Leaderless

In 1993 Rush Limbaugh made a bet.

He was invited to speak at that year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the first after Bill Clinton’s election, but he had to pass. In his place, he sent a reporter who asked attendees if they would wager a million dollars against Clinton’s economic plan.

Just-retired Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney wanted a piece of it. Newt Gingrich, who was then the House Republican Minority Leader, thought Rush would win the bet.

How were the 1990s for you?

The Conservative Political Action Conference is a yearly gathering of conservative activists, commentators and elected officials. Predictably, such a partisan gathering is on the fringe of American politics. However, the conference draws an audience before which nearly every Republican presidential candidate will have to make their case.

This year Limbaugh not only showed up, he gave the keynote address.

Looking back on the Clinton years, it is easy to oversimplify the relationship between presidents and the economy. Clinton presided over eight years of economic growth, but a lot of that growth can be attributed to other factors, such as the dot-com boom. Many of Clinton’s economic policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, were arguably conservative.

Yet Clinton did end up raising taxes, even while his willingness to move to the center demonstrated that the Democratic Party isn’t dominated by big government fanatics. Clinton was pushing more liberal policies early in his first term, but it was a failure of conservative imagination to think Republicans were fighting the heavily interventionist Democrats of the 1960s and ’70s.

At the beginning of this year’s conference, attendees filled out ballots with their preference for the 2012 race. A lot of the names should be familiar to anyone who followed the 2008 Republican presidential primary.

I was amused to see Ron Paul’s name on the list. Of all the volunteers I saw on campus, his certainly had the most character.

New faces on the list include moderates like Florida Gov. Charlie Christ and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (but alas, no Mitch Daniels).

On the flipside were potential candidates like Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor who talked of rejecting stimulus funds.

Now former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich also got buzz, though I imagine he has as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as Paul.

Even with some potential candidates in attendance, it was Limbaugh’s speech that most attendees were really excited about.

It was difficult to wade through. He went 55 minutes over his 30-minute time slot, and much of the speech was about himself. Other than that, it was mostly a series of conservative platitudes interwoven with jokes about the fondness Democrats supposedly have for Joseph Stalin. His talk of liberal big government had about as much substance as it did in 1993.

Does conservative talk radio really deserve the criticism (or attention) it gets? Ideas, after all, do have to be marketed. 

But merely rehashing conservative ideology doesn’t make someone the next Ronald Reagan. Limbaugh feels he is back in the ’90s, ready to lead another “Republican Revolution.” Yet the man gets far too much credit for Republican gains in 1994, and 2010 doesn’t look like it will be so bad for Democrats.

Rush isn’t really leading the Republican Party. His presence merely signifies that for now, they have no leadership.