Monday, January 14, 2008

“They want to transform the Republican party as a center-left party”   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

For those of you in cubicles and without headphones: Rush Limbaugh is talking again today about McCain, Huckabee, and the Republican party on his show today. His comments right now are in response to Newt Gingrich over the weekend talking about how conservatism the Republican party has to change. If you have a subscription to his website, you'll want to listen in when the audio is up.

Conservatism doesn’t have to change, he argues, and the Reagan coalition is not dead.

“What is lacking is not ideals and principles.” “What is missing is the right people to speak them.” Don't blame conservatism for any Republican funk. The problem, Limbaugh said, “There isn’t any real leadership out there.”

He warned: If you want to see what Republican future with McCain or Huckabee would look like, he said, look to Arnold Schwarzenegger. California is a “disaster.” That’s what you get when you have “non-Republicans” in office as Republicans.

Rallying conservatives, he said: "Our principles are not dead. Our principles cannot die." But he also warned that a nominee who isn't one may “equal the demise of the Republican party.”

P.S. Rush is a fan of this Steyn column: Capitalism is the biggest driver of change there is.

UPDATE: Some of what Newt said on ABC yesterday, via his office:

And so, I just think there's nothing unhealthy about the Republican Party having a serious discussion. We are at the end of the George W. Bush era. We are at the end of the Reagan era.

We're at a point in time where we're about to start redefining — as a number of people have started talking about, we're starting to redefine the nature of the Republican Party in response to what the country needs.

01/14 01:50 PMShare