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By J. Patrick Coolican (contact) 
Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008 | 2 a.m.
In the spirit of last week, we’re suspending our usual weekly memo fodder — no talk of polls or ground games, negative ads or candidate gaffes.
Instead, we take time out for conservative Big Think.
Rich Lowry, who’s editor of the conservative journal National Review, was in town last week. He addressed the Nevada Policy Research Institute, the Silver State’s own conservative think tank, during a fundraiser at, wait for it ... the Venetian.
During the 1970s and ’80s, Bill and Hillary Clinton had a never-ending colloquy on social programs with hundreds of politicos, activists, journalists and social theorists. They called it “The Conversation.” It was all high-minded, and a little pointless, as this was the time when Democrats were getting their electoral heads handed to them.
Conservatives seem to be entering a phase like this. Yes, Arizona Sen. John McCain has a good shot at becoming president and extending the remarkable run of Republican governance, and die-hards like Rush Limbaugh see no reason to adjust course off lower taxes, less regulation and waterboarding terrorists.
But many conservatives, Lowry included, see rocky shoals ahead.
Having fun with an old aphorism of Chairman Mao, he joked, “It’s always darkest before it’s totally black.”
“Conservatives are in trouble,” he told the crowd, serving up the rhetorical equivalent of a warm glass of bitters.
He cited executive branch incompetence, intellectual exhaustion and corruption of Congressional Republicans, snarking on Capitol Hill card games composed of Republican congressmen, corrupt lobbyists and prostitutes. (This was a little awkward, with Nevada’s own Gov. Jim Gibbons, who was given an award at the event, sitting in front. Photos of then-congressman Gibbons on a party cruise with defense contractor Warren Trepp are now part of Nevada lore.)
Lowry said if you ask the average Republican congressman what his agenda is, he’d give you a blank stare.
In part, this is because conservatives have won. Their goals, which were seeded in 1964 and came to fruition in the decades since, were to win the Cold War, cut taxes, deregulate the economy, cut crime, cut welfare. Check, check, check, check, check.
Now what?
The country has changed, and the challenges have changed. We’re slogging away in two expensive wars. Our health care system is broken. The deficit has ballooned. Global warming is happening, and the price of energy is rising.
Oh, and the financial system, which has benefited from more than two decades of deregulated steroids, has a bloated and sick liver.
That last is especially distressing for conservatives, Lowry said in a Sun interview after his talk. “It’s a total nightmare.” He doesn’t agree that deregulating the financial system has caused the crisis, but he said it doesn’t much matter, because that’s the story being told. (National Review has argued do-gooder efforts to prod banks to lend to poor people, as well as the Beltway shenanigans of giant lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have caused the mess. It’s not a view shared by most economists.)
But all is not lost.
Lowry laid out some general principles about America and its history.
1) We are a commercial nation with a dynamic, open economy.
2) We are a middle class society.
3) We accrue national strength and project it.
4) We are “small d” democrats, meaning we rebel against elites.
Liberalism, Lowry said, threatens all of these, with its program of higher taxes, expensive energy, anything-goes social policies and shameful advocacy of retreating from American wars.
Lowry was talking to a largely wealthy crowd at an expensive dinner, but he said, “Working class voters are key to a conservative future.”
I asked him afterward what agenda would win those working class voters.
He looked at me sheepishly, as if to say, well, there’s the rub.
In truth, answers are being hashed out in the conservative version of “The Conversation.”
Suspension over. Next week, we return to raw politics.
Well from one conservative here is the answer:
1. The stupid American living far beyond his means tempted by the dollar now , dollar when you catch me financial institutions.
2. Greed by the lenders creating a pyramid game that continues to this very day.
3. A government that lacks any semplence of leadership and continues to spend like drunken sailors. Check out the new spending bill that will be signed by Bush this coming week. Oink Oink
As POGO so aptly put it, "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US!!!!! Liberalism turns to socialism then to communism and then the big bang all ovcer again.
John McCain racked up more than 300 demerits at the Naval Academy and graduated 5th from the bottom of his 899 member class. Widely known for serial adulteries, McCain married Cindy Hensley one month after he divorced his first family. Cindy's father, Jim Hensley, a wealthy beer distributor, was convicted of falsifying records to illegally distribute liquor.
Cindy confessed to drug addiction and to stealing drugs.
Sarah Palin paraded her 17 year old, pregnant, unmarried daughter, Bristol, on the stage at the RNC. (In fact, Sarah Palin's first child, Track, was born when she had been married about seven months). There are abuse of office charges against Palin. She and McCain have lied in their speeches and McCain has flip flopped on many issues. All of this while she professed to be a Christian.
This pair and their families in the White House would provide much fodder for the tabloids . Such terrible examples for our young people.
So why do so many conservative preachers and church goers support these two? This President and this Congress have not conserved our tax money, our international reputation nor the environment.
Yes, Mr. Cocaine Obama is an excellent example for our children.
Obama will not release his transcripts from Columbia.
What is he hiding?
This Congress...I am guessing that you are talking about the Democratic controlled House and Senate.
Palin still hasn't released her tax records.
What is she hiding?
Patrick, could you be a little more specific re the following from your article? I tried to find info but came up empty. Are the decades correct?
"During the 1970s and '80s, Bill and Hillary Clinton had a never-ending colloquy on social programs with hundreds of politicos, activists, journalists and social theorists. They called it "The Conversation.""
Jim, according to what you wrote, "Mr. Cocaine Obama" bothers you because he "will not release his transcripts from Columbia".
Why don't you just call the University? I mean, if it's that important to you, get the transcripts yourself. Tell them you're doing a background check because you might hire him. It's not exactly lying, you know.
And if this bothers you so much, how did you feel when GWB wouldn't release his military records? Or when we found out that he had absolutely no driving history in any state prior to age 40? What about his executive history that he wouldn't talk about & that mysteriously disappeared?
Any of that bother you? I mean, wasn't it his military & executive experience that were being hailed when he first ran in 2000?
I love this. You b!tch, moan, whine & complain about the Dems not being able to "bring everyone together", yet all the right wing has been about since the reign of error of St. Ronnie of Raygun is partisan BS. Oh but that's OK, right? It's in the service of 'murica, right? The entire industry that sprung up because a man DARED to unseat the Holy Ghost in 1992 is "fair and balanced", isn't it?
And there's Lowry, ever the good little meme, bleating the tired old talking points. I don't think he missed one in this interview.
These hypocrites are getting EXACTLY what they deserve. America (REAL America, not the Leave It To Beaver fantasy the right wing projects) REJECTS the right wing and everything they stand for, as it should be.
The right wing is imploding and we get to watch the meltdown. Pass the popcorn, please!
Oh and by "right wing" I do not mean to include actual conservatives or old-school Republicans. There are still some left, as few and far between as they are.
No, I mean the neocons who've taken over the Republican party and made it into the greedy, war-mongering, exclusive country club that it is today.