Bush's Base Betrayal

Filed by RAW STORY

In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, titled Bush's Base Betrayal, prominent conservative Richard Viguerie expresses the growing disillusionment of many of the president's right-wing supporters.

Viguerie writes:
"Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the Bridge to Nowhere' transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows."

Viguerie, a long-time master of direct-mail fundraising who played a central role in the conservative rise to power over the last thirty years, was quoted on the day after the 2004 election as saying, "Now comes the revolution. If you don't implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?"

But 18 months later, Viguerie feels betrayed. He says, "The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative."

In addition to his disgust with Bush, Viguerie is equally ready to indict Congressional Republicans. He writes:
"But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.

"White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks."

Viguerie calls for conservatives to stay home by the millions in next November's election -- or, at the very least, to create a new movement outside the Republican Party. And he concludes, "I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today."