| 2.7.13 @ 10:57AM

Yeah! Answer him/us!

Pecos Pete| 2.7.13 @ 11:02AM

Ditto!

TLP| 2.7.13 @ 11:40AM

Don't answer Pesco, til he Thanks You for something.

mike 3/505| 2.7.13 @ 12:33PM

Quit messing with my battle buddy.

Warrior| 2.7.13 @ 12:37PM

Thank him for adding methane to all the greenhouse gas causing the global warming.

Pecos Pete| 2.7.13 @ 6:38PM

Every day, like clockwork.

atilla| 2.7.13 @ 10:36AM

Rove is sounding just like the whiney liberals right now.
He needs to get outta repub politics NOW for the good of America.

nathan| 2.7.13 @ 11:00AM

This is fun. Rove has like zero credibility doesn't he? And yet he's on Sean's show all the time. Cheney was quoted in I think McCoy's book saying the president is above the Constitution and boy did they proceed to act like it. Easily one of the five or six worst presidents in history. Why anyone pays any attention to any member of that administration is beyond me.

Buckley? He wanted the title of "Uber Conservative" all to himself and would excommunicate anyone from the movement he didn't like. His favorite method was the dreaded charge of "antisemitism". He used it quite often. If you didn't totally completely support Israel in all things, no matter what they did, even when the courts there sanctioned the government over torture and told them to cut it out, and told them to quit doing Kelo vs New London against the Palestinians, well, you were an anti-semite and no more sacraments for you. Explain if you will a "conservative" with a talk show on PBS. He had a borg monolithic view of communism and was the premier neocon of his day as were his acolytes like Reagan. Domestic issues? Who cared? Supposed he once said that he was prepared to accept a dictatorship at home if that is what it took to defeat the soviets abroad. Very conservative indeed.

We really do have a problem here folks.

canuckistani| 2.7.13 @ 11:28AM

Amen.
He was for extended paid maternity leave. The horror.
We have no understanding of how the country and world has changed since WW2. We have no idea what a decade of war then decades of oppression do to a culture and people - it empties them of hope, a classic American trait, and fills them with suspicion about the role of government as a backstop to human malfeasance whether greed or failure.
We took our power and applied it in a brutal fashion and we wonder why these groups don't simply buy what we are selling?

When someone is willing to die for a cause, there is no force possible beyond annihilation that will solve that.
Are we prepared to be destroyers? I doubt it, so a long view is required that excludes narrow neocon interests.

N8tivTxn| 2.7.13 @ 11:26AM

Has Rove's tenure as FNC's "smartest man in the room" (a PR job GWB bestowed), a political spokesmouth, and opinion-shaper for the napping Recliner Republicans who watch that blather, finally run it's course.

Dare I hint, Rove has *over-exposed* himself?
Perhaps it's time for a sabbatical, or something?
Just please don't herd him back this direction to meddle in state politics.

Did Roger Ailes have the right idea when he locked him in the closet for a month, after Karl's post-election meltdown, or should he have backed off and let nature take her course.

Seems to be more and more obvious that Rove is determined to self destruct.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow. IMO we need some fresh faces in the mix. How many times does a loser get to reinvent himself?

TeaPartyNow| 2.7.13 @ 12:58PM

The American People must all engage in a civil rebellion against maxism in our culture & in our elected officials. Today, the GOP has nothing to offer conservatives. Several years from now the GOP will still have nothing to offer conservatives.

This year is going to be like none other. We must act now. We must demand that our leaders be conservative or be replaced.

Popular culture today is marxist in content. As is our medias left & much of the right. As are our schools to a huge degree.

Conservatives have been the red headed step child for eighty years at least. We need to wake up & tell these people that we ARE FREEDOM.

America today offers no freedom. It must be re-built. The culture, the media, the schools, the people we elect. It is a super massive undertaking. But we must do it. & now.

I won't tell you again.

RJ| 2.7.13 @ 1:11PM

Another great article Jeff. Thank-you.

I find it interesting that GOP Establishment types like Rove keep saying that we need party unity, yet when their preferred candidate loses in the primary, they don't simply work on other races, they race to the pundit shows to bash the Tea Party candidate, as they did with Christine O'Donnell. Looks to me that they don't want limited government conservatives to win.

