the time, they were largely a group people were shocked at how President
What Would Joe
of Democratic intellectuals who had Bush fumbled the New Orleans after-
been disillusioned by Jimmy Carter’s math of Hurricane Katrina.
the Plumber Do?
disastrous foreign policy of the ’70s, “People started to notice that the
especially his anti-Israel bent. The GOP failed to deliver promised gov-
N
O ONE COULD BLAME GOP LEADERS FOR
wishing they could fl ush the bitter memories
group bolted the Democratic Party ernment reforms,” Steinberg tells of 2008 down the drain. But fi rst they might want
and found a welcome home in a Newsmax, “but it delivered lots of
to hear the advice of a guy who makes house calls
hawkish Reagan White House that perks for its politicians.”
for a living: Joe the plumber.
wanted to confront the “Evil Empire.”
During the election
campaign, Samuel Joe
Without a doubt, the neoconser- The Fight to Rule
Wurzelbacher asked then-Sen.
vatives played a leading role in help-
Republicanism
Barack Obama some tough
ing Reagan bring down the Iron
questions that the mainstream
Curtain. But many neoconservatives, Part of the glue that traditionally
media apparently preferred
espousing an interventionist foreign has held the GOP together is what
to ignore. Sen. John McCain
turned that encounter into
policy, also felt comfortable with old Reagan called the 11th Command-
a symbol of the American
Democratic ideas of big government ment: Thou shalt not speak ill of Dream.
and liberal social values. another Republican. In the struggle
Wurzelbacher’s advice on
The neoconservatives became among the factions over who will
where the GOP ought to go
WURZELBACHER
ascendant in the Bush administra- rule the party, this commandment
from here? He tells Newsmax
that Republicans must
Joe knows values.
tion and were led by his vice presi- often has been cast aside.
“remember that they’re conservatives.”
dent, Dick Cheney, who surrounded During the 2008 Republican pri- “As soon as people say the Republican
himself with aides who espoused maries, Texas libertarian conservative
Party, all they think about is big business and
their views. Bush took the party Congressman Ron Paul drew criti-
corporations and guys that make $30 million a
down the path of what White House cism from rival GOP insiders when he
year. That’s not the case,” Wurzelbacher says.
“I’ve voted Republican a lot in my lifetime because
speechwriter Michael Gerson calls spoke against the Iraq war on grounds
of conservative core values that built America.
“heroic conservatism.” that it was unconstitutional as well as That’s what I think they need to get back to.”
If the Iraq war had gone well, ill-advised. It didn’t make him popu-
Wurzelbacher adds, “They’ve got to stop being
says Gerson, President Bush “could lar, but it did win him primary votes.
afraid to speak about those values, and raise
have been a colossus in American And Paul, a former Air Force medical
them, and bring them back into the mainstream.”
After enduring a media onslaught during
politics . . . a transformative fi gure, a doctor, took in more campaign con-
the campaign, not to mention what he believes
Republican Roosevelt.” tributions from active-duty military was a Democrat-inspired investigation into
But the war did not go well for personnel than McCain did.
his professional credentials, the down-home
years. Misjudgments and misman- Seeing the chord Paul struck with
man known as Joe the plumber says he has
agement led to high casualties and the public should have prompted
reconsidered his earlier plans of buying a
plumbing business or running for elective offi ce.
soaring costs. So far the war will cost McCain and others to include Paul
Instead, he has founded his own watchdog
Americans at least $1 trillion. The more — perhaps even letting him group (SecureOurDream.com) in an effort to
unpopular foreign adventure led to speak at the GOP convention, experts
ensure that politicians live up to the promises they
growing disapproval of Bush and the say. McCain refused.
make once they attain offi ce.
Republican Congress. “This was stupid,” says Norquist,
The group “essentially will hold politicians
accountable and make them remember that they
In fact, the resulting antiwar move- of Americans for Tax Reform.
actually got into this business to serve their fellow
ment became the launching pad for “McCain should have embraced Ron
man, and not themselves,” Wurzelbacher says.
successful U.S. Senate and presi- Paul before the nation, acknowledged
And if those plans don’t work out?
dential runs by a little-known Illinois that they have a few differences, but
“The nice thing about being a plumber,” he
legislator named Barack Obama. said, ‘We’re both fi ghting for liberty
tells Newsmax, “is you can always go back to
being a plumber.” — David A. Patten
“November 4, 2008, was the in this Big Tent Republican Party.’ ”
nation’s verdict on neoconserva- Instead, after McCain snubbed
tism,” political commentator Pat Paul, the disenfranchised congress- McCain and libertarian small-govern-
Buchanan tells Newsmax. “To win man organized his own political event ment conservatives is one of several
back the Reagan Democrats, we need in nearby Minneapolis, says Norquist, fault lines threatening to tear the party
to address their greatest concerns: author of Leave Us Alone: Getting the apart, unless it follows the advice of
the invasion of their country and the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, thought leaders such as Norquist.
GES
export of their jobs.” Our Guns, Our Lives. “I spoke there One bit of good news coming out
TY IMA
GOP political strategist Arnie before 12,000 cheering, enthusiastic, of the election for Republicans is that
/
GET
Steinberg agrees, saying, “People computer-savvy people who were fed 56 percent of Americans describe
used to think of Republicans as com- up with old-style politics.” themselves as very or somewhat
. POOLEY
J
.D
petent and reliable, and therefore But the emerging schism between conservative in the latest bipartisan
++ History tells us that appeasement does not lead to peace. 9/14/1972 ++ In the party of Lincoln there is
JANUARY 2009 / NEWSMAX
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