The incredible shrinking New Majority

Posted by Deuce Geary on November 3rd, 2009

Ace amusingly notes that the New Majority is now reduced to David Frum. So I go to check out the new site and am greeted by a post in which Frum downplays an expected Hoffman victory in NY-23. Trying to spin victories as less than victories because they’re simply not as big as Republican victories were in 1993, he offers this:

In 1993, the big problems of the voting cities and states – crime, disorder and excessive local taxation – could convincingly be laid at the doors of out-of-touch Democratic administrations. Republicans offered credible alternatives: welfare reform, broken windows policing, and reform of government spending.

Today’s big problem is the economy of course. Republicans and conservatives would like to blame the recession on the president. In time perhaps that accusation will gain greater credibility. For now, though, it’s still George Bush’s recession and we remain George Bush’s party.

Huh? Frum has been arguing a long time that we need to remain “moderate,” i.e., he wants us to be George Bush’s party, now and forever. So why does he point that out as a negative here?

Why does anyone listen to this guy? He expects us to follow his advice for the future, yet in his announcement of the conversion of New Majority to FrumForum, he admits to incredible short-sightedness (emphasis mine):

From the time we launched the New Majority site, we have had to cope with a problem with our name. Simply put, there are a lot of “New Majorities” out there. There’s one down the road in Virginia, another at the New World Foundation, a conservative 501c4 here, a liberal one there. All this generated serious confusion, but the worst was with the best known New Majority of them all, TheNewMajority in California, because their mission and ours so closely overlapped. That overlap was leading to very unnecessary conflict with people who wanted many of the same reforms that we did.

Ah, way to be forward-looking, Mr. Frum! Of course I will trust the future of conservatism to you! Why wouldn’t I?