Conservatives say Bush and McCain destroyed Republican Party

They are starting to eat their own.

Polls show that Democrat Barack Obama is leading in battleground states, including some -- such as Ohio -- carried by George W. Bush not once but twice.

But even before the election is over -- and despite the fact that some polls show a tightening race -- Republicans are piling on their own presidential candidate, John McCain, accusing him of deserting principle.

Some moderate Republicans think McCain has sold his soul to the right, abandoning the bipartisan record he built on immigration and other issues. "He has lost his brand as a maverick," said Rep. Chris Shays, the last Republican congressman in New England, in a tight race in Connecticut again this year.

But conservatives are also angry at McCain and Bush, for mucking up governance so much that a Barack Obama is even possible. Dave Gibson, a 41-year-old independent from Norfolk, Va., summed it up in one word: debt.

In a post on American Chronicle, he wrote:

Under Bush's leadership, the national debt went from $5 trillion in 2001 to $10.5 trillion today. The doubling of our debt has had a devastating effect on our economy and our currency is quickly becoming worthless. Always happy to spend more money, rather than raising taxes Bush simply goes to China or Japan and borrows more. That kind of irresponsible behavior has brought this nation to the brink of a depression and destroys any notion of fiscal conservatism, once a trademark of the Republican Party.

Ouch. As for McCain, Gibson notes his and the president's support for a comprehensive immigration bill that would grandfather in an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. In an e-mail, he said he plans to vote for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. "Many of us have grown weary of the politics of appeasement practiced by both Bush and McCain," he said. "As a result, we've stopped caring about this election long ago, when it became [clear] that there would actually be two liberals running for president in 2008."

Gibson is an iconoclast, a blogger. But more famous Republicans have also weighed in.

David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, wrote in the Washington Post recently that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin energized the base but turned off women and independents. In an article called "Sorry, Senator. Let's Salvage What We Can," he wrote that in picking Palin, McCain lost "the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Tony Dejak / Associated Press

Comments

[Jonathan]

Joe the plumber was a plant! He was asked by McCains camp to approach Obama and ask the question about wealth redistribution to give fuel to their smear tactic on "Spread the Wealth"! Don't be fooled!

[Dave]

The article quotes comments by some small name Republican journalists. There is no meat in the article, just trumped up hype.

[James]

Republicans are the definition of fair weather fans.

They love their team when it's coasting on a Clinton era economic boom, but they hate their ugly racist Palin-brand supporters when the coasting runs out.

Fair weather fans are pathetic.

[Democrats '08]

Palin really is just Bush / Cheney in a dress. Look at this ignorant woman's stance on the issues, Palin is more in line with the mindset of the failure Bush administration than even McCain is. This is the future of the Republican party? Americans need to realize once and for all, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. The Republican way has failed the United States for decades, it's over and it needs to stay over permanently. Our future, economy, health and security are not some fun game. Do not vote for this very foolish, careless, ignorant woman unless you really hate America. A vote for Palin is a vote for going backwards to the Bush years once again, don't do it, don't let this failed, diseased thinking back into our White House.

[Patrick]

It wasn't Bush and McCain. It was Reagan. He recruited the super-far-right social conservatives to the party, with an in-your-face "we'll legislate our morality" attitude that drove out the most conservative core--libertarians--from the Republican party.

These people care about telling Adam and Steve they can't get married, not about fiscal conservatism, limited government. They care about using power to achieve their religious goals by any means necessary. And what have we seen in every Republican presidency since Reagan? A massive increase in executive power, size of the government, rate of spending.

The party needs to give the social conservatives the boot, reincorporate the Libertarian party and get back to ACTUAL conservatism rather than NEO-conservatism.

I'm a conservative, but can not STAND the government trying to legislate morality. The contemporary Republicans have driven me to the Democratic party, even despite their terrible fiscal policy.

