{"id":34433,"date":"2010-01-15T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T01:30:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T01:30:08","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T01:30:08","slug":"a_look_back_one_year_later_reagan_conservatism_can_t_win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/01\/15\/a_look_back_one_year_later_reagan_conservatism_can_t_win\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look Back One Year Later: Reagan Conservatism Can\u2019t Win?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: We were told ten months ago we couldn\u2019t win in New England. We shall see. The entire argument a few months ago by liberal Republicans, Democrats alike, GOP was a regional party, conservatism is dead, must become more moderate, demographics make Reaganism impossible, the era of Reagan is over, all these pundits who said this, many of them on our side need to quit, many of them are people who denounced me and other conservatives. And look where we are now. We\u2019re on the verge of taking Teddy Kennedy\u2019s seat and a large number of people in our own movement a year ago said nothing like this was ever possible, we couldn\u2019t do it as conservatives. We\u2019re doing it precisely as conservatives. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

I mentioned earlier I was going to take a one-year look-back at the Republican Party, the GOP. Let\u2019s do it now. The fact is that when the Republican Party and conservatives were at their lowest morale, 12 months ago, when they were completely out of sorts and near panic, it was I, and others, who stood up and insisted that we get back to basics, that we advance conservative principles, the only principles that had the answers for our time. That we relearn them; that we become confident in them; that we spread them; that we push back against the moderate Republicans who had nearly killed the party; that we reinvigorate the conservative movement, which had been left to die by successive Republican administrations and Congresses. We fought the David Brookses, the David Frums, the Colin Powells, the Tom Ridges. We fought some on our own side who proclaimed the death of Reaganism and Goldwaterism and insisted that we become more like those who defeated us. They urged that we drop the matters of small government, tax cuts, and limits on spending. They urged that we embrace global warming and amnesty for illegal aliens. They told us we had become a regional party. They told us we had become a white man\u2019s party, that we either change and became more like our adversaries or we would perish. <\/p>\n

We heard this from the self-appointed sages who claimed to be conservative leaders and Republican leaders. We heard it from so-called conservative columnists and commentators. And of course we heard it from the liberal media and their favorite liberal Republican guests. We were being assaulted with the notion that conservatism was out of date and out of time. The only way we could win was to become moderate, to attract independents and Democrats to our party. We\u2019ve gotta drop the incivility of our discourse. We\u2019ve gotta stop being divisive. Our own people were telling us this just a year ago, and they were wrong. They were all wrong. On this program we refused to accept the death of conservatism. On the contrary, my attitude, my position was to make our case for conservatism better than ever before, because it was the only thing that could save our society. I said then, as I do now, that it was and is crucial to expose Obama and his allies, to defeat them, to insist that they fail, which I knew they would, and to offer the nation an alternative, not watered-down arguments, not tweaks of their premises, not apologies. We don\u2019t need to apologize for ourselves. We don\u2019t need to excuse ourselves. We need to offer a real, solid, understandable alternative. And that was and is conservatism. <\/p>\n

Yes, Obama is failing. In fact, he has failed. His presidency is a failure. I knew it would be because I knew his policies were exactly the wrong policies for this nation. They were and are destructive to our institutions. They were and are intended to be destructive. I knew this was his intention, because I know liberals, and I know his kind of radical. I knew this was his intention. I knew he was inexperienced and incompetent despite the endless praise about his smarts, about his wisdom, about his cool, calm demeanor. I knew that he was stubborn and arrogant as well, because leftists are all stubborn, conceited, and arrogant. But, my friends, to be honest, it\u2019s not enough to say that his failures are the reason for the swift and deep change in American attitudes toward government and the Democrats. A case has to be made. And a case was made that our founding principles are more relevant, more significant, more necessary now at a time when our nation\u2019s core is under assault than any time in recent memory. <\/p>\n

I mean we are a great nation at risk in a dangerous world. And for the first time in my lifetime the greatest threat we face is internal. You conservatives out there, you have carried the message, you have made the case, you have attended rallies, you have attended town hall meetings, you\u2019ve made telephone calls, you\u2019ve sent letters, faxes, you\u2019ve e-mailed, you have made your voices heard, not only to the politicians who seek to diminish you, but you have taken the case to your family and friends, which is crucial. It\u2019s necessary. It\u2019s made a huge difference. I\u2019ve suggested that you all become the go-to person in your family, whenever anybody has a political question, you be the one that has the answer, rooted in conservative principles that you can articulate with persuasive confidence. But despite all that we\u2019ve done and all that you\u2019ve done, there\u2019s much more to do and there\u2019s much more that will be done. <\/p>\n

We have a huge election in November where we either throw out scores of statists, elitists, and slow down, if not halt, Obama\u2019s burning of the Constitution, or we reverse course and allow the Democrats to continue to run wild and drag down the nation. One final point for now, and it goes once again to the issue of a third party. Third party, in my view, is the only effort that will derail all the progress and energy and early victories that we\u2019ve seen in recent months. A third party of the Ross Perot type, the Ron Paul type, bleeds voters away from the Republican Party, not the Democrat Party. We\u2019ve seen it happen time and time again. If the Republican Party does not stand for conservatism — and this is going to be a tough fight because the liberal elites in the Republican Party don\u2019t like us as much as the Democrat elites don\u2019t like us. But if the Republican Party does not stand for conservatism, as it has failed to do many times in the past, then you change the Republican Party. You take it back. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m a little sick and tired of people continuing to reject the facts and history when they talk about the need for a third party. Ronald Reagan rejected third party in 1977. Made clear it would be a disaster. We have the recent example of Perot in \u201992. What Reagan did was take over the GOP. And that\u2019s what our mission is and must continue to be. And if there\u2019s no difference in the two parties, then why do we care who wins in Massachusetts next Tuesday? If Scott Brown and Coakley are no different then what the hell difference does it make who wins? Why do we care? No difference in the two parties? You really think anybody in the Republican Party is doing what Obama\u2019s doing? Last I looked nobody in the Senate on the Republican side voted for this health care bill. Not even Snowe and Susan Collins. And only one in the House did, that\u2019s a guy from Louisiana, Joseph Cao. Not sure how you pronounce his last name. Doesn\u2019t matter. You know who I mean. <\/p>\n

If there\u2019s no difference in the two parties, I think there would be bipartisanship on all this, wouldn\u2019t there not be? The fact that every single Republican senator votes consistently against government-run health care should be a clear indication that we are being heard. The fact that all but one Republican in the House voted against it, does this mean conservatives run the GOP? No. Not yet. But it means we\u2019re making progress. It means we\u2019re in an ascendancy. It means we have more to do, but we should stay the course, not be diverted by the moderates in our party who want us to not be conservative, that we\u2019ve got to moderate to attract those who don\u2019t like us. We\u2019ve gotta stop be defensive about who we are. We\u2019ve have to stop thinking as a minority. And we\u2019ve gotta stop this third-party temptation. It will only bleed votes from our side. It will not bleed votes from Democrats. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: We were told ten months ago we couldn\u2019t win in New England. We shall see. The entire argument a few months ago by liberal Republicans, Democrats alike, GOP was a regional party, conservatism is dead, must become more moderate, demographics make Reaganism impossible, the era of Reagan is over, all these pundits who said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Look Back One Year Later: Reagan Conservatism Can't Win? - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/01\/15\/a_look_back_one_year_later_reagan_conservatism_can_t_win\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"A Look Back One Year Later: Reagan Conservatism Can't Win? - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: We were told ten months ago we couldn\u2019t win in New England. 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