As you write, the GOP Establishment has become a racket. They are fine with big government. Their goal is to become rich and famous by being power brokers. They are not on the side of limited government and personal freedom.

7-08| 2.7.13 @ 1:22PM

The key concept here is extremism. The Democrats have “purged” the non-progressive element from the beltway; they have chosen to “rule” by decree and throne. Republicans are in the “throes of Rove,” equally steeped in privilege, centralization, and the homonym divine “right.”
The only thing they share is myopic narcissism.
Reagan built his popularity with historical Republican doctrine. He did not squabble with the disruptive elements; nor distinguish or seek out heads of the various factions to prop up his positions. The only background to his addressees was the American Flag, not some composite of incumbent lobbyist vassals wanting to trade influence for votes.
Here in lies the fallacy of fear; Reagan was the “third” party – a concoction of individuals, loyal not to him, but to the USA. So often in the arguments offered here it is denied that “Reagan Democrats” cannot still exist or were only an anomaly. Patriots are patriots; Tea Party Patriots, Reagan Democrats, your favorite whipping boy the libertarians, they are all much more concerned about the Republic than they are about abortion, marriage contracts, or who heads up the Republican Titanic.
Your theocratic despots represent twenty percent, the progressive minions are twenty percent; do the math. The lesson of Reagan was not his persona, it was his role. He brought together those that love the Republic, we are still here.

OutspokenRed| 2.7.13 @ 1:39PM

Excellent piece, Mr. Lord. Karl Rove needs to find the Exit sign.

ReaganConservative| 2.7.13 @ 1:46PM

Jeffrey Lords has said it perfectly, succinctly, and to the point, period !

We the People are in a war to protect our Freedom, Liberty, the US Constitution, Democracy, and our very republic of America, from not only the anti-American liberal progressive socialist marxists and islamists, aka Obama and his army of goons, cronies, thugs, and indoctrinated useful idiots, in every area of the Federal govt, let alone in the MSMedia complex, Academia, Unions, etc.., but also with the Republican Party Establishment RINOs like Rove, the Bush's, Boehner, McCain, and so on.. who are just like the liberal Obamacrats, which is why they all collude, conspire, ally, and coordinate their message and attacks against Reagan Conservatives / Patriotic Grass Roots Tea Party folks, aka We the People.

If it's war they want, then it's war they'll get.. Lets see if they are going to like what they're asking for.. Bring it on !!

"The Republic was not established by cowards, and cowards will not preserve it."
~ Elmer Davis~

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 2:54PM

Let us all eat preserves.

Who Knows?| 2.7.13 @ 1:53PM

Ah, youthful exuberance!

Anybody else happen to read the Wall Street Journal yesterday? A famous historian penned a confession about how his dead mother voted for ten years in New Jersey, as well as lots of other juicy stories of how the Democrats stuffed the ballot box.

It IS great fun to fulminate about Karl Rove and the rift between the establishment Republicans and true conservatives. However, such political masturbation ignores the determining and more basic truth---there is massive voter fraud, especially in east coast states, and most famously in Chicago: STILL!

My gut feeling, after living seven decades out west, is that most people in true blue states, like Connecticut, and especially Massachusetts, are totally aware that the fix has ALWAYS been in.

What does a reasonable person do, or think, when experience proves that it’s futile to “fight city hall”?

My theory has long been that there is a simple physical fact of human life, which tends to heavily influence people and especially their politics. If you live in packed cities, always surrounded by other people, you get “tough”, and “angry”, and cynical---everybody’s out to get me! So, you naturally turn to government.

If you live in more wide open places, with space to move around freely---well, self reliance and independence is happily usually the case: and, fluck government.

Who Knows?| 2.7.13 @ 2:05PM

So, wrt that “horrible” candidate that the Tea Party of the Nutmeg state ran for senate, she never had a chance. Just so for many other races back east.

“Go West, young man!”

Yes, maybe the only way America can save itself is by the long-term movement, voting with the feet.

Maybe it comes down to the hoary concern over whether one wants security or freedom.

