By Mr. Curmudgeon:
Republican talk radio is not happy with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's performance. In particular, Laura Ingraham. And like most Republican Party boosters, she chalks it up to Romney's campaign advisers.
"If you can't beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party. Shut it down. Start new with new people, because this is a gimme election, or at least it should be.
"I keep going back to the millions and millions of dollars that are paid to these political consultants. Election after election, we hire people who've lost previous campaigns, who've run campaigns that have failed, who have message campaigns where the message fell flat, and they keep getting re-hired.
"If you're Mitt Romney, with all of your expertise, and all of your knowledge about how the economy works, and you're in this, and you have one shot ... Man, this is going to be the first line of your obituary - you won or you lost. It's all on the line for the country and it's all on the line for you."
Ingraham is too kind. It's easy to blame the help. It's a lot harder to blame the candidate. Back in the day, "message campaigns" emanated from candidates and not consultants. Lincoln hated slavery; Reagan hated the despotism of Marxism. Both of these ideas were unpopular with a number of Americans in their day.
Meanwhile, radio host Mark Levin is equally frustrated. "I should not have to play clips of Milton Friedman for Mitt Romney to explain his problem with his position on minimum wage. I should not have to argue with Mitt Romney's appointed hacks to explain the problem with RomneyCare. I shouldn't have to explain to Mitt Romney why he shouldn't feel guilty about his wealth and that he can explain to the American people more broadly why we want wealth creation in this country.
"Because only that way can we lower unemployment. Only that way can we save the housing market. Only that way, through capitalism, wealth creation, productivity, can the American dream be returned.
"Now if I can explain this in literally 3 minutes, why can't he?"
Reacting to MSNBC host Chris Matthew's claim that an Obama win this November means the end of conservatism, radio host Rush Limbaugh said, "Nope, if Obama wins, it's the end of the Republican Party. There's going to be a third party that's going to be orientated towards conservatism - or Rand Paul thinks libertarianism.
"If Obama wins, the Republican Party will try to maneuver things so conservatives get blamed. The only problem is right now, Romney is not running a conservative campaign."
The Democratic Party once had its conservative, moderate and liberal wings. That's all over. Obama's Saul Alinsky influence has transformed it into a leftist, authoritarian movement. The collectivist rants televised from their convention stage last week proved the point.
The Republican National Convention was equally disappointing. Speaker after speaker insisted that the Republican Party does not exist to bury Progressivism but to save it.
America's major political parties are two wings, left and center, of the same political ideology - Progressivism. It's a misnomer, therefore, to say the rise of a constitutional, small-government party represents a third player. In reality, it would restore America's traditional two-party system.
That means the Tea Party has two paths standing before it: If Romney wins, it must re-double its efforts to change the GOP by unseating Progressive-leaning Republicans in the House and Senate. These two bodies are where GOP candidates for president hail from. Second, if Romney loses, rendering the Republican Party irrelevant, networking with libertarian and other liberty-centered groups should begin in earnest, with an eye toward the establishment of a small-government political party.
It's time Republican talk-radio hosts stop blaming political consultants. If Republican candidates are devoid of conservative ideas, it's because the party hierarchy discourages them. The problem IS the Republican Party.
Change it or dump it.
