NYT: Conservatives Unsettled About Movement's Future

[seafan]

Conservatives Unsettled About Movement's Future

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — Despite the triumph of placing two conservatives on the Supreme Court within four months, leaders of the conservative movement these days seem less celebratory than divided.

Heading into a midterm Congressional election in which the enthusiasm of conservative advocates could play a vital role in determining how Republicans fare, conservative leaders face internal rifts over polarizing issues and are dogged by a sense that a Republican-led Congress and a Republican president are not taking the nation in the proper direction on some critical matters, party leaders said.

snip

The leaders expressed concern about the loyalty of elected Republicans in Washington to the conservative agenda, complained about the growth of spending in Mr. Bush's latest budget and said they were uncertain, at a time when Congressional Republicans are squirming under the glare of a corruption inquiry, of the future of the movement.

"The degree to which the conservative movement is dissatisfied is very real," said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who will give the closing speech at the conference on Saturday. "Conservatism is at its biggest crossroads since Reagan was nominated in 1980."

snip

The sentiments — coming on the 25th anniversary of the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan — reflect the strains that this diverse and powerful political coalition faces while Mr. Bush struggles to regain his political clout and House Republicans try to settle down after the departure of Representative Tom DeLay of Texas as majority leader. It was also evidence, coming after the Supreme Court victories, of what even some conservatives said was the difficulty of sating their segment of the electorate.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10conserv.html

[CatholicEdHead]

1. Their adgenda is not conservative anyways

It is quite detached from even their base, much less the rest of the country.

[ewagner]

2. "MOVEMENT" is the key word

Most of the nation doesn't recognized that the road to power for conservatives has been a 40-year-long road and that a few zealots have spearheaded the movement all these years.

Further, most of the nation does not understand how RADICAL the Conservative Movement really is....they are literally just days away from having the curtain pulled back revealing the true ugliness of the movement itself.

[bunkerbuster1]

4. It's a movement, all right.

from the bowels of political ideology.

[glitch]

8. I hope you are right about their exposure being only days away. nt

[Vincardog]

3. NO REAL CONSERVATIVE would be happy with this path to a FASCIST state

Do you think a Barry Goldwater republican ever believed in the "Unitary Executive" BS? I really doubt it.

[oneighty]

5. Perhaps rugged individualists

are learning that destruction of our social order and social society infringes on their right to be rugged individualists.

It do take a village after all.

180

[seafan]

6. The unrest is palpable. Sorry, Grover.

snip

Some conservatives scoffed at the dissatisfaction, saying that the Supreme Court accomplishment alone established a conservative legacy for Mr. Bush that would reshape the country.
"The last 12 months have been a very good year," said Grover G. Norquist, a conservative with close ties to the White House. "For all the talk about DeLay, Katrina, government spending too much, dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah — excuse me: Roberts. Alito. So as much as people want to say, 'I didn't get X, Y and Z,' I say, 'Roberts and Alito.' "

snip

"Spending is our Achilles heel," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

snip

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and a conservative champion when elected in 2004, said Mr. Bush's 2007 budget, while a start, was "not good enough."
"I believe he should have made a request for the American people to sacrifice," Mr. Coburn said. "There are plenty of things to trim, and the president needs to lead on that."

snip

Some conservatives were scornful of White House efforts to allow at least some illegal immigrants to work legally in this country, and some challenged the legality of Mr. Bush's surveillance program, saying that it was an abuse of presidential power and that Mr. Bush should come to the Congress and ask for authority to allow it.

snip

"Think hard down the road to a future administration not occupied by the people we have now," said Bob Barr, a former congressman from Georgia. "We have to keep that precedent in mind: That gauntlet, if we throw it down, will be taken up by someone in the future that we really don't like and be used against us."



This article provides solid framework for hammering these guys into oblivion. And for a long, long time, if not permanently.

The *conservative movement* is dropping into the toilet.

And we are looking forward to a refreshed, recovered and peaceful world.

[jedr]

7. Great, now we're all unsettled about Bush!......n/t

[Kagemusha]

9. Hey, weren't Democrats outraged at exactly such a story about them?

It was earlier this very week...

I wonder if this report is every bit as accurate as that last one. The reaction certainly is different.