Waning Support in bushworld

cont'd: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/32892/

Can I offer you some demoralization with your hemorrhage?

Posted by Melissa McEwan at 12:39 PM on February 28, 2006.

Wah wah wah
Following up on Evan's post below, there's more bad news about Bush's waning support among his base coming out of Restoration Weekend.

Restoration Weekend is an annual do put on by David Horowitz, the self-appointed defender of minorities and other groups under attack including “Christians and white males,” at which 350 conservative movers and shakers confab and hobnob. The Nation’s Marc Cooper attended the event last weekend (as a liberal panelist), and found that many of these movement stalwarts are worried about the GOP’s chances in the fall elections. Or, as he put it, “there's a lot of fear and trembling going on among Republicans.”


Former Congressman Pat Toomey, current head of The Club for Growth: "We have to acknowledge we have a President who is not popular… The war in Iraq is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room and a major downturn could drown anything we do… We won in 1994 because we promised small government and going into the 2006 elections this is key idea we have abandoned."


Missouri Lt. Governor Pete Kinder on the state of the party: "The demoralization of the base is real. I hear it everywhere."

I honestly was thinking that I wasn’t sure which is a worse position to be in—part of the disillusioned progressive masses almost completely marginalized from federal governance or part of the demoralized conservative masses whose party enjoys near-total dominance and doesn’t see a shred of conservative principle in federal governance--until I read a bit on Cooper’s personal blog about that latter group:


Generally speaking, the audiences at these events are usually quite gracious and easy-going if indeed out-to-lunch politically. It’s a much friendlier venue than your usual lefty gatherings. The Weekend-goers here are disportionately richer, older, more comfortable, less angry than your average progressive (duh!). And as they will usually admit that their politics are much more about self-interest than purportedly about saving the world, they don’t get very worked up if you disagree with them. Doesn’t really affect the bottom line, y’know.

Then I basically thought, Eh, fuck ’em. When you’re only interested in “Gettin' mine,” how sorry can I feel for you?

(I do, however, still gravely pity--and disdain--any average, struggling schmoe who votes Republican thinking they’re going to do best by him.)