Roger L. Simon: RINOs, DINOs and the Media Noise Factor

It strikes me that one of the key influences contributing to the Republican distress (diminishing though it already is) with the nomination of John McCain is the Media Noise Factor.

What I mean is this: In our society the political extremes get attention disproportionate to their actual power. This is not surprising, nor is it entirely a bad thing. Listening to Rush Limbaugh or reading the Daily Kos is likely to be more entertaining (hence more commercial) than reading another middle-of-the-road David Broder thumb-sucker -- no offense meant to Broder here, just an illustration.

Of course, that doesn't mean all of us listening to Rush or clicking on Kos are agreeing with them. Far from it. We're in it for the excitement and they're getting the plays (and the money) in this media world. But the attention paid to their ideas and attitudes is out of proportion to reality.

This is something their supporters are likely to forget (naturally, I think - I would too) when they have to come out of their bunkers and deal with the rest of us. They think we're RINOs and DINOs, but we're just Americans doing our normal thing and trying to figure things out. We also happen to be in the majority, so if we're just RINOs and DINOs, there ain't many customer left in those big tent political parties of ours. (Look what happened when Goldwater and McGovern got nominated.)

Right now the pain of this collision seems to be on Republican side, but just wait when more of Obama's ideas come out into the light - as I suspect is about to happen - and some of his party starts to recoil. If it doesn't happen now, it will during the general election... redounding to the benefit of the Republicans.

If that puts the Repubs back in the White House, McCain's detractors will get to see if he's lying or not when he says repeatedly he now wants to build the border fence. Of course, a third possibility may be even more likely. McCain will support it, but Congress will block. That's the real world.

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Your premise has a hard time dealing with Reagan. He was more conservative than Goldwater. Reagan won in landslides...

Perhaps, Pierre. But having lived in California for the entirety of Reagan's gubernatorial and presidential administrations, I don't see him anywhere near as conservative as Goldwater. But I could be wrong. Perhaps Goldwater was a center-right person too. Reagan certainly was - and not just on the amnesty issue. When the rubber meets the road, most American politicians move to the center.

Trying to paint Reagan as a moderate is distorting the issue. Regarding amnesty Reagan went along with it because he was working with a Democrat controlled congress. He was promised border security and that promise was not fulfilled by the congress.

Mark Levin had a brilliant article regarding Reagan. Basically the main point that made it such a worthwhile article was his pointing out that Reagan went in against a Democrat controlled congress and moved left to comprimise and get things done. McCain goes in on the left and moves right to appease the right side of the aisle. Big difference.

Pierre, I'll accept that Mark Levin is "brilliant," as you say, but if you're interested in Reagan's history I might suggest Ron Radosh's Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance With the Left, which details Reagan's days as president of the Screen Actors Guild and has some facts about the actor that may surprise you. I am sure you know that, unlike John McCain, Reagan began his career as a Democrat. There's a lot more. People read history as they wish, as I imagine you might agree.

Roger your assumption that I don't know about Reagan's past is incorrect. I have no problem with folks changing. Whittaker Chambers is another fine example.

But one need only listen to Reagan's 1964 clarion call to freedom to understand that he was no McCain. He did not give that speech because it was popular but because it was required. You cannot say that he was pandering to conservatives because he was in fact defining them. As a politician Reagan went left when he had to...whereas McCain goes right when he has to.

No doubt I will vote for McCain but it is not for McCain as much as it is against the other two flakes.

Finally I find it odd that a wordsmith such as yourself would misunderstand my saying Levin's article was brilliant. That is not the same thing as saying he is brilliant.

Btw Roger thank you for allowing my comments...it is important to remember that in the end we are allies. The head choppers want us both.

Do you really think that Rush and Kos are similarly extreme? I don't listen to either much, but my impression is that although Rush is a blowhard, he doesn't support the monsters of the extreme right; Kos does support the monsters of the extreme left (including the Islamists they have allied with).

