Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“I’m a Republican and a Conservative. I don’t think Donald Trump is really either a Republican or a Conservative,” author Rick Wilson told Hollywood on the Potomac at a book party in his honor at the home of Juleanna Glover and Christopher Reiter. He didn’t mince words in describing how the current administration “doesn’t uphold or represent the best values of either of my party or the movement I worked in for 30 years to help elect people all over the country. The book has been very well received. I also am incredibly honest about the journey the party has been on.” Rick Wilson is a Republican political strategist, media consultant and author who has produced televised political commercials for governors, U.S. Senate candidates, super PACs, and corporations. en.wikipedia.org
Rick Wilson
Wilson went on to explain why he is kind of a lone voice in wanting his party back: “Fear of retribution. Donald Trump’s word in the Republican primary is a pretty strong selling point. [Another] reason they don’t say anything is they don’t really have any fear greater than the fear of Fox News. Fox has a dominant power over Republican voters that is hard to substitute or hard to imagine anything that could be more powerful.”
Hostess Juleanna gave guests a moment to reflect on the life of Senator John McCain: “It really is a painful punch to the gut that he’s not with us anymore, so if we could all just take a moment and just think on him for a moment …thank you. So last night was very sad.”
“I have been so gratified by the reception and the encouragement to do this book and to get this message out there,” said Wilson as he addressed the guests, “and to have a conversation that is basically like the smart-ass, sailor-language conversation you would have with me sitting around having a couple of cocktails. And I do love a couple of cocktails. I wrote this in a pretty big hurry in the spring of this year in 89 days. There are a lot of things you’ll read in the book that, if you know, you’ve heard me talking about. If you’re sitting around the dinner table with me, or if you’ve seen me on TV, or you read the things I’ve thought about … a lot of the themes in this were things that I really strongly believe in. I’ve been incredibly gratified by the reviews of the book, by the reception of the book, by the many many people, including a lot of them who consider themselves behind enemy lines, who can’t come out and say anything yet.”
The guests briefly engaged the author in a Q and A. As to whether or not he thought there would ever be another John McCain he replied: “I do not think we will ever see another John McCain ……. the good and the bad …… the guy who could be elbows out, in your face and you hated it. And the guy who could be elbows out, in your face and you loved it. John came from a unique moment in American history. What I loved about John McCain is that gleam in the guy’s eye when he was having fun doing good things and having fun being disruptive. The guy loved life, right up ’til the clock stopped. And I don’t think we’re gonna see a lot of guys like that, although I’m hopeful.”
Nick Massella And Judy Woodruff
“There’s a generation rising right now, these guys that went out and they fought in Afghanistan, they fought in Iraq, they fought in the War on Terror all over the world. And they’ve had some formative experiences that weren’t like the normal Republican jack-ass candidate. I think a lot of these military guys that are rising up now … and, frankly, the Democrats have some phenomenal candidates who are from the military. Watch Dan McCready in North Carolina; that kid’s gonna be a rock star and the Conor Lambs of the world.”
“And I guess the other surprising part,” Wilson concluded, “is that as cynical and dark and terrible as these times are, that the closing end of the book is actually pretty optimistic. This is not an impossible hill to climb, to rebuild a conservative party. I do think there is still a necessity to have a party that is about limited government and constitutional adherence and fiscal discipline and all these things that are completely no longer fashionable in today’s GOP. But it ends on a high note which for me, if I’m optimistic about something, it’s kind of a thing.”
