Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006 3:46 p.m. EST
Rush Limbaugh: Why Republicans Lost

Republicans lost control of the House, and perhaps the Senate, because they abandoned their conservative principles and in the end stood for nothing, Rush Limbaugh said today.
In his Wednesday broadcast, America’s top talker said that until Republicans begin asking themselves what’s wrong with themselves they are never going to fix their problems.
When things go wrong, Rush said, "you must look inward and ask first, ‘What did we do wrong? What could we have done better? What mistakes did we make?”
Commenting that although Republicans lost, "Conservatism did not lose, Republicanism lost last night. Republicanism, being a political party first, rather than an ideological movement, is what lost last night.”
The Democrats, he said "beat something last night with nothing. They advanced no agenda other than their usual anti-war position. They had no contract — they really never did get specific. Their message was one of ‘vote for us; the other guys have been in power too long.’”
Rush further admonished, "There was no dominating conservative message that came from the [Republican] top and filtered down throughout in this campaign.”
added that if there was conservatism in the campaign, it was on the Democratic side: "There were conservative Democrats running for office in the House of Representatives and in a couple of Senate races won by Democrats yesterday.” He cited James Webb as an example.
He also said it was conservatism that won fairly big when it was tried yesterday, but it was Democrats who ran as conservatives and not their GOP rivals. He added that the Democratic leadership had gone out and recruited conservative candidates because they knew liberals could not win running against Republicans in red states.
Rush quoted Thomas Sowell as explaining that the latest example of election fraud is actually what the Democrats did — they nominated a bunch of moderate and conservative candidates for the express purpose of electing a far-left Democratic leadership.
"The Democrats could not have won the House, being liberals,” Rush said. "Liberalism didn’t win anything yesterday; Republicanism lost. Conservatism was nowhere to be found except on the Democratic side.”
The root of the problem, Rush said, is that "our side hungers for ideological leadership and we’re not getting it from the top. Conservatism was nowhere to be found in this campaign from the top. The Democrats beat something with nothing. They didn’t have to take a stand on anything other than their usual anti-war positions. They had no clear agenda and they didn’t dare offer one. Liberalism will still lose every time it’s offered.”
Republicans, Rush said, allowed themselves to be defined. "Without elected conservative leadership from the top Republicans in the House and Senate republicans are free to freelance and say the hell with party unity.”
That leads, Rush said, to the emergence of RINOs — Republicans in name only.
Republicans in Congress, Rush explained, were held captive by the party’s leadership in the White House. They were put into a position of having to endorse policies with which as conservatives they disagreed.
"The Democratic Party,” Rush went on to say, "is the party of entitlements; but the Republicans come up with this Medicare prescription drug plan that the polls said that the public didn’t want and was not interested in. That is not conservatism. Conservatives do not grow the government and offer entitlements as a means of buying votes. But that’s what the Republicans in Congress had to support in order to stay in line with the Party from the top.
"It is silly to blame the media; it is silly to blame the Democrats; it is silly to go out and try to find all these excuses,” Rush said. "We have proved that we can beat them … we have proved that we can withstand whatever we get from the drive-by media. Conservatism does that — conservatism properly applied, proudly, eagerly, with vigor and honesty will triumph over that nine times out of 10 in this current political and social environment. It just wasn’t utilized in this campaign.”
Rush also blamed the failure to embrace conservatism on Republican’s fear of being criticized from those in the so-called establishment. Republicans, he charged, go out of their way to avoid being criticized, fearing they will be characterized as extremists and kooks.
As a result conservatism gets watered down, and the GOP loses the support of the nation’s conservative majority Rush stated.
Anything can beat nothing, Rush concluded, "and it happened yesterday.”

No one cares what that fat fu*k has to say.

"No one cares what that fat fu*k has to say."

Too true...but he did get something right, for once...Republicans have about as much to do with traditional conservative ideals as Rosie O'Donnell does with modeling swimwear.

Fish on...

Todd

I like the analogy Todd. A little Freudian but that's Ok.

Hey 'rhoid. Go look in the mirror and verbalize your last post.

Sounds typical of Rush's ideology--just can't seem to take responsibility.

AuntyM you're a regular Molly Ivins!

It's always a good day to be an American...but some days, it's just a lot better!

Yesterday was one of those days, and today hasn't been half bad, either!

Fish on...

Todd

Right on the mark as usual Marsha! This isn't your fathers GOP anymore. They got hijacked by the christian right and the centrists were afraid to speak up and had to follow along like sheep.
Too many times the conservatives let a-holes like Limbaugh tell them what to think. As much as I disliked the politics of Ronald Reagan you would have never seen him allow things to deteriorate within his party the way W has.
Guess Rove was not such a genius after all huh?

I tell you, it's like the clouds parted and a ray of sun is shining down now that there's the ability to stop this fiendish monster that has has our country in a stranglehold...

Maybe my luck has changed. Maybe I should go try to catch a fish and buy a lottery ticket.

Oh wait, cant be all that good of luck, seems I got banned from Gamefishin' at some point a short time ago...

On the other hand maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

And who again is it that cares about what you say??? Todd>? Your pet monkey? You are a real piece of work there Ichy...

Ich, looks like you hit a nerve picking on GP's idol. Get some sleep GP. Oops, I meant to say "Rush say's get some sleep GP".

KKK...Now that it is raining so hard and you can't mow lawns you can sit on the computer all day and repeat the same old tired cliches and insults to people who could care less about what your "game" is. People like you who constantly remind everyone how you are going to mop the floor with them with your wit and grasp of the issues usually suffer from penis envy....Maybe you can go out and rake some leaves and think up some new material for all those here that give a sh!t about what you have to say....

Gpa is an expert on penis envy all the sudden...

It has him glued to "Sit and be Fit" and "Murder She Wrote" all day long.

Nice spanking Granpa!

AuntyM, I noticed comparing the receipts from my trip to the gas station shows the following:
on Monday I paid $2.33/gal,
today I paid $2.51/gal.

Looks to me like the dem's are already screwing up the economy.

Oh well maybe in the spirit of cooperation with I-937 perhaps I can get a retro fit green power air turbine for my V-10 1 ton.

D2,

WOW! I musta REALLY slept in! It's January already and the newly-elected Congress is already in session... huh?

I think what it REALLY means is that now that Bush has essentially been neutered by the results of the election... he's tellin' his big oil buddies that they'd better get back to GOUGING the American people at the pump while they still can!

Sounds like that "Footballisgay" kid or "steelheadkid" or whatever his name was a few weeks/months ago.... (time goes by too quick, tough to remember past occurences)
He's the little douchebag who took up arguments with everyone, especially saying how we are all "gay and football is gay too and we are all gay for talking about football cause it's gay."

granpa: If you hate what we talk about/who we bash on and what we spend our time on then why did you ask us? What was wrong with shutting the f up and not saying anything? Seriously what does your stupid little argument do for you, or for anyone for that matter. Just cause some dips**t (thats you granpa)thinks its dumb to talk politics and bash on people, people aren't going to stop talking about what they talk about on this board. "Oh that granpa dude doesn't like us talking about this so lets not talk about it." Not going to happen. If what we say doesn't exactly please you then why do you reply to it and b***h about what we say?

Obviously some people care about this section of the forum (Aunty M, Sardonicus) Many people talk politics dumbs**t so don't bash on those who do...You'd be pissed with a lot of people then if you hated everyone who talks politics.

Granpa could not have said it better.

Hey KK at least you got a break in the weather, time to fire up those lawn mowers.

What cracks me up is that you are so stupid that you can not see I am throwing the democratic blame storming logic back in your face.

Better stick to pulling weeds.