Coburn to GOP: Stop Start acting like Republicans, and follow … McCain?
posted at 6:20 pm on May 27, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Tom Coburn has established himself as one of the Young Turks of conservatism on Capitol Hill, fighting pork and federal spending as well as establishing himself as a stalwart against abortion. Along with his Senate colleague Jim DeMint and House members Jeff Flake, Mike Pence, and Eric Cantor, Coburn has accumulated plenty of influence among angry conservatives looking to shake the GOP and have the party return to the first principles of conservatism. Today Coburn issues a call for this return in the Wall Street Journal, but he picks a leader that may have Coburn’s fans feeling some cognitive dissonance:
As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.
Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.
Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn’t good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.
For most of his article, Coburn sings to the conservative choir. Yet at the end, he concludes with this paragraph:
John McCain, for all his faults, is the one Republican candidate who can lead us through our wilderness. Mr. McCain is not running on a messianic platform or as a great healer of dysfunctional Republicans who refuse to help themselves. His humility is one of his great strengths. In his heart, he’s a soldier who sees one more hill to charge, one more mission to complete.
Many conservatives would put McCain in the RINO category as well. Also, when reading the article, this paragraph feels as though it got added as an afterthought, as my friend Mark Tapscott put it. What was Coburn thinking?
It’s not difficult to understand Coburn’s reasoning. He believes that Republicans lost their way mostly on matters of fiscal discipline. Outrageous spending increases, abetted by runaway pork-barrel spending, destroyed Republican credibility on the first principle of conservatism: limited government. All other sins descend from this misstep. If the GOP feeds the federal government, then no one speaks for reductions in federal authority along any lines, and all manner of federal intervention becomes possible, even for the GOP.
In order to restrain the growth of federal government, the party needs a leader who has the best track record on fighting its expansion. In this case, that means John McCain, with at least one healthy caveat. Campaign-finance reform in the manner of the BCRA expands federal government into political speech in a manner that rejects limited government. Its impact on the speech rights of organizations during elections makes the federal government an arbiter of speech, a role that contradicts conservatism in a very fundamental way.
However, outside of that, McCain has long fought pork-barrel spending and bloated federal budgets. During the feeding frenzy between 2001-2006, McCain’s voice was left in the wilderness, warning about the consequences of the Republican majorities. Even his opposition to the last of the Bush tax cuts didn’t get based on a love of taxes, but in the refusal of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress to cut federal spending at the same time.
The big question: will this missive from Coburn help bridge the gap between McCain and conservative activists? As Coburn knows from personal experience, McCain is by far the one nominee who will work toward conservative principles in spending and limitation of federal power in the upcoming general election. The question for Coburn is whether he becomes the leader of the Republicans that keeps McCain on track with his pledges in other areas, notably border security. If Coburn can do that, he may find himself the next national leader for conservatives.
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“The big question: will this missive from Coburn help bridge the gap between McCain and conservative activists?” - Ed
Nope!
Al-Ozarka on May 28, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Yep. It sucks in ways things just shouldn’t have to suck.
But it is what it is.
techno_barbarian on May 28, 2008 at 10:03 AM
?
Absolutely not. The problem here is that conservative activists don’t trust McCain with good reason. John McCain has betrayed conservative values for the last eight years in his personal temper tantrum that GWB got the nomination instead of a cranky old liberal with zero personality and an extremely volcanic temper. GWB has been inconsistent but John McCain has consistently been a traitor to conservative values.
Coburn’s comments come off more as pandering than any real assessment of the situation. It is John McCain and the RNC trotting out a real Republican to deliver the same old themes of “John is better than Obama,” “John isn’t as liberal as Democrats,” and “shut the f**k up and vote for McCain.”
highhopes on May 28, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Like who cares?
All you got is McCain.
A vote for Barr is a wasted vote.
No Ron Paul will ride to the rescue.
You have a choice between a maverick whose appeal is mostly to so called independent swing voters, or a hard core Marxist.
If you choose the Marxist, thinking that will deliver some
kind of retribution to an America that “deserves it”, then
you may not get another chance in your lifetime.
I believe these times are that serious.
To vote for the Arab that will allow Iran to succeed in getting it’s atomic bombs, and then using half a dozen
on the USA, will throw this country into uncharted waters.
Like what part of world banking collapse don’t you get?
I wish we had better candidates, maybe Lieberman vs. Petraeus.
We do not.
We have two impostors and someone we’re not too sure of.
And we have to make a choice,
Stop whining.
davem on May 28, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Coburn wants the GOP to become more like McCain.
Yeah, he’s a “young turk” conservative. Sure, Ed.
spmat on May 28, 2008 at 11:14 AM
You Barr fans do know he’s against a border fence, don’t you?
juliesa on May 28, 2008 at 11:15 AM
So now it’s…
Vote McCain. The LEAST vile and frightening of the available choices.
