Republicans Can Be Populists Too

Yes, they can. They are. They can be bigots and elitist too. We saw it with John McCain & Huckabee concerning the border and immigration issues. Michelle Malkin’s column just scratches the surface, politicians these days all seem to be pandering to special groups; they are populist candidates.

What can the government do for you today?

Take Obama’s GOP presidential rival, John McCain. The New York Times-endorsed media darling got a standing ovation from the nation’s newspaper editors at a big journalism powwow in Washington this week. Some maverick. While McCain eagerly criticized Obama as an “elitist” for his derisive comments about small-town Pennsylvanians, Obama’s got nothing on McCain when it comes to insulting average Americans who oppose illegal immigration.

Pandering to the open-borders lobby as cozily as Obama panders to San Francisco billionaires, McCain has attacked grassroots enforcement activists as bitter racists and xenophobes, cursed his Senate opponents and mocked the “goddamned fence” in front of his deep-pocketed business supporters. And who can forget his disdainful admonition to conservatives, whom he berated to “calm down.”

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, McCain’s ally, infamously vowed to National Council of La Raza leaders, “We’re going to tell the bigots to shut up.” Retired GOP-Senator-turned-lobbyist Trent Lott moaned about populist conservative talk radio being a “problem” that Washington Republicans had to “deal with.”

I posted about how out-of-touch Trent Lott is after leaving congress, but staying with the beltway crowd since he knows nothing else. Malkin ref errs to her column in her blog today too.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

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