Concerning the report of a bunch of GOP bigshots gathering in the Blue Ridge Mountains to disown Republican “moderates” at what was most definitely not the future of conservatism conference that he and Conor and I had hoped for, Rod writes:
Man. Somebody take a snapshot of this moment. It’s kind of like Andrew Ridgeley exulting in his future career prospects now that he’s shaken loose of that loser George Michael.
Awesome. I’ll admit it, though – I had to go to Wikipedia.
UPDATE: Rod has more on Ridgeley.
Filed under: conservatism
Dude, you had to rely on Wiki? Clearly you watched too little late-90s/early-2000s Saturday Night Live, when “the other guy from Wham” was a recurring character.
Though this probably isn’t the way to go about saving the GOP (I’ll refrain from editorializing on whether we should want to do this.), I can’t help thinking that, in some cases, they’re right. MBD had an interesting piece in Am Con, which I enjoyed almost as much as I did “United States: If at First You Don’t Secede . . . “, about how the VA GOP has lost ground, at least ostensibly, by failing to connect with social cons.
I remain convinced that the GOP’s hopes lie in adopting federalism not only as an underlying political philosophy, but as a structural philosophy, so that more platform control lies with each state’s party, allowing CA Republicans to run more to the center, with, say, more emphasis on environmental issues, and allowing Rust Best GOP to press for more populist economics. Where moderates win, they should run the party; where the more “conservative” types — and even the few real conservatives — succeed, the party should be theirs.
*”Untied . . .”
Yeah well judging by my blog stats I’m not the only one who had to look it up.
I agree with you about federalism as a “structural philosophy” (I like that), but I think that’s a different suggestion than what was coming out from the article. They basically want to jettison folks like Snowe and Hayes (and Schwarzenegger, too? – nah, he’s too hip) altogether.
“Awesome. I’ll admit it, though – I had to go to Wikipedia.”
Wow that makes me feel old.
Or maybe just less culturally out of touch than me, Lee.