"Appearing on Meet the Press, veteran strategist Mike Murphy -- no stranger to trying to drag his party away from certain ideologically-fervent posts -- warned that the ascendancy of the talk shot host to the top ranks of the GOP could result in a "permanent minority status."
"The country is changing. Ronald Reagan won in 1980 with 51% of the vote. We all worship Ronald Reagan. But if that election had been held with the current demographics in America today, Ronald Reagan would have gotten 47 percent of the vote. The math is changing. Anglo vote is 74 percent now not 89. And if we don't modernize conservatism, we are going to have a party of 25 percent of the vote going to Limbaugh rallies, joining every applause line, ripping the furniture up, we're going to be in permanent minority status."
Meanwhile, appearing on ABC's This Week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor pushed back against Limbaugh about as hard as any elected GOP official to this point. Asked if House Republicans, like Limbaugh, were hoping for the president to fail, the Virginia Republican replied:
"Absolutely not... And I don't -- I don't think anyone wants anything to fail right now. We have such challenges. What we need to do is we need to put forth solutions to the problems that real families are facing today."
Emanuel, Cantor and Murphy's remarks came a day after Limbaugh, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, reiterated his hope that Obama fail as a president - on policy not personal grounds. His address, which went over 80-minutes in length, was received enthusiastically by the crowd, which peppered him with standing applause.
huffingtonpost.com |
