By Bradley Vasoli, The Bulletin
February 11, 2008
Washington - Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich's address to conservatives at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) bespoke the epochal juncture at which conservatives find themselves.
The Georgian who engineered the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994 urged the conservative movement to take cautious heart even as the Republican Party seems poised to nominate the centrist Arizona Sen. John McCain to run for president and as President George W. Bush maintains a mere 30 percent job approval rating, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
"I think we are at a moment of historic choice for the conservative movement's future," Mr. Gingrich said. "I would rather have a President McCain who we fight with 20 percent of the time than have a President Clinton or a President Obama who we fight with 90 percent of the time."
The former speaker was hardly Pollyannaish on his party's prospects. He noted that 14.6 million Democrats went out to vote in the primaries on Super Tuesday, whereas only 8.3 million Republicans did. He also recounted the disaster that November 2006 was for Republicans as they lost six senators - Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum, Ohio's Mike DeWine, Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, Montana's Conrad Burns, Virginia's George Allen and Missouri's Jim Talent.
"That is the warning of a catastrophic election [this November]," Mr. Gingrich said. "I believe that we have to change or expect defeat."
He counseled conservatives to make a "declaration of independence," particularly from a longstanding focus on national races. Governors, state courts, state legislatures, county commissions, municipal counsels and school boards, he said, still matter a great deal and should still provide ample fertile ground for conservatives to effect meaningful change.
He also urged measured independence from moderately conservative candidates. One can and should, he said, support a candidate but vociferously oppose some of his or her policies. He recalled, for example, his own votes against President Ronald Reagan's tax increases and President George H.W. Bush's tax increase.
As much as he would like to see Mr. McCain elected, he did not resist lambasting the senator for his spearheading campaign financing regulations, calling them unconstitutional, and proposing comprehensive immigration reform, deeming it a "disaster." Nonetheless, he railed against the idea of a right-wing third-party challenge to the Arizonan a "dumb idea" and considered supporting the eventual Republican nominee an "absolute requirement."
Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us