A Plague on the Nation

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Bush a four-letter word at CPAC
By: Andy Barr
February 28, 2009 07:01 AM EST

Conservatives aren't sure who's the Republican presidential frontrunner in
2012. They disagree over how sharply to attack President Barack Obama and on
the question of whether a back-to-basics approach is the path back to
majority.

But if there's one thing those attending the annual Conservative Political
Action Conference this week agree on, it is this: They don't want another
George W. Bush.

Few come out right out and say it, but they don't have to. There's no
nostalgia for the past eight years, no tributes to Bush and no sessions
dedicated to exploring his presidency.

Indeed, for a president who publicly embraced conservative principles, there
is little evidence that the movement returns the sentiment.

When the subject of the 43rd president has come up at CPAC — where he spoke
each year of his presidency — it's usually been in an unflattering context.

Conservative icon Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, railed against
the "Bush-Obama continuity in economic policy" and the "Bush-Obama big
spending program" in a speech Friday.

"We had big spending under Bush and now we have big spending under Obama,"
Gingrich said. "And so now we have two failures."

He wasn't the only high-profile conservative taking shots at the former
president.

"I wish the president would have laid [a stimulus package] out before he
left office, so that in September, October, November, December, there would
have been a stimulus plan," former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney
said Friday in an interview with POLITICO, adding that the GOP has yet to
come up with unified policy proposals or a clear, positive voice.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, like Romney an unsuccessful candidate
for president in 2008, pointed to the Bush administration's failed response
to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"You know what kind of conservatives we need most? Competent conservatives,"
Huckabee said in a speech Thursday. "It's when we lose our competence, that
Americans lose their confidence."

"We're no longer Reagan's shining city on a hill; we are the ruined city by
the sea," he added.

While the 9,000 registered attendants represented the top turnout in the
conference's history, the series of speeches, panels, meeting, dinners and
parties was dominated by questions about the direction of the conservative
movement and the Republican Party in the post-Bush era.

The absence of two of the party's most recognizable conservatives, Gov.
Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), only added to the
uncertainty since CPAC has traditionally served as an early proving ground
for GOP presidential contenders and their ideas.

"We are fast becoming a regional party, not a national party," Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned the conference. "There is
another name for a regional party, it's a minority party."

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) added that "the American people walked away from
us, so now we're in the wilderness."

While it was obvious that Bush failed to leave a model of governance for
conservatives to follow, it was equally clear that there are competing
visions for how Republicans can recover.

Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said the House Republicans "have found out the way
to regain the majority is to go back to our old ways."

Pence said that while the GOP does need to adopt new technology and ideas,
it really needs to "get back to basics."

"We need to be willing to fight for freedom, free markets and traditional
family values," he said.

Other speakers warned audiences that they needed to rethink their priorities
in order to come back to power.

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and current host of MSNBC's
"Morning Joe," warned the GOP against becoming the party of resistance and
urged conservatives to tone down their rhetoric against Obama.

"We have to present alternatives, we can't just say no," he said. "There is
an alternative to everything we hear from the White House every single day,
but we can't just say no."

He added: "We're not going to win votes and we're not going to win elections
by calling Barack Obama a communist."

But various scenes from the conference suggested that won't be so simple.
When House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the president's $787
billion stimulus a "down payment on a new American socialist experiment,"
the audience exploded in enthusiastic response, just as it did when Cliff
Kincaid, the editor of Accuracy in Media, suggested that Obama is not an
American citizen.

Obama, of course, wasn't the only pin cushion at the conference — other
frequent targets included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep.
Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Gingrich singled out Geithner as "part of the Bush group."

Despite the disappointments of the Bush era, CPAC's leader, American
Conservative Union President David A. Keene, urged conservatives to remain
hopeful and to continue to elect conservative pols.

"Sometimes they don't live up to be everything we want them to," he said,
"but sometimes they do."