At the Media Research Center, it seems, ranting loudly is the same thing as “research.”
In a Nov. 14 press release, headlined “Media Falsely Blame Conservatism for Republican Defeat,” the MRC asserts that “Following the re-election of Barack Obama, the liberal media are shamelessly using his win over moderate Mitt Romney to scare the GOP away from re-embracing its winning conservatism message.” It quotes MRC chief Brent Bozell saying:
“We hear this from the liberal media every single time the Republicans don’t win something. They have only one solution for the Republican Party: don’t be conservative. It’s never about the failures of the candidates or a poor voter turnout effort. It’s that Republicans are too conservative – a false conclusion that ignores the successful campaigns of conservatives Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
“The liberal media discourage candidates from being conservative because it helps their preferred liberal candidates. Mitt Romney didn’t embrace the conservative base and he lost, just like Bob Dole and liberal media sweetheart John McCain. The liberal media’s rush to scare the GOP away from conservatism is a deliberate attempt to divide the party. They don’t want Republicans to embrace conservative principals [sic] because conservative Republicans win.”
But nothing Bozell or the MRC presents here disproves the idea that conservatism cost the GOP the election. Merely saying something is “false” doesn’t equal proof. And Bozell’s invoking the “the successful campaigns of conservatives Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush” ignores the fact that the American electorate has changed since the Reagan era in a way that appears to no longer favor current-day conservative policies.
Yet, as we’ve seen, this sort of thing — ranting and pre-determined conclusions — has been what passes for “research” at the MRC for years.