Ugh. No Thanks. I’ll still be writing in Ronald Reagan. Better a dead man than a RINO.
wearyman on May 28, 2008 at 11:25 AM
The first rule of THIS conservative is to stop donating $ to the GOP. I only donate directly to conservative candidates.
kirkill on May 28, 2008 at 1:01 PM
techno_moron
No, you display your own lack of humor by your inability to realise how absurd you appear. Don’t sit pounding on your keyboard with your teeth gritted and that vein swelling in your forehead while repeating over and over “I”m lauging!”
I’m also amused by your peculiar belief that if Obama loses, the Dems will self destruct. A few years back they lost the WH and lost seats in the Senate. They did not self destruct then and they won’t do it now if McLiberal is elected, at the same time as they pick up many seats in Congress.
flenser on May 28, 2008 at 1:11 PM
You can vote for anyone you like. You should vote for the person you like. Trying to be too clever with their voting is what got GOP voters into this mess in the first place.
flenser on May 28, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Then I am even happier to vote for him. If we just enforced the law we wouldn’t have most of this problem. Use cameras and boots to patrol the border.
A fence is big government idea and its not worth anything as long as the law isn’t enforced. Many people become illegal immigrants by overstaying visas, a fence is not going to solve that. Terrorists came from Canada, a fence is not going to stop that. Also I am against the big expenditures and eminent domain that will and are resulting. A fence is not going to change the problem, the executive branch actually enforcing the laws on the books will solve the problem and we’re either getting McCain or Obama. Somebody will get rich though.
LevStrauss on May 28, 2008 at 3:52 PM
Coburn is a bad @$$ I’d like to see him run
spacekicker on May 28, 2008 at 4:36 PM
Condescending, insulting, avoiding any possible complaints or their validity, and dismissing any concerns. Hey, that sounds a lot like McCain…
Are you in disguise, or are you a different condescending insulting tone-deaf person who believes that this attitude will somehow gain support?
Actually, either way; as I hope McCain loses I have one thing to say…
Keep up the good work. Try for a bit more elitism in your condescending attitude; but otherwise, everything I could hope for in a McCain supporter. Please get out there and insult potential supporters until you’re too tired to speak or type.
gekkobear on May 28, 2008 at 4:37 PM
I’m not whining; nor am I voting for McCain. We need to make corrections in the process for future races since we’ve already lost this one.
If Obama is elected, we lose. If McCain is elected, we lose. If Hillary is elected, we lose.
We have to plan ahead. Helping elect McCain (as the least of evils) shows the Republican leadership nothing except that we will be good little subjects and play along. They will have no incentive in the future to pay attention to the Conservative side at all.
tgillian on May 28, 2008 at 4:46 PM
Just heard Coburn pounding this drum on Hannity’s radio show.
There, as in the article, he says the same smart things about how Republicans don’t get it, and how they should return to their root concepts… and its all good…
UNTIL he says that’s why we gotta get behind the great Conservative Republican Messiah McCain, “the only one who can lead us through the wilderness”.
Now I understand that for party unity he HAS to pretend that McCain is the solution, not the problem, but I could never do that even if I were hoping to be his VP choice.
I wasn’t too impressed with Coburn’s delivery. A lot of stuttering and hemming and hawing, despite Hannity’s polite, softball questions.. He might have the right basic ideas to be a conservative old time Republican, but he doesn’t seem to be quite ‘ready for primetime’.
In the end we are again left with the message ” Vote Republican… We suck slightly less than the Democrats.”
——————————————————-
I just figured out how to articulate one of the reasons that I keep pointing out the grievous flaws in electing McCain, and have a hard time being able to be polite to the ‘hold your nosers’:
Did you all ever stop to think that if it weren’t for you ‘hold your nosers’ that the Party might step in at the last minute and put someone that is at least slightly acceptable to at least half the party core? I mean, McCain is not REALLY the nominee until the people running the Convention says he is.
If they (the Party bigwigs) didn’t figure that most everyone would eventually fall in line and vote for the “we suck less than the other guys” due to fear of Obama and Osama we COULD get a last minute ’savior’.
I know, I know; that is as likely as ALL of us MDS sufferers winning Powerball AND being struck by lightening between now and November. But it is within the realm of possibility, if not probability.
But we will never know, because ‘hold your nose and vote’ has become the only thing that has sustained the GOP for 32 of the last 40 years. And it will no doubt be the inscription on the headstone on the grave of America in 2010.
So pardon me for clinging to my forlorn hopes and annoying you folks for just a few more months.
LegendHasIt on May 28, 2008 at 6:39 PM
Dark years for the conservative movement ahead. I am sure we are going to be exile for a couple of years.
mariloubaker on May 28, 2008 at 9:02 PM
LegendHasIt on May 28, 2008 at 6:39 PM
I agree 100%.
We’re not making forward progress with this attitude at all. We’re not winning over voters, we’re not putting our house in order, in fact, we’re not even honest about the need for our house to be PUT in order. It’s called willful blindness and it’s a shame that Coburn, who has shown spark, has had a cup of the Kool-Aid.
linlithgow on May 29, 2008 at 3:35 AM
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