“You probably have no concept of the anger of conservatives at the Republican Party; you can cut it with a knife,” said Richard Viguerie, a prominent conservative activist.
“Conservatives are off the Republican reservation big time,” he said. “They lied to us. They said they were different from the Democrats — ‘We’re the party of small government, we’re the party of balanced budgets and small spending’ — and it was all lies.”
Some Republican lawmakers think the best way to dispel the anger is to admit mistakes and try to regain voters’ trust.
“In a very broad sense, I don’t think people trust us,” said Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.). “We said we were fiscal conservatives and we didn’t act like it.
“We said we were a party trying to uphold morality and the right thing and we had indictments and people going to jail,” he said, in reference to former Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) and Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who went to prison on corruption convictions.
Campbell begins his speeches to constituents by acknowledging his party’s mistakes.
“If I don’t start with that lead-in, they’ll discount everything I say,” he said.
But Campbell and other Republicans are not optimistic about the prospect of revamping the party’s reputation by November.
“It would be very, very difficult,” he said.
Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the House Republican whip, thinks it’s too ambitious to try to overhaul the GOP brand in the next few weeks. He said strategists should tailor their strategy to specific states and districts.
“While you’d always rather have the wind at your back than the wind in your face, House races are really district-by-district politics,” he said. “The Republicans running in open Republican seats don’t have to defend Washington, and they’re probably not.”
Blunt said candidates running against incumbent Democrats would benefit from the nation’s general anti-incumbent mood.
A recent Gallup poll showed that over 50 percent of registered voters say that most members of Congress do not deserve reelection.
Blunt and other Republicans believe that high gas prices and Democratic opposition to lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling will counter the skepticism many voters feel toward the GOP.
“This energy issue is the first time in two years that anybody’s paid any attention to anything we were saying, and we need to keep talking about it because it’s one of the real examples of the differences between us and [the Democrats],” Blunt said.
Nevertheless, most Republicans interviewed said it would be very difficult to revive the GOP brand before November.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), an outspoken fiscal conservative, said the party has done little to differentiate itself from Democrats on issues other than energy policy.
“The energy thing is a gift,” he said. “But if gas dips down to $3.50 and people are less concerned about it, what do we got? Not much.”
Flake cited House Republicans’ failure to stay together and vote to sustain Bush’s veto of a $300 billion farm bill, which conservatives criticized as a wasteful package of unnecessary government subsidies.
But Flake said the good news, from Republicans’ perspective, is that McCain understands the importance of renewing the party’s commitment to fiscal discipline and limited government.
“Talk to McCain, he has a pretty good feel, he’s been around the country more than most of us, and he can tell you this is why the voters left us: fiscal issues,” said Flake.
Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), another prominent House conservative, agreed that taking a strong stand on spending will heal the rift between the party and much of its base.
He said the party must return to its core principles of limited government, fiscal discipline, traditional values and government reform.
Pence, taking the same view as DeMint and other lawmakers, said McCain’s ascension to party leader created a chance to convince voters quickly that the party has transformed itself.
“The goal in this election, and I think we’ve got a good opportunity with John McCain, is to get back to core principles,” he said.
Pence noted that McCain was one of the few Republican senators “who very publicly opposed” the Medicare prescription drug bill of 2003, a measure that disillusioned many conservatives.
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