The media does CPAC

I always love it when the media covers CPAC. That's the Conservative Political Action Conference, for those of you who aren't junkies. The coverage is generally amusing. No less so this year.

Start with the headline on this Julie Mason Chron article: Far right feeling left out. Assuredly Ms. Mason didn't write that, but even so, it's a standard old media paradigm that Republican primary voters are "the far right." Unless it's Hillary speaking, in which case it's "the vast right-wing conspiracy." Yeah, there's some nuts at CPAC, but there are way more normal Americans.

The lede:

Leading American conservatives are fed up with President Bush and the Republican establishment, and they don't give a toss for the party's 2008 presidential front-runners, either.

At this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual, three-day gathering of the far right and its leaders, the mood is feisty and disgusted — but not just at Hillary Clinton, this time.

"We as conservatives need new leaders," Richard Viguerie, the conservative father of political direct mail told hundreds of cheering conservatives in a Washington ballroom. "Just because the Republican Party has a death wish doesn't mean we have to go down with them."

A little context on Viguerie would be nice. Viguerie is a gadfly who breathlessly exclaims time and time again how all Republican officeholders are sell outs. The quote Mason uses could have been given in any of the last 25 years. Seriously. I think it took him all of a year during the Reagan Administration for him to start screaming about Reagan selling out.

Anyway, old media is mostly just recycling the ledes from last year's CPAC. 10 seconds of research found me this headline/lede on a Nina Easton story in the Boston Globe a year ago:

A WRATHFUL RIGHT TURNS ON BUSH/The Republican family feud was laid bare in public last week at the Conservative Political Action Committee's annual confab. CPAC activists are a notoriously cranky bunch, quick to pounce on politician friends who stray toward the center. But this year the spears aimed at George W. Bush were especially sharp.

One last bit from Mason's article:

"We cannot afford to let Mexico turn us into a two-language nation," [Phyllis Schafly] said, as her audience roared approval and banged on tables in support.

Funny, I seem to recall people saying that about Italians, Irish, etc, etc.

The greatness of America is its ability to assimilate immigrant groups and social mobility. Culture is not static, but dynamic. That's a good thing.

Still, I'd say Schafly is much more representative of CPACers than Viguerie. And hey, was Paul Weyrich unavailable to give Ms. Mason a quote?

Posted by Evan @ 03/02/07 04:04 PM

 
 

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Comments

Evan,

Could you please provide a little clarity on your comments about Viguerie?

It seems you want to dismiss Viguerie's criticisms of the Republican Party. You call him a "gadfly" and point to the fact that he has made these criticisms repeatedly over a long period of time.

My question is, are you suggesting that Viguerie's criticisms today are unfounded? I contend that the Republican Party's embrace of big government and its blind eye toward corruption cost the GOP its majorities in Congress. So even if Viguerie's past criticisms were off the mark, he is correct today. It appears to me that you are dismissing Viguerie's ideas today because he was wrong in the past. I believe that is a mistake.

Posted by Greg in TX22 @ 03/07/07 10:00 AM


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