Rush's Dream Journal

Republicans drifted through much of 2012 in trickle-down fantasyland, self-deporting to a mystical world where Mitt Romney's rightward shift during the primary helped their candidate. Election Day shook the party awake, forcing Republicans to reckon with their purity problem. Louisiana Governor and 2016 wannabe Bobby Jindal disavowed Romney's they-just-want-gifts comment all last week, and the Sunday shows featured a barrage of Republicans disparaging the man they had envisioned as president. "We’re in a death spiral with Hispanic voters because of rhetoric around immigration," said Senator Lindsey Graham. "And candidate Romney and the primary dug the hole deeper."

On Meet the Press, GOP strategist Mike Murphy shared the view that "the biggest problem Mitt Romney had was the Republican primary." But Murphy strayed a little too close to the third rail of conservative politics when he said the party shouldn't base its views on "Rush Limbaugh’s dream journal." Rush, of course, never takes a critique lightly. "The Republican primary, as far as [Murphy is] concerned, there were too many conservatives in it saying too many stupid things," Rush said on his radio show this afternoon. He also mocked the claim that his audience—15 million strong—is an unrepresentative slice of America. "Okay, so you people are all white, 65 and over, and you live in the sticks. And you are screwing up the Republican Party, because you are believing what I say. This is their explanation for having lost."

The media and political class quickly embraced that explanation on November 7, and Rockefeller Republicans reappeared shortly thereafter—you know, the conservatives who just want to limit government, not destroy it; who can find a middle ground on immigration reform instead of expelling 12 million people; who don't mind gay marriage, just want it left to the states. But you can't look to the rhetoric of political elites to judge whether the Republican Party will actually change the substance of its policy. That's a decision in the hands of the conservative base: Rush and his 15 million friends who reliably decide GOP primaries. And they seem none too happy about the party's return to moderation.