Hey—lots of humans are born into Islamic families, and end up being programmed as “true believers”. Well, likewise, there are people who are born into families living in “tight places”, say a high density New York or New Jersey city, and they emerge as government-loving adults, just like their parents.

Wanted---ALIVE: Escapees from such places!

Come on out to Texas, or Oregon, or Montana, or whatever, and stretch you legs and mind.

Ah, but how many people are defined by other people? That is, they “get off” on conflict, and even need it, in order to feel alive.

There are just too many people, like my sister, who go nuts when they don’t have other people around. And, these days, what with cell phones glued to people’s ears, what are the odds that society will “Go West!”, en mass?

Kingofthenet| 2.7.13 @ 2:07PM

Nice, I love a little 'Helter Skelter' inside the NeoCon ranks, Blood in, Blood out.Let the Purge commence.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 3:29PM

Remember, your majesty, Helter Skelter always leads to regicide.

Warrior| 2.7.13 @ 5:51PM

You ain't no dancer.

rosecityken| 2.7.13 @ 2:48PM

Rove and CO. should stop mincing words....They want to protect and defend the incumbents who have let this progressive/Marxist president get every damn thing he has asked for...positioning himself as the defender of the middle class at the same time it is being decimated by him and the democrats...Rove wants to defend the "establishment" that PROMISED NOT TO RAISE TAXES ON US...then DID! If these so called intelligent folks had there way there would be no mike lee, no ted cruz, no marco rubio (Lest we forget....they supported CRIST who threw a tantrum and went democrat) no rand paul. we would have more arlen specters, john mcains, lindsey grahams....more john boehners (why the hell is our SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE Silent on everything?) we dont need people who "get along" our nation is broke...tell the jack asses NO! sorry for venting but the premise that we'd be better off with more "establishment" players is ignorant to the fact we are in the mess we are in BECAUSE of the establishment party and its hobby of watching Obama do everything he wants offering no rsistance because they dont want to hurt any feelings...wells folks the american taxpayers feelings are hurt. and this pathetic pissing match is playing into Obamas hand. thank you mr. rove. thank you very much....p.s. nice job on calling the election too. you and dick morris both. to bad our party leaders will still listen to you, while they sit and wonder "how we can make ourselves more like the progressives" #epicfail

Bandido| 2.7.13 @ 3:12PM

We were all very sad and injected this past November when so many recumbents won predilection. Far too many lefty progressos squeaked in. The disstablishment candidates are strong. Powers of the recumbency! But they can be beaten if we form a brand new dependent party led by preservatives instead of liberals. This new party should be based solely on mutual suspect and admonition. Then in the 2016 dejection we can deflate our already swelling numbers. I say this with great hope and emancipation. Shower to the people!

Moe Blotz| 2.7.13 @ 3:53PM

Sanctuary much for your dispensation, I really depreciate your incite and word deflection.

Kingofthenet| 2.7.13 @ 5:06PM

Great article about this on the Daily Beast:
What’s coming, therefore, seems pretty obvious. A grand civil war between the rebranders and the dead-enders. The latter will run candidates against the former for Senate and House races in 2014. Those outcomes will be pivotal in setting a tone for 2016. If the rebranders win a majority of races, including the two or three the media eventually identify as somehow symbolic, then maybe they will have the momentum heading into the presidential election and will be able to get the party to coalesce around an electable candidate. (By the way: If this is supposed to be Rubio, let us pause briefly and note that Rubio is on most issues a far-right-wing politician and is almost surely unelectable, provided the Democratic campaign isn’t completely idiotic. If it’s supposed to be Chris Christie, that’s perhaps—perhaps—another matter.)

But if the dead-enders prevail, or pull a draw?

In this case, disaster would be losing to Hillary Clinton three years from now. I believe that’s what it will probably take to sober the Republicans up; most especially to sober up the base—to make rank-and-file conservatives realize that the age of victory via resentment is gone. That middle Americans who once identified with their grudges are now over them and sick to death of hearing about them. Cosmetic rebranding can’t fix this.

Marc Jeric| 2.7.13 @ 5:36PM

Karl Rove is the architect of:
1) Numerous RINO defeats;
2) "Compassionate conservatism" nonsense;
3) "Pride of ownership" encouraging the housing disaster with 1,200,000 houses given to people on welfare.