I agree there are differences, LTEC. Important ones, as you note. But they appeal to the more extreme elements in their parties. I could give other examples and I'm sure you can.

Pierre Legrand, no problem. I rarely ban comments, but yours are intelligent and on point (not ad hominems) so I wouldn't even consider it. Welcome.

I think it is obvious that a lot of the loudest people are the most extreme. Obviously Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin do not have the rank and file Republicans doing their bidding. By the same token, the average Democrat is not as far to the left as Kos.

As for Ronald Reagan, I am old enough to remember the man and he was not a right wing ideologue. In fact there were many times in his career when he had to do political battle with the people in his own party he referred to as the "radical right". He was a believer in compromise and consensus building.

The right today has refused to move forward or recognize the fact that it is not 1985 anymore. They have created this myth around Reagan and his tenure in office that bears scant resemblance to the real man or his era. If he were around today they would probably call him Ronaldo and demand that he be impeached for selling us out to Mexico, or some such lunacy.

As for McCain and the fence, I think it will be built, but I also think people underestimated the hassles that would be encountered by the people who live there. There have been lawsuits, property disputes, questions about where the border really is. We forget there are landholdings and communities on that border that go way back before the Civil War, before the War with Mexico in fact. So this might get complicated. But it will happen and when it does the hardliners will complain that is not good enough.

Let us lay to rest, once and for all, the myth of a small group of ideological purists trying to capture a majority. Replace it with the reality of a majority trying to assert its rights against the tyranny of powerful academics, fashionable left-revolutionaries, some economic illiterates who happen to hold elective office and the social engineers who dominate the dialogue and set the format in political and social affairs. If there is any ideological fanaticism in American political life, it is to be found among the enemies of freedom on the left or right—those who would sacrifice principle to theory, those who worship only the god of political, social and economic abstractions, ignoring the realities of everyday life. They are not conservatives.

I don't think that it is that simple, Reagan going left when he had to and McCain going right when he had do. McCain has always been a fiscal conservative, and he is prolife.

Issues like global warming were not even around in Reagan's day. No one talked about same sex marriage. When a suicide bomber blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, Reagan did not stay and fight, he hightailed it out of there. He was involved in some questionable dealings with the mullahs. The world has changed a lot since then. I just do not think that is a fair characterization.

Let us lay to rest, once and for all, the myth of a small group of ideological purists trying to capture a majority.

hehe...TerreL do you deliberately misrepresent Reagan or do you simply misunderstand him? Did you happen to notice the second paragraph where he described the majority as conservative?

Three weeks ago here in our nation’s capital I told a group of conservative scholars that we are currently in the midst of a re-ordering of the political realities that have shaped our time. We know today that the principles and values that lie at the heart of conservatism are shared by the majority

Did you happen to notice where he was giving that speech? CPAC. Do you know how conservative they are, have been and will always be?

Reagan was no moderate...trying to portray him as such is dishonest. He created a revolution in Government and that is not the actions of a moderate.

TerreL do you deliberately misrepresent Reagan or do you simply misunderstand him?
Reagan was no moderate...trying to portray him as such is dishonest.
So much for the lack of ad hominems. Perhaps speaking to the examples TerryeL raised would make your case better than speaking to someone's motives.

I was alive and well when Reagan was President, I remember the man. He was very strong when it came to go after the Soviet Union, but he did not spend a lot of time worrying about Mexicans.

He was also the guy who came up with the 11th Commandment, do not speak ill of a fellow Republican. I am pointing out that the world has changed since then. What people think of as conservative issues has changed.

Reagan was a politician who understood that more could be gained by compromise than constant name calling, finger pointing and intraparty conflict.

Well the pure at heart must not let apostates such as myself sully the memory of Saint Reagan.

Needless to say Ronald Reagan himself would be horrified to see and hear other Republicans using his memory to attack another Republican, especially Senator John McCain, but what the hell, he is not here so they can say what they please.

February 17, 2008: RINOs, DINOs and the Media Noise Factor

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