Americans may prefer Powell over Cheney or Limbaugh, but what about Republicans?
By Michael J.W. Stickings
A new CNN poll shows that most Americans like Colin Powell more than Tricky Dick Cheney and Dear Leader Rush, but that's not really the issue/problem, is it?
Of course Powell is more popular with the general public. Whether he deserves it or not -- and I would say not -- he remains one of America's most liked and respected political figures, with a favorable rating of 70 percent (compared to just 37 for Cheney and 30 for Limbaugh.
The question, though, isn't what Americans in general think but what Republicans think: "Among Republicans, it's a different story. The poll suggests that 66 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Cheney, 64 percent give Powell a thumbs up, and 62 view Limbaugh in a favorable way."
Much, much closer.
But the real question -- the really meaningful one -- is what grassroots Republicans think, the base and its right-wing leadership, the dominant faction in the GOP today. And there, I suspect, Powell comes in well below both Cheney and Limbaugh.
As I put it on Sunday, the Republican Party is overwhelmingly a conservative party. It is Limbaugh's party, the party of the right-wing base and its leadership both in Congress and elsewhere. There are moderate Republicans, to be sure, but they are now a decided minority in a party that has been shifting ever further rightward in recent years, notably in defeat after the '06 and '08 elections.
Powell is generally popular, yes, and he may still consider himself a Republican, but in the Republican Party, which is really where it matters, he is, as he has been for quite some time, persona non grata.
A new CNN poll shows that most Americans like Colin Powell more than Tricky Dick Cheney and Dear Leader Rush, but that's not really the issue/problem, is it?
Of course Powell is more popular with the general public. Whether he deserves it or not -- and I would say not -- he remains one of America's most liked and respected political figures, with a favorable rating of 70 percent (compared to just 37 for Cheney and 30 for Limbaugh.
The question, though, isn't what Americans in general think but what Republicans think: "Among Republicans, it's a different story. The poll suggests that 66 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Cheney, 64 percent give Powell a thumbs up, and 62 view Limbaugh in a favorable way."
Much, much closer.
But the real question -- the really meaningful one -- is what grassroots Republicans think, the base and its right-wing leadership, the dominant faction in the GOP today. And there, I suspect, Powell comes in well below both Cheney and Limbaugh.
As I put it on Sunday, the Republican Party is overwhelmingly a conservative party. It is Limbaugh's party, the party of the right-wing base and its leadership both in Congress and elsewhere. There are moderate Republicans, to be sure, but they are now a decided minority in a party that has been shifting ever further rightward in recent years, notably in defeat after the '06 and '08 elections.
Powell is generally popular, yes, and he may still consider himself a Republican, but in the Republican Party, which is really where it matters, he is, as he has been for quite some time, persona non grata.
Labels: Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, polls, Republican Party, Republicans, Rush Limbaugh
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
8:00 AM
3 Comments:
What matters in the Republican Party matters less overall as the party contracts and I believe that the party of Dick, Rush and the Wicked Witch will continue to shrink along with the economy they played such a big part in ruining.
The all purpose tax-cut means less to someone with no income to tax and so all they can do is to continue to demand more fear and war. The famine and pestilence will take care of themselves.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 10:30 AM
Jersey McJones Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 12:38 am
It’s difficult to put to words what I think about Richard Cheney.
The other day I was talking with a man who actually knows Cheney (or at least met him on a couple occasions). Apparently, everyone in Wyoming knows each other. This guy had a high opinion of the man. I remember thinking rather highly of Cheney myself some years ago. I remember when almost all - right, left, and middle - were bashing GHW Bush for neglecting to depose Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War. Bush’s decision made perfect sense to me at the time, and it made perfect sense to Richard Cheney as well. Who’d be stupid enough to want that mess?
Cheney, back then, was who we used to call a “Realist” (not many around anymore). Kissinger, Cheney, Baker, Nunn, Kemp, Reagan, and many more, these people came from that school of thought. They put reality ahead of ideology. For whatever their motives, whatever their interests, whatever their biases, they were realists - they believed there was a wall of separation between where failing ideology and reality met. Cheney gave up on that. Failure, after all, is not always unprofitable (just ask a derivative trader!).
Cheney is now proving something that I and many others suspected from the beginning of the “GW Bush” adminstration - that he, at least in many ways, was the 43rd President of the United States. He is defending his legacy, his foreign policy.
No wonder President George W Bush is keeping quiet. As far as I’d be concerned, if I were GWB, I’d be happy to give Cheney his due. And I’d be happy to let him defend his legacy. I have the feeling that one day, when Bush publishes his definitive memoires, his only contrition will be the power he ceded to people like Richard Cheney. Something tells me Bush would have been a much better president were it not for the likes of Richard Cheney (and Karl Rove and a few others). Whatever one thinks of Dubya, he’s still the kind of guy anyone could enjoy a beer with. Cheney is only the kind of guy you’d want to give you industrial military contractor investment advise, just before the war he promises to come.
JMJ
By
Jersey McJones, at 12:53 AM
"Bush would have been a much better president were it not for the likes of Richard Cheney"
I agree, but I still don't think he had anything near what it takes to deal with the modern world.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 9:03 AM
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