Who's Afraid of Liberalism? The GOP (by John Nichols for The Nation)

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Who's Afraid of Liberalism? The GOP
John Nichols


How scared are the folks over at the Republican National Committee as they head toward an election cycle in which their party's hold on at least one branch of the federal government – which they've enjoyed for all but two years since 1981 – could end?

Faced with the prospect that both the presidency will fall to the Democrats in 2008 as the Congress did in 2006, the RNC is scared to the point of delusion.

How delusional? This week, they've appeared to be more worried about the annual "Take Back America" conference than they are about global warming or the collapse of international regard for the United States.

Since the early days of the Bush administration, the Campaign for America's Future has organized its yearly "Take Back America" conferences in Washington each June. The conference has gone from strength to strength, growing in size and stature as the country has awoken to the reality that neoconservatives have indeed kidnapped America.

The Campaign for America's Future is a decidely mainstream group with close ties to organized labor and an approach to domestic and international issues that follows the outlines established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he set the frame for modern Democratic Party. If there is a contemporary heir to the Roosevelt traditon -- and that of his Republican rival, Wendell Willkie, who argued that the Grand Old Party was the truer champion of American liberalism -- it is the Campaign for American Future.

Now that polls suggest liberal values are making a comeback, however, the RNC has been working overtime to portray the conference as something akin to a meeting of the Supreme Soviet -- and to suggest that Democratic contenders who attend it are straying into the lunatic fringe. Nothing could be further from the truth; the fact is that there have been complaints from progressives who think the "Take Back America" conference is too tepid in its critique of Bush -- and in its willingness to call on a Democratic Congress to hold the president to account.

But such subtleties are wasted on the Republican attack machine. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=206875