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Combs: The Republican leadership is ruining conservative prospects

Conservative future depends on them either quitting or being tossed out

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: June 30, 2009

Republicans were fit to be tied about several issues in June. They have been upset with President Obama's "weak stance" (read, unwillingness to invade and conquer) on Iran, his insistence of universal health care and, most recently, the House passage of the president's big global warming bill.
The president's power grab, they insist, is an unprecedented attack on American freedoms and American prosperity. And while it's quite probably true that the administration has no regard for what we used to call the fundamental liberties of Americans, the Republicans have done more than any other force to make this triumph of the Democrats' long-cherished agenda a reality.
Yes, the government takeover of the auto industry, and its intention to take over the health care industry are shocking developments, but no more so than the quasi government control of the mortgage-backed securities industry by means of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the past decade. Republicans were not complaining about that when they were in control. They seemed to have had no problem with government interfering with and subverting the free market.
Republican spokesmen have complained that no one had the time to read or understand the climate change bill before the House vote, that it was a shocking thing to shove a bill down the America peoples' throats without debate.
But Republican voices were weak or inaudible when President Bush and his Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson insisted last fall's bailout of the financial banks had to be passed without debate. And they certainly did not protest when Bush had to have his stupid Patriot Act passed without debate or question.
And that is precisely why their arguments will not gain traction; no one takes them seriously as honest purveyors of ideas anymore. No, Americans don't want to see their energy costs double or triple; they don't want to see taxes go up and up; they don't want to have to beg a government bureaucrat for permission to see a doctor, or be told what to eat, and when and how often they have to buy a new car.
They did not vote for Democrats to do those things, rather, they voted against Republicans. It's as simple as that, and Republican leaders are obstinately blind to that painful truth.
Americans voted against the Republicans' runaway deficit spending and inflationary monetary policy; their insistence on waging endless foreign wars of "regime change" and "nation building" and their demands for unlimited police and surveillance power.
When offered the choice, Americans chose a big government party that promises to feed and clothe and house them while it drives us all to utter financial ruin over the big government party that insists we all pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps while driving us to utter ruin.
Given those options, the choice was obvious. It's amazing that Republican leaders don't get that. It's not that Americans have rejected conservative ideas, it's simply that they do not take Republicans seriously as conservatives.
Eventually the recession will become the Obama Recession. People are already getting concerned about his silly adherence to old-style, San Francisco-style liberalism, like inviting all the mayors to come meet with his officials at a big convention, then standing them all up because they won't cross a picket line.
That old-style Democratic policy will be his ruin, and he will eventually lose credibility and favor as the recession worsens and inflation hits home. But opposition would be taken more seriously if it were to come from within his own party.
As it stands, the Republican Party is pretty much dead in national politics. It will be at least a generation before it could recover. Conservative ideas do not stand a chance as long as the Republican Party, as it is today constituted, continues to exist.
If Republicans truly care at all about the success of conservative ideas and the prosperity of America, then their leaders must resign or be kicked out.

Britt Combs writes a weekly column for The McDowell News. He welcomes your comments.