Republican party is addicted to big government, says US TV firebrand

Glenn Beck turns fire on Republican leadership in speech to conservative activists

Ed Pilkington in New York guardian.co.uk
21 February 2010 16.58 GMT

Glenn Beck, the maverick rightwing superstar of Fox News, has underlined the extent of the Republicans' difficulties with their own disaffected core supporters by comparing the party to a recovering alcoholic.

Beck, who famously overcame his own addiction to drink and drugs before building a media empire across TV and radio, gave a speech on Saturday night to a crowd of several thousand activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. He reserved most of his trademark political bile not for the Obama administration but for the leadership of the Republican party.

A lifelong Republican voter, Beck said he no longer knew what he was voting for. "They've got to realise that they have a problem: 'Hello, my name is the Republican party, and I've got a problem. I'm addicted to spending and big government.'"

Switching metaphor, he added: "It's like somebody sticking a screwdriver in your eye and somebody else pulls it out and puts a pin in your eye. I don't want stuff in my eye."

Beck's nightly show on the Fox News channel has become a staple of seething rightwingers across America since it went on air in January last year.

In it he mixes humour, melodrama and outpourings of emotion to pump out a message of low taxes, small government, free guns and family.

The adulation of the foot soldiers of the conservative movement towards him was shown by the traditional straw poll of CPAC attendees that gave him and his fellow radio pundit Rush Limbaugh equal standing at 70% popularity.

By contrast, the national chairman of the Republican party Michael Steele could muster only 42%. The poll further highlighted the febrile mood of rightwingers when attendees gave their backing to Ron Paul for Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

He took 31% of the votes, well ahead of Mitt Romney (22%) and Sarah Palin (7%). Paul is a Republican congressman, but his true political affiliation is to libertarianism.

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