What's Happening with Conservatives and the GOP

1.  In an article in the Washington Examiner, Chief Political Correspondent Byron York reviews a new book that indicates that, while he was still President, George W. Bush totally dismissed the conservative movement as inconsequential and boasted, "I redefined the Republican Party."

In Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer relates how the 43rd President had complete disdain for conservatives.

"There is no movement," Bush told Latimer just before the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

What is astounding is that Latimer joined the White House in 2007, after Republicans had lost control of the House and Senate in the 2006 elections, and that Bush expressed his scorn for the conservative movement in early 2008.

In the summer of 2006, Richard A. Viguerie's monumental book, Conservatives Betrayed:  How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause, documented how the Bush Administration had engaged in very liberal domestic policies, resulting in enormous increases in spending and massive deficits.

It is clear that the disastrous 2006 elections taught Bush absolutely nothing.

York writes, "You can argue whether Bush was a fiscal conservative at any time in his political career, but he certainly wasn't in the White House.  And some real fiscal conservatives, with their guy in charge, held their tongues."

Indeed, in Conservatives Betrayed, Viguerie cites figures to show that, at the time the book was written in 2006, the increases in federal spending during the Bush Administration had already exceeded the entire federal budget under President Jimmy Carter.

York is correct that many conservative leaders kept quiet while Bush took the GOP and the nation sharply in a liberal direction.

Viguerie conducted polls online and at the 2007 CPAC conference to ask grassroots conservatives what factors were responsible for the Republican losses in the 2006 elections. 

The number one culprit was, "Conservative leaders who kept silent when the GOP became the party of Big Government," which was selected by 77.1% of online voters and 69.9% of CPAC attendees.

At the time, Viguerie said, "Many conservative leaders and conservative media thought their mission was to support the Bush Administration and the Republican leadership in Congress, no matter what they did."

While conservative leaders were blindly supporting Bush, he had nothing but contempt for them.

2.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would lose badly to either of the Republicans running for the GOP Senate nomination, according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.

In a race against Danny Tarkanian, a former basketball player for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and the son of the legendary college coach, Reid would lose 50% to 43%, with 7% undecided.

Against Sue Lowden, the chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party, Reid would lose 50% to 40%, with 10% undecided.

According to the poll, Reid is being hurt by his association with Obamacare.