RUSH: The UK Telegraph. They got a picture here of Bob Dole. Right there. See that? Bob Dole. Bob Dole is now 89 years old and still eats steak, so he’s a good guy. If you’re 89 and still eating steak, you’re cool.
However, the headline of the story: “Bob Dole Urges Mitt Romney to Confront Republican Party Right Wing — Mr. Dole, a former Kansas Senator defeated by Bill Clinton 16 years ago, said the party should follow his example of ‘mainstream’ Republicanism and become more appealing to ethnic minorities and young people to secure its future. ‘We have got to be open,’ he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. ‘We cannot be a single-issue party or single-philosophy party.’ He added: ‘There’s a big split in our party. There’s this undercurrent of rigid conservatism where you don’t dare not toe the line.'”
Now, I would simply ask Senator Dole, “Did you win or did you lose with your mainstream attack? Did you even get close?” I would ask Senator Dole, “Can you show me in the past where your approach won?” This is the thing that bamboozles us all. These guys who are the architects of defeat tell us we have to be more like them. And yet you go back and you find landslide Republican victories — either the House takeover in ’94 or Reagan in ’80 and ’84, what do you find? Conservatism. Proud, unafraid, unembarrassed conservatism.
Now, mainstream may work for Viagra, but I don’t think it’s going to win the White House. But you see, God bless him, the problem is this conservative wing of the party, and it’s us who are single issue, single-minded, rigid, demanding everybody toe our line? And who is it that’s on the news every day telling us that we need to change who we are? I marvel at this.
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