The recent Conservative Political Action Committee conference was an angry exercise in denial and futility, with talk radio carnival barker Rush Limbaugh (the de facto leader of the Republican Party) repeating his hope that President Barack Obama “fails” so conservatives may once again succeed.

The problem is that conservatives never “succeeded” in the first place. Their anti-middle-class dogma is on the wrong side of virtually every major American public policy achievement.

Conservatives just keep repeating the same old tired slogans, and dragging the Republican Party off into a right-wing wasteland.

One of the saddest figures to participate in CPAC was Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio (Joe the Plumber). Apparently he does not grasp that he was a punch line in a flailing Republican presidential campaign. He is now an author and fair game as a public figure.

Wurzelbacher’s original contention that he was an independent confronting Obama (the original ruse) over his tax plans, which concerned Joe since he was getting ready to buy a business that grossed more than $250,000 a year. This has been proven false. Turns out Joe isn’t a licensed plumber, owed back taxes, is a right-wing Republican, and had nowhere near the personal resources to purchase the business he said he was getting ready to buy.

Perhaps the worst message about Joe the Plumber, aside from his famously intemperate, sketchy understanding of civics, is what it says about the Republican reliance on false populism that is steeped in ignorance.

Mark Tardif, Waterville