RINO Writers: Biting the Ankles of a Not-So-Big Base
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON SQUISH
After finally admitting that squishy, RINO-like Republicans were NOT the “New Majority”, a website is renamed to the more accurate–and realistic–”Frum Forum”.
It attempts to maintain relevancy by entering the debate at ankle-level with articles which demonstrate why the website changed its name in the first place.
The result is something like FF’s latest: The Not So Big Conservative Base. It’s one voice in a spineless three-part harmony by noted writers of squish–notably David Frum, Hot Air’s Allahpundit and the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan–insisting that America’s NOT a center-right country and blah, blah, blah.
Conservatives have, for many years, taken solace in polls that consistently show that more Americans define themselves as “conservative” than “liberal,” including a recent Gallup poll showing a whopping 20 percent gap in favor of “conservative.” Almost as a mantra, conservatives like to describe the U.S. as a “center-right” country. What [political scientist Morris] Fiorina points out, however, is that rank and file voters are not defining “conservative” in the same way as the pundits and politicos. Fiorina’s polling data finds that fully one-third of those who call themselves conservative do not hold traditionally “conservative” views on either economic or social issues. These people might be deemed “attitudinal conservatives.” They are tired of gay pride marches, tired of anti-war protests, tired of what they perceive as liberal excesses seen in daily life, from crazy tort suits to school policies that expel kids for drawing a picture of a gun, fed up with what seems excessive, out of control spending. But they are neither social conservatives on issues such as gay marriage and gun control, nor free marketers on the economy.
Wait, aren’t conservatives just a bunch of group-thinking knuckle-draggers waiting to be led to the light by writers like Andrew Sullivan and David Frum?
Conservatives aren’t monolithic? They have different opinions on different issues? The piece’s author, Bradley Smith, has exposed the truth for all the world–and the Frum Forum-ites–to see. And who would have imagined: conservatives think for themselves on the issues!
Tired of trying to find bogus “purity tests” they imagine under every GOP bed, it seems the ankle-biters will construct their own. If you don’t think like the conservative hobgoblins in Fiorina and Smith’s minds, you’re not really a conservative. You might even be a RINO!
Does this mean that Frum Forum writers will cease erecting stereotypical boogeymen to knock about? (You can see one of the most popular on display in Once Rinos Are Extinct…: the pitchfork-wielding crowd of conservatives coming for–well, the reader can see for himself. The author, Smith again, has no lack of imaginary RINO victims.)
Probably not. If RINO writers with ala carte principles had no conservative phantoms, one suspects they would have little to write about.
At that point, another name change for Frum Forum might be in order.
UPDATE: HEY! A non-presidential shout-out to Don Surber readers!
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How come everything I read says that most people define themselves as liberal?
[Reply]
Mondo Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 12:24
Sharonsj,
I’m not sure. Maybe you’re reading lib sites all of the time. Almost every site (check out Gallup and Rasmussen for the latest) which does polling puts the number of “self-identified liberals” at around 20-22% of Americans. “Self-identified conservatives” come in at 40-42%.
Another reason may be a matter of terms. For instance, I sometimes self-identify as a “classic liberal”; i.e., what liberalism used to mean: free markets, freedom of choice (not just abortion) with individual liberty one of the highest priorities–not the cause de jour.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
[Reply]