If the GOP listens to David Frum, I might vote Conservative again someday

Newsweek has what I think is a point-on article by David Frum, a conservative with some impressive credentials, titled “Why Rush is Wrong.” The piece details the political suicide Rush Limbaugh is inciting within the GOP in exchange for his personal financial gain. I resonated strongly with this article, and I think I would enjoy having a conversation with Mr. Frum. I think we’d agree on quite a lot.

Frum laments Limbaugh’s cultlike power and damage it has done to what used to be the conservative party in the US. He describes the carnage resulting from the GOP’s recent two-decade binges. He implicitly defies all Limbaugh seems to stand for by doing this without any of Limbaugh’s invective, exaggeration, or fear-mongering (for something a little less measured, see Frank Schaeffer’s piece in HuffPo). Here are my favorite bits:

You don’t have to accept Al Gore’s predictions of imminent gloom to accept that it cannot be healthy to pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere … as a party of property owners we should be taking [conservation] values more seriously.

Above all, we need to take governing seriously again. Voters have long associated Democrats with corrupt urban machines, Republicans with personal integrity and fiscal responsibility… After Iraq, Katrina and Harriet Miers, Democrats [dominated polls] on the competence and ethics questions. And that was before we put Sarah Palin on our national ticket.

Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don’t appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder… Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? …if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, [voters] will vote against us.

To stem this onrush of disastrous improvisations [e.g., increases in Medicaid, SCHIP, and federal debt], conservatives need every resource of mind and heart, every good argument, every creative alternative and every bit of compassionate sympathy for the distress that is pushing Americans in the wrong direction. Instead we are accepting the leadership of a man with an ego-driven agenda of his own, who looms largest when his causes fare worst.

Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? … To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit—or to serve?

That is music to my formerly-Republican ears. Sadly, some core Republicans seem to value loyalty over reason. They especially hate having the party’s dirty laundry aired to outsiders. I can hope the GOP responds to advice like that given in this article, but many Republicans will consider the act of giving such advice in public to be treason. I expect Mr. David Frum’s political life will get worse before it gets bettter.