This speaks to the presence of a deep, DEEP change in republican party culture.

From 1992 to 1994, conservative talk radio, unquestionably led by Rush as its spearhead, managed to rally conservatives AND republicans around common cause. We responded to the radio’s call. We surged. And we broke a liberal democratic congressional dynasty that many said could not be broken.

It would seem our hard-earned gains have been squandered over time. And while we might well argue why from various fractious, potentially even shrill perspectives…the fact remains, that if folks like Rush and Hannity and Levin and a whole army of local hosts can’t stop a McCain or Huckabee surge, it indicates something DEEP has changed within our culture, and that the once great movement in the tradition of Reagan has collapsed within itself. Whatever Rush and others reached out to, whatever those listening to them latched onto from within them….clearly, it’s gone. Or at least, if not dead, it’s a mere shadow of its former unifying great self.

And as Taps plays in the background, I stand up straight, lift my right hand, and salute its passing, externally stony-faced, yet silently, internally, crying inside for a thing of pride that is no more.

Having saluted, I turn tail, grit my teeth, bend over and wait for the liberals to have their way.

We appear utterly too fractured to stop them.

Sorry to sound so sad and dark. It’s hard to find a silver lining these days.

Shirotayama on January 22, 2008 at 8:14 PM

This reminds me of when I worked in NYC on a Democratic campaign in my youth. They had party bosses, and those party bosses guaranteed the vote from one of their precincts to a candidate. The boss shouted and the flock of sheep dutifully went to the polls and cast their ballots the way the boss told them.

That is not democracy.

bnelson44 on January 22, 2008 at 8:17 PM

BNelson,

You absolutely MUST be a liberal. Vast right-wing conspiracy full of mind-numbed robots, would appear to be your (clintonian) argument.

Except you’re 1,000,000%, absolutely, utterly, totally, indubitably WRONG.

Because the way you describe it is not how I perceived it then, when I was still in my very early 30’s, nor now, as I’m entering my late 40’s. NOT AT ALL how I perceived it.

Instead of feeling like I was following a leader who “told me how and what to think” (a popular liberal belief that is actually a fallacy), INSTEAD I actually felt like I was finally hearing people on the radio who were ECHOING how I MYSELF thought and felt, hearing them for the very first time.

That unity that arose was NOT because a bunch of us drank the kool-aid and followed the Guru’s orders.

Instead, concrete voice was given to those who previously felt totally, utterly VOICELESS before the advent of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

Please…go back to your liberal burrow and your tomes by Marx and Lenin and Mao and Alinsky and Clinton and Clinton.

What you were reminded of from work on a Democratic campaign of your youth has NOTHING to do with what we conservative republicans ACTUALLY THOUGHT AND FELT hearing conservative talk radio. NOTHING. Neither does your experience in The Democratic People’s Republic of The Five Boroughs. As a former New Yorker of my childhood, born to parents from the Bronx, but fortunate enough to escape at a tender age to the Southland, I can tell you from personal experience: New Yorkers think New York is the entire world.

Here’s a Post newsflash for ya: It AIN’T.

I don’t usually get this nasty on this blog, but today, you’ve inspired me, BNelson: Take your comparisons and SHOVE ‘EM.

Shirotayama on January 22, 2008 at 8:27 PM

Didn’t Reagan sign the first amnesty bill, never seriously address abortion, raise gasoline taxes, and cut & run from Lebanon?

I liked Reagan but I’m not sure he’d meet the criteria some have for true conservatives.

Illegal immigration has been a problem for several decades but really became the flashpoint it has become only within the past few years. For Reagan to pass the amnesty bill back then pretty much, if I’m remembering it correctly, got a reaction that pretty much was equivalent to “Meh”.

Can’t speak to the issue of him raising the gas tax. Don’t recall the issues. However, it probably didn’t faze me personally at the time since gas was, what…around $1.50 a gallon (or less!) back then. The few cents the gas tax probably added was barely noticed at the time.

As for cutting and running from Lebanon, I actually agree w/you there. I don’t know why he didn’t turn Lebanon AND Syria AND Iran into flat, glowing, radioactive wastelands when he had the chance. I’ve never figured that part out. But must say I myself was disappointed in that. One of the few things about Reagan that did disappoint me.

Shirotayama on January 22, 2008 at 9:00 PM