Senator Jim DeMint let John McCain and George Bush have it at a gathering of top level Republicans at Myrtle Beach yesterday.
The South Carolina conservative spared few words in lambasting the Arizona senator :
The conservative senator, speaking to a group of GOP officials gathered in Myrtle Beach at a conference on the future of the Republican Party, described how the party had strayed from its own “brand,†which, according to DeMint, should represent freedom, religious-based values and limited government.
“We have to be honest, and there’s a lot of blame to go around, but I have to mention George Bush, and I have to mention Ted Stevens, and I’m afraid I even have to mention John McCain,†he said.
DeMint offered a long list of complaints about McCain’s record in the Senate and on the campaign trail.
“McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver’s seat,†DeMint said. “His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn’t fit the label, but he was our package.â€
Bush and Stevens, he said, had corrupted the party brand by expanding the size of government and engaging in wasteful government spending. Had Republicans not strayed from their core beliefs in recent years, DeMint argued, the election results might have been different.
“Americans do prefer a traditional conservative government,†he said. “They just did not believe Republicans were going to give it to them.â€
Does this kind of criticism do anything except give comfort to the Democrats and create even more disarray in the party?
Some might disagree but I happen to think it essential that we recognize the failings of the party and especially GOP candidates who basically abandoned everything the party stood for expecting the American people to think better of them for it. It didn’t work and never had a chance of working.
I might quibble with DeMint about the party needing to adhere to “religious based values†(or the reporter added “religious†to place it in the narrowest context) but he is spot on in his criticisms otherwise. The George Soros funded groups acted like shock troops for the Obama campaign’s ground game not to mention running effective ads in battleground states. And McCain’s “maverick†brand was not accepted by the public.
Ronald Reagan believed the best way forward was to go back and see where things went south to begin with and start from there. That sounds like excellent advice for Republicans to take today.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/senator_demint_slams_mccain.html