[ItsAboutTime]

Good riddance. The Republican party has become a caricature of itself- a racist fear mongering elitist club of the most toxic kind. It has now become, thanks in large part to Bush and McCain, a banner under which the lowest common denominator now proudly gather. It is the party of the uneducated moron who cannot (as of yet) appreciate how their highest and best aspirations, along with their base emotions - fear and greed, are manipulated and used by the ruling elite. And now the party is seriously considering Sarah Palin to become their next and brightest hope. That would be akin to tossing a drowning man an anchor. It is a sort of divine justice to witness these people do themselves in without any help from anyone else.

This election is proving that we as nation have evolved. It is encouraging to see that we are outgrowing the Lee Atwater Karl Rove hate slandering and race baiting. And the silver lining to the collapse of our economy is that now everyone can see that unregulated free market capitalism is a fraud, a ruse set up to allow the super wealthy and the multinational mega-corporations to rob us blind.
Change is good. It means we are still alive.

[Pamela]

They'll regret this, McCain will win, and I hope he remembers each one of the turn coats!! McCain/Palin 08

[David]

Jonathan , you are an idiot.

[chacne]

Bush or McCain may have damaged the repubs. That's fine!

Wait until you and the mass media see what Obama is going to do to the country. You bettter sell your everything now while it still has some value.
I'm selling out! Maybe moving out? Obama will unravel the Constitution. When he does there will be blood in the streets. This will turn into an all out breakdown of society in this country. He will be sitting in the Whitehouse wondering why we didn't go along. But I promise you. We're not going where he wants to go.

[captbilly]

I would have to agree that the destruction of the Republican party actually started with Reagan as strange as that may sound. Reagan brought in huge numbers of far far right wing evangelicals to the party. Now the Republican party has become so exclusive that they cannot get average Americans to vote with them anymore.

Take Palin as a perfect examply of what has gone wrong with the Republican party. The media has said relatively little about some of her far out ideology but Palin is way way out there. She personally has been involved in anti witchcraft rituals, she has given speaches as Governor to the Alaska separatist movement, her church is scary, etc. But the Republican party wanted Palin because they felt she would appeal to their base? So what does that say about the Republican base, that they are very very far from mainstream America. Even Palin's comments to rural, white evangelicals, that they are the true Americans, the true patriots, says a lot about where the Republican party has gone.

[Jamie Ells]

The Republican Party that I grew up with doesn't exist anymore. It's become the bastion of fundamentalist Christians and neocons. Fiscal responsibility --- please -- that went out with Reagan. There's no integrity left -- only mudslinging and name calling.

If McCain can't run a political campaign, how can he be expected to run the country? What a mess.

[kitsinni]

Republicans, this is the time to move yoru party back with America, back to the center. Your allegiance to Religious Zealots is what got you in this trouble. I plead with you to come back to the center before the party is destroyed.

If you believe in "Free Market" then the amount of money Obama has raised over McCain should be enough evidence. Come back to America, there are enough countries in the world lead by religious extremists ... come back to America.

[Matt]

I'm a democrat, probably always will be. However, I can respect fiscal republicans, because I understand there are two approaches to government. (I just don't think that people are generous enough to help those who really do need help, without the government stepping in.)

But when the republican party alienates fiscal republicans, it is making a huge mistake. The recent McCain embodies this mistake completely.
When the republican party also alienates the conservative academics in favor of joe the plumber, this is a big mistake. Palin embodies this completely.
These two aspects of the current republican party are going to tear it apart.

[Robert]

In all honesty, the Republican party has absolutely nothing to offer Americans this round. Proof is in the pudding that these types of extremist right wingers are now voicing discontent with them and breaking from the Republican party. Good riddance.

Concerning John McCain, I too am extremely disappointed that he sold his soul to the devil to select Sarah Palin. I would much rather have seen him lose like a winner than lose like a loser.

