One sentence synopsis: In order to win elections, conservatives must become liberals.
What Jonah misses is that Bush’s Compassionate conservatism and Romney’s mushy whatever it was are NOT the only two choices.
Clearly articulating why conservatism itself WORKS, and therefore IS compassionate, would be something not tried in a long time.
Won’t work.
The conservatives won’t vote for you, contribute to you, or work for you.
In a competition between a “real Liberal” and a “sorta-Liberal” the real Liberal will win almost every time. After all, there is no limit to the amount of other people’s money he is willing to spend.
In order to win elections, conservatives must stop voter fraud.
“One sentence synopsis: In order to win elections, conservatives must become liberals”
I concur. I have never found Jonah difficult to read. This is a chaotic, illogial jumble of words painful to read as was watching Bush fumble around with the Constitution.
Ugh!
I think that, in order to win, conservatives must not allow liberals to paint them as heartless. I thought Bush was on to something when he referred to “the soft bigotry of low expectations”, showing how government hand-holding of the poor is patronizing them and limiting their futures. I thought “compassionate conservatism” was an effective pushback.
Conservatives have to quit being made out to be like social darwinists. Americans don’t want to be that. Americans want to see themselves as givers and (voluntary) sharers. To capture that spirit, conservatives have to demonstrate that private charity, when freely and wisely used, can benefit the giver, the recipient, the community, and can leave government entirely out of it. I have to say, as a newly minted conservative, one of my sticking points was that I really didn’t believe that people would give willingly often enough to really be of significant help. It took statistics about the generosity of conservatives relative to liberals, and participation in community activites run by volunteers to help me see how often conservatives give what is needed, where needed.
I knew that would be the first response, but I don’t see it that way.
Compassionate Conservatives are not “democrat-lite”. Instead we apply conservative principles to lift people up, create wealth, and enhance personal freedom. I’m talking about myself and others, I don’t speak for GWB or know what was in his heart. Nor do I know what this author believes, but there is no dichotomy between having compassion for others and believing strongly in conservatism.
There are good, compassionate people on both sides of the aisle. but WE are the ones who look at government as the CAUSE, not the solution to problems. We are the ones who know that only through personal freedom and the exercise of God-given rights can people truly prosper and enjoy the blessings of liberty.
Bush was an open borders RINO who also never saw a spending bill he didn’t like. His lasting legacy will be his gift of the socialist Obama to the American people. No Obama if Bush had governed like a conservative. No Bush, no Obama. Never forget that fact. I am so tired of hearing the words Bush and Clinton. One in the same.
One sentence synopsis: In order to win elections, conservatives must become liberals.”
Maybe that’s true. Maybe.
But it might also be true that conservatives win elections when they become conservatives. Problem is, we don’t know enough about that possibility because we haven’t had a conservative run since 1984.
We’ve had one sort of to the right of the moderate pack run in 2000 and 2004. And he barely won twice. But all the other times, the moderate lost.
So I’m not sure that the moderate path is the winning one......
Exactly. And that is the attitude over at the once great NR.
He, Lowry and others are in full “bend over and take it” mode as long as they can “elect” moderate, spineless cowards.