The answer to all of the rights concerns this year seems to boil down to “find the most pure conservatism”.  We see it over and over again as the denial and finger pointing continue from the right, and we see it again today from Sen Tom Coburn:

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn’t good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and “compassionate conservatism.” If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof “governing” majority, the goal of “compassionate conservatism” was to spend our way to a governing majority.

This is revisionist BS.  I have no idea what the K Street Project is, except I know K Street houses very powerful lobbies who (a) can make or break politicians and (b) still represent interests of Americans.  I am not happy with how lobbyist money influences government priorities, but I am not so gleefully naive to forget that people have the right to collectively petition their government on issues dear to them.

But that is a minor problem, the bigger problem with Coburn is his whining finger pointing.  I have numerous examples of compassionate conservatism which were wholly conservatism and were low to no cost, proving that his rants against the impure are fiction.  

First is President Bush’s ban on federal funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.  A huge step towards protecting human life from becoming nothing more than a commodity for the rich and powerful. Did not cost a dime to the tax payer.  Parental notification and the ban on partial-birth abortions also showed compassion for the right to life, and cost the taxpayers very little if anything.

How about those tax cuts which allowed families to keep more of what they earned and buoyed an economy staggered by the attacks on 9-11 clearly that is not a cost to the taxpayer.  How about the Gang of 14 and all those conservative and constructionist judges that now balance the bench from 8 years of Clinton’s wild liberal ride?  No extra money there, the seats had to be filled, the salaries paid no matter who filled them.

And there was the change in medicare/medicaid to add a prescription drug benefit which reduced the overall costs of those programs by eliminating costly emergency room visits as the only way to get needed drugs.  While costly, it was a much better investment under the program.  And how was allowing religious institutions to participate in local community programs, bring compassionate religion to bear on our social problems, costly?  The entire faith based initiative was simply to end the ban on religious organizations helping this country.  And remember that I do not belong to any religion and yet I, an impure independent conservative, could champion this cause easily.

Coburn suffers from what really ails the right – purity contests and finger pointing.  It was purists who literally chased the center and moderates out over immigration (and other issues).  When it comes to elections this year the far right conservative politicians get the pure con voters (pun intended), but they don’t get a governing coalition.  Wrapping themselves up in the mantle of the most tolerant conservative to shape modern US politics, these purists actually defy the Reagan doctrine – which was to get 70% on an issue that was common ground and fight for the rest later. Reagan did not sanction the routing of conservative opposition through crass character assassination.

The fact is the government spending that so many in Congress bemoan was all under their control.  Bush needed money for the wars, but Congress laid on the pork.  Yet these ‘purists’ deny their own hands in all this by trying to blame Bush and K-Street and the voters and the moderates.  Wake up Senator, you had the power of the purse and you blew it.  Don’t expect finger pointing to win you votes Senator. Maybe it is time for you and the rest of the finger pointers to retire so a new generation of conservatives can take over.

Clearly the finger pointing only extends the time the GOP will spend in the political wilderness, because it keeps open the divides that now have conservative democrats beating conservative republicans in what is clearly a right of center nation.  The only way to screw up in a right of center nation, from the right, is to reject the center so that you only get votes from the right, and let the center go to the left. Bottom line – finger pointing and purity contests are the problem, not the answer.

You would think a ‘professional’ politician would realize that conservatives are losing the impure conservative vote, so railing against these people will not gain back their support.  You would think.  You would also think GOP leaders would know better not to insult their own voters with such simpleton platitudes like this claim that it was not Congress’ fault they lost their fiscal self control.  One of the staunchest fighters of pork, John McCain, has been accused by the purists of being a traitor, a RINO, a liberal, a liar, etc.  Yet he has steadfastly stood against pork ear marks.  Cochran, your glass house just shattered.