If the Republican party would have had their heads somewhere other than where the sun doesn't shine in the 2000 primaries and picked John McCain instead of Dubya, we wouldn't be in the cesspool we are in right now - more so militarily and most probably in economic terms. We certainly would have remained holding the trust and respect we had in the world community before we elected the worst president in the history of our country.

[DP FROM NY]

It's not only the national debt. It's the crazy energy price bubble for the past three years that Bush did nothing about. It's the high price of food. it's the stupid Iraq war that will cost this country over two trillion dollars by the time it is over. It's the financial and mortgage meltdown that saw millions of peoples savings and home equity wiped out while hedge fund and wall street guys walked away with millions.
Obama would not have been possible if a huge swath of the middle class wasn't so
p.o.'d. The GOP will have it's day again. Just not in the next four years.

[Dan]

Well said, Patrick. I was beginning to wonder whether there were still any other people who fit the "old" Republican mold - fiscally conservative, limiting Federal government to the things that can be done more efficiently or make more sense to aggregate at the federal level (i.e. Defense, NASA, etc.) without it getting so small that there's anarchy, and delegating decisions about social issues to state or local government.

As a "hawkish" fiscal conservative who has his own views on gay marriage and abortion (none of which involve the Federal Government getting a say), picking between the Republicans and the Democrats is an exercise in trying to find the lesser of two evils.

[hottopics]

Sarah Palin - John McCain's new legacy.

[Sheldon]

Bush took the Republican claim as fiscal conservatives, and demolished it. His policies led to the global economic crisis that is detroying the financial system. McCain has given no evidence he would change those policies. The American people are taking note.

[PJC27]

Amen Patrick. I used to vote R or D, depending on the candidate. After 8 years of Bush and now this McCain/Palin fiasco, I vote D across the board and hope for the best.

[Christopher Xaphakdy]

What the current President Bush has been doing and Sen. McCain has been advocating for are very contradictory to the core of the Republican's fiscal principles such as fiscal disciplinary conservatism. They are both belong to the camp of the fiscally liberalized spree---spending as much as fast as you can do with no restraint. Looking at when Democratic Party President Clinton left an office, how much money in surplus multibillions he had left for the country? Looking at today national debt has increased from $ 5 trillion in 2001 to $10.5 trillion under the Republican leadership of the President Bush unequivocally tell ordinary people, which presidential candidates will be better prepared, if not the best prepared, to handle the fiscal policies and which presidential candidates will be able to move the country with better visions and directions. The answer is President-elected Obama that will be very certainly titled on Tuesday night, November 4th. I think the majority of American people can no longer afford to have an extension of the 4 more years of the same President Bush and Sen. McCain's economic policies and fiscally liberalized spree policies. No wonder why the value of the US dollar has been declined against Euro and other major currencies.

Cheerfully with the hopes that we can believe in which will be brought in by your administration,

Go Sen-President-elected Obama 08

Christopher Xaphakdy

[tradison]

Bush was just a puppet for the Republican machine. They told him what to do and he did it. Invading Iraq was probably his only idea he had.

[Ronald Sampson]

True, so very true. Though it would be appropriate to add to the list Newt "Contract on America" Gingrich, Dick "War Baby, War!" Cheney and Karl "Negative Campaigning Works!" Rove. They've set us back 50 years.

[NormBlon]

Dump the Christians; repudiate theocracy; return to the moderate Republicanism of a Dwight D Eisenhower (sans Nixon, McCarthy and Cohn) or a Nelson Rockefeller. Then, and only then will there be a Republican party worth voting for.

I'm a conservative, but can not STAND the government trying to legislate morality. The contemporary Republicans have driven me to the Democratic party, even despite their terrible fiscal policy.

Ditto for me too.

[WIDTAP]

A cautionary note to Dave Gibson. It was none other than our esteemed Vice President Dick Cheney who said "Deficits don't matter".

Contracting the official line may very well get you a call from the Office of the Vice President, or at the very least a extraordinary rendition to a sunny vacation for some "water sports".