RedBlueAmerica: Does Republican Party need to re-examine its beliefs?

Is it time to reform conservatism? With polls suggesting that Mitt Romney might be headed to a loss in the November election, some conservative writers argue the Republican Party's leaders need to re-examine their beliefs and ways of doing business.

Is it time to end the influence of populist conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and the crew at Fox News? Or is the problem that establishment Republicans such as Romney aren't actually conservative enough?

Joel Mathis: They know so much that isn't so

One of the best political putdowns in American history came on the eve of the 1964 presidential election, from a Hollywood star who was making the case for GOP nominee Barry Goldwater.

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant," the actor said in his televised address, "but that they know so much that isn't so."

The actor was, of course, Ronald Reagan, and his comment helped define a generation's stereotypes of fuzzy-headed, utopian-minded liberals and hard-headed, realistic conservatives. But the shoe is on the other foot these days.

The trouble with our conservative friends isn't that they're ignorant.

It's just they know so much that isn't so.

They know that President Barack Obama went on an "apology tour" asking forgiveness for American actions.

They know that "climate change" is just a lie, a conspiracy by liberal scientists to wrest control of the economy away from the free market. They know that Obama plans to seize their guns if he's re-elected. They know that the president is a socialist.

They know he has a "Kenyan, anti-colonialist" worldview. Some of them even know, still, that Obama isn't actually an American citizen.

None of these things are true. They're not simply bad opinions: They're just false.

If you listen to Republican radio stalwarts like Limbaugh or Mark Levin, though, or watch Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity, or even venture to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where "birther" advocate Joseph Farah was a speaker this year -- well, you, too, might know an awful lot of things that aren't so.

The country's problems can't be fixed by people who don't know what the real world looks like. Until conservatives rein in the excesses of their best-known advocates, the Republican Party is doomed to being incapable of effective governance on behalf of all Americans.

Let's hope reform is coming.

Ben Boychuk: It's starting to feel like a repeat

It's beginning to feel like 2008 all over again.

No, not the election, but the day after, when Republicans and conservatives wondered what the heck happened and what might happen next.

Obama's victory was so historic, so striking, that some conservatives thought the GOP would need to make a radical pivot to adapt to new political realities. Meantime, liberals were writing the conservative movement's obituary in the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times.

We know what happened next, right? In February 2009, as the new president began his administration by pressing for an $800 billion economic stimulus plan, the tea party phenomenon emerged. That April 15, tens of thousands of people assembled in cities around the country to rally against Obama's agenda of centralizing power and spending the country into oblivion.

By autumn, the tea party movement was becoming a political powerhouse arrayed against the worst aspects of the president's health-care reform proposal. Three years ago this month, Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, published "The Death of Conservatism," which was supposed to be an epitaph for the right's "staid" ideology.

Today, of course, the tea party has elected members to Congress, while Tanenhaus' book can be had for as little as a penny plus postage at

Mitt Romney isn't a conservative candidate -- he's a business candidate.

(Yes, there is a difference.) Now that he's the nominee, tea party voters have rallied to Romney not because he's the next Reagan but because he's not Obama. The moderates and old party pros that touted Romney's mass appeal are the ones ringing their hands now.

So maybe the recriminations on the right are premature. There's nothing wrong with asking the questions, or seeking new blood. Limbaugh won't be on the radio forever, and the talking heads you see today will be gone tomorrow. First principles don't depend on passing personalities.

Reach Ben Boychuk, associate editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, at Reach Joel Mathis, a writer in Philadelphia, at Join the conversation at

Join the Conversation