Chip McLean -- Rush Limbaugh: A Day Late & a Dollar Short

Why did the GOP fare so badly in the midterm elections? Every pundit has been offering up their own analysis as to why, but perhaps Rush Limbaugh's assessment is the most telling.

After months of unswerving loyalty to the White House (save for an occasional weak swipe at some of the domestic programs), Limbaugh now appears to have experienced an epiphany of sorts.

Wednesday's broadcast devoted much time to discussion of what went wrong, with the central theme being that it was the abandonment of conservative principles that resulted in those huge Republican losses. According to Limbaugh:

"It is silly to blame the media; it is silly to blame the Democrats; it is silly to go out and try to find all these excuses. We have proved that we can beat them � we have proved that we can withstand whatever we get from the drive-by media. Conservatism does that - conservatism properly applied, proudly, eagerly, with vigor and honesty will triumph over that nine times out of 10 in this current political and social environment. It just wasn't utilized in this campaign."

Republicans managed to break the Democrats' 40-year stranglehold on Congress in 1994, when they used the "Contract With America" as a means of promoting themselves as the champions of limited-government conservatism. For six years, the Republicans were able to keep Bill Clinton in check, even passing welfare reform in the process. Things weren't perfect, but the "gridlock" that existed (and was much decried by advocates of big government) at least kept the level of government spending at a level resembling sanity.

Fast forward to the George W. Bush years - with the GOP holding both branches of Congress and the White House - and any semblance of limited government went the way of hula hoops, 8 track tapes and polyester leisure suits. Congress started spending money like the proverbial drunken sailor (although that would be insulting the frugality of drunken sailors) and Mr. Bush for his part never seemed to locate his veto pen. Unchecked, spending became greater than any time since the giddy days of LBJ's "Great Society."

During this time, we've seen big government intrusion into education with "No Child Left Behind," the enactment of an unbelievably expensive Medicare prescription drug bill and much more.

In addition there is the illegal immigration problem - one that the President seems to think will just go away if we simply grant amnesty to the millions already here illegally, and then loosen our immigration laws to allow many millions more. It's bad enough that Mr. Bush has thumbed his nose at the conservative base on this issue, claiming the illegals do the work that "Americans won't do" (not true), but when we're supposed to be fighting a "War on Terror" and nothing is being done to secure our border, the disingenuousness is not only insulting to our intelligence, but places us at great risks from terrorists as well. The President, at his press conference on Wednesday, displayed an apparent glee at the thought of working with the Dems to get his amnesty bill finally pushed through. With Pelosi and Reid in charge, he will probably get his wish.

This and the abandonment of other conservative principles led to many conservatives voting for non-Republicans, with many others simply staying home. Limbaugh spoke of this lack of conservative leadership:

"Our side hungers for ideological leadership and we're not getting it from the top. Conservatism was nowhere to be found in this campaign from the top. The Democrats beat something with nothing. They didn't have to take a stand on anything other than their usual anti-war positions. They had no clear agenda and they didn't dare offer one.

Many of us have been criticizing the President and much of the GOP - for some time now - for their abandonment of conservatism. Rush Limbaugh isn't stupid - why has he been such a consistent cheerleader for this Administration?

"I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, 'Well, why have you been doing it?' Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country's than the Democrat Party and liberalism does."

So Rush continued to openly support those he knew to be wrong because to him they represented the lesser of two evils. What Rush doesn't get is that he became part of the problem. The nation's most listened to talk radio host, instead of parroting the party line and helping to lead the lemmings over the cliff, could have used his influence to affect change within the Republican Party. If so, perhaps Tuesday's results would have been different. It of course isn't Limbaugh's "fault" that the Republicans lost, but by waiting until after the election before offering up constructive criticism, Rush has come up a day late and a dollar short.

His interest in politics began at the age of eight, when his parents took him to a Barry Goldwater rally during the 1964 presidential election. In addition to his work at CHCH, Chip's columns have appeared in a number of online conservative publications.