Following defeats in 1976, 1992, 1996, 2006 and 2008, the media always seems to come up with the “end of Republicans/conservatives” meme.
This year is no different.
Media Research Center has done a great job of showing just how this mantra is being repeated time and again by our friends in the MSM.
* ABC’s Barbara Walters assailed the GOP for being “behind” on social issues.
* The Washington Post went on a mission to look for the right-wingers who plan to buy more guns as a result of the Obama Presidency.
* The New York Times called the GOP a dwindling collection of “angry”, “grumpy old white men.”
* The new cover of Newsweek depicts Obama as Napoleon while calling the GOP “old,” “white,” “history.”
* CNN ‘s Anderson Cooper rhetorically questioned how the GOP will overcome party “extremes” to attract Latinos while his cohort * Piers Morgan trashed the Tea party and the “extreme right” for being “intransigent” and pushing “archaic politics.”
* On election night, NBC’s Brian Williams opined that Rush Limbaugh was a liability for the GOP.
* On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, David Frum claimed Republicans were “fleeced, exploited and lied to” by the “Conservative Entertainment Complex.” Joe Scarborough agreed, stating that the GOP needs to stop listening to the “most extreme people” in the party.
* On Sunday’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, the all-liberal panel agreed: the loss was due to Limbaugh and the “loons and wackos” of the conservative base.
“We hear this from the liberal media every single time the Republicans don’t win something. They have only one solution for the Republican Party: don’t be conservative. It’s never about the failures of the candidates or a poor voter turnout effort. It’s that Republicans are too conservative – a false conclusion that ignores the successful campaigns of conservatives Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush,” said Media Research Center President Brent Bozell. “The liberal media discourage candidates from being conservative because it helps their preferred liberal candidates. Mitt Romney didn’t embrace the conservative base and he lost, just like Bob Dole and liberal media sweetheart John McCain. The liberal media’s rush to scare the GOP away from conservatism is a deliberate attempt to divide the party. They don’t want Republicans to embrace conservative principals because conservative Republicans win.”
If anything, Romney began to gain traction when he started talking like a conservative. Unfortunately, as Brian Schoeneman pointed out, he just wasn’t credible doing so.
The death of conservatism – as well as calls for secession by others – are premature. Don’t count conservatives out yet…the best is yet to come.