Kingofthenet| 2.7.13 @ 5:38PM

During this last Election Cycle I was talking to a friend who 'claimed' to be an Independent, He said he was going for Romney because of his Business Experience,and the fact President Obama didn't turn it around in his first term. But I wasn't getting ANY sort of Independent Vibe, in fact he sounded like Rush Limbaugh, so I causally inquired who he voted for in '08 he stated McCain because he was better 'on the war', then it hit me there are ZERO Independent Voters who aren't Conservatives. Truth is if you have even a bit of Liberal sensibilities, President Obama was a DREAM Candidate in both elections, I mean if you are voting for McCain in '08 because he would be better 'on the war' all the while the World Economy is teetering on the edge of the abyss, you are just looking for a reason to vote Republican.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.7.13 @ 11:22PM

It strains credulity that you claim to have a friend.

mmilesll| 2.7.13 @ 11:16PM

Rove is, was and always will be a Bush RINO. I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw him-about 3 feet. I am glad that the truth about him finally came out.

Vic| 2.8.13 @ 1:41PM

I don't like using the word RINO on anyone we disagree with. Lets say he is a pseudo conservative like Romney. i.e when it is convenient be and appear to be conservative but when the wind is blowing against you appear to be something you are not. Isn't this what got Romney stuck with like millions of voters, many of whom were conservative, but decided to stay home or vote 4 Obozo!

Petronius| 2.8.13 @ 12:16AM

Once more mit veeling. This country, or what remains of it when it is in a state of utter desolation after the liberals have destroyed all of our wealth will still refuse to live under Conservative governance until people are made to understand that There IS Only one Way to Live. That way is to become Honest, Industrious, and Virtuous; and not tolerate Predators, Perverts, and Parasites in our midst. The latter now have the former, (that is Conservatives), in thrall, denying Us Our Freedom, and taxing us to penury to subsidize their vices and deficiencies. The only possibility of any change is for Conservatives to rebel on all fronts and refuse to be ruled , taxed, coerced, and persecuted. This can't be accomplished politically. Conservatives must take back the Culture. None of us will live to see that. It took a century for Communism to triumph here. With three lost generations of economically illiterates behind us, it will take twice that time to recover; if ever.

Petronius| 2.8.13 @ 12:19AM

And I apologize for the grammatical flub.

Susan B| 2.8.13 @ 2:04AM

Thank you so much Mr. Lord - you are so, so right. And we real conservatives will NOT be defeated.

capatolistmom| 2.8.13 @ 12:08PM

A third party would be very difficult to get positioned given our electoral college process. However, we can begin to tackle the "establishment" by INSISTING on the replacement of Boehner and McConnell. Then we can begin to stand for conservative principals again. This sequester is a BIG test of these two "leaders" strength and comittment. If they cave we need to begin an ACTIVE program to replace them in their leadership roles.

bc3b| 2.8.13 @ 2:16PM

I agree with Mr. Lord on everything except Fox News being conservative. The closest thing Fox News has to a conservative is Sean Hannity and Mr. "You're a great American" couldn't articulately discuss conservative doctrine if his life depended on it.

Bandido| 2.8.13 @ 2:36PM

With Hannity, you drop in a coin and the mindless cliches come gushing out like winnings from a slot machine.

Rhoetus| 2.10.13 @ 12:31AM

Hannity is so shallow that you couldn't use it for an eye cup from a buffered eye wash solution.

Rhoetus| 2.10.13 @ 12:34AM

Only when Judge Andrew Napolitano is on the air is Fox Conservative.

Marc Jeric| 2.10.13 @ 3:05AM

Karl Rove - a gigantic loser with his "compassionate conservatism", while pushing more "decent" RINO losers on us. "The architect" indeed! Let him be hired by our far-left - perhaps he could make them lose with his advice.

CTsOpinion| 2.10.13 @ 11:24PM

It appears the Lord’s of Conservatism have their collective panties in a bunch, get over yourselves.

The American Spectator

Political Hay

Conservative Fury at Rove Erupts

About the Author

Letter to the Editor View all comments (260) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

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