Posted on 02/01/2008 7:31:58 PM PST by Richard Kimball
Jeez!
If I weren’t ROFL at that pic, I would hit “Report Abuse”.
Thanks so much for posting this great photo. We miss him SO much.
“...I suspect that the Limbaugh types will join the cheerleading team before November even if McCain is the nominee....”
I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that Limbaugh will “cheerlead” for McCain. He might haltingly announce he’s voting for him, but that’s about it. McCain has stabbed too many conservatives in the back to have any cheerleaders among us. I would not vote for him under any circumstance but I know some conservatives will and I will understand why. But Rush jumping up and down for McCain—??? As the Duke once said, “That’ll be the day.”
“...I was a fan of Pat Buchanan’s for a few months. But it gradually became more and more evident that he was a nut case. In fact, I first began getting the clue when I had lunch with an associate editor of First Things around the time of the New Hampshire primary....”
Pat Buchanan is not a nut case.
It is true that he shares an anti-Israel bias that is actually commonly found among paleos of a certain age.
I grew up with such people and always split with them on the Israel matter.
But Pat is otherwise a brilliant guy who cares deeply about his country and has worked tirelessly for conservative causes including for Ronald Reagan.
He’s NOT anti-Semetic; he’s anti-Israel, which is quite a different thing. I do NOT agree with anything he says about Israel or our important relationship with them.
But this is just one matter among hundreds and on most of the others if not all he is brilliant and thought-provoking.
Of course he had no business running for president but that’s less his fault than it is the fault of our miserable electoral process that freezes out thinking people.
Whether they know it or not, today’s generation of conservatives owe Pat a lot for keeping the faith through many rough years and times.
Leave it to someone from the media to “convince” you that one of our best minds is a “nut case.” I worked most of my life in the media too. And Pat Buchanan has my complete respect except for a single issue. (And I wish I could say THAT about anyone running for president right now.)
What Ronaldus Magnus did was pull the party leftward with his so-called "big tent theory".
This coalition was comprised of religious and social conservatives, economic conservatives and small government libertarians. As much as anything else, his brilliance was about the fact that he was able to keep this coalition together. In the twenty years since Reagan left office, the coalition has cracked sometimes, but now it is rent asunder.
Of course! drifting leftward is a losing strategy. The authentic right noticed too late what ol' Dutch did, blinded as they were by his anti-communism which was his one saving grace.
There is little difference in the candidate platforms between Obama and Hillary. Both are socialists.
The author is too kind.
The Democratic race has become about identity politics and personalities. Many weak Democrats and independents are, I believe, uncomfortable with this situation, and are really considering changing parties.
Wishful thinking.
Karl Rove once said about disgruntled conservatives, “Where are they going to go?” In 2006 they went nowhere. They stayed home and the Republicans got creamed.
Karl Rove: poster boy for "big tent politics".
In 1992, Pat Buchanan shattered the Reagan coalition.
Uh, no. THAT honor goes to the Bush family. Bush I:"Read my lips, no new taxes". Buchanan pointed out that Bush squandered the legacy of Reagan when he broke that promise.
He had a lot of help from the first President Bush, and Ross Perot finished the job, but Buchanan was the initial architect.
Kill the messenger.
It wasn’t so much that Buchanan ran against a sitting president as the way he did it. Ronald Reagan ran against Gerald Ford in 1976 without damaging the party as a whole. Buchanan took discontent with Bush’s moderation...
Bush's "moderation"?!. Good one!
... and fanned it into an ugly party war. He attracted supporters, but alienated far more people than he attracted.
No the Bushes have done that, thank you. Keep on spinning. Everybody do the neocon rag...
When Buchanan left the party, most Republicans breathed a sigh of relief.
And got Bush II! A bigger government than the Clintons gave us! Hooray.
As a whole, the party decided that it was better to have Buchanan outside the house throwing rocks, than inside.
Well, the neocons did anyway. If you love big government conservatism then you loved Bush.
Buchanan went to Ross Perot’s old Reform Party, which immediately collapsed, because he did the same thing there that he did in the Republican Party.
The "party" had no real principles and therefore was doomed to collapse. One should say that W did to the republicans what Perot did for his party. Can't blame Buchanan for the last elections; it's all neoconism 101.
He alienated more people than he attracted. He lost all political influence, and became totally irrelevant. His supporters had no place to go. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats believed that Pat and his supporters were worth the problems.
This former republican believes that W was and is not worth the problems. Welcome to McCain country, thank W and leave Pat out of it.
Seeing as how under LBJ the immigration laws have been reconfigured to discriminate AGAINST European immigration, his Pro-European paean bothers me not in the least.
I love the charges of anti-Semitism. I stopped listening when I heard many Jewish groups declaring the Gospels "anti-Semitic". When beating a dogma, I guess any stigma will do.
True.
See post #45.
As Romney has become better known over the past year, his unfavorables have gone UP.
So has the percentage of the population that says it definitely will not vote for him. That’s now at 47%.. hardly promising.
Nor is he as unknown as you think. With 42% saying they have a favorable opinion of him and 48% unfavorable, only 10% failed to express an opinion of him to Ras.
If you are right, then that is all the more reason to shut down the McCain slime machine ASAP.
The pieces and parts are still out there, waiting for a leader with vision to call them together. Conceptually, it isn't that complicated. But apparently we have no men of stature waiting in the wings.
None of the current candidates can authentically claim the banner of small, limited government--vigorous national defense--traditional American values--economic freedom--and most of all, the unabashed embrace of American exceptionalism.
Find me a guy who fills that bill and I'll show you a future two term president.
Very good analysis - I think you nailed it.
That reason gets less true every election cycle. The government grew more under Bush than Clinton.
That's as concise and elegant a description of what many of us are looking for as I've seen.
Unfortunately, the fire departments have brought this upon themselves. After 9/11, the Feds unleashed massive amounts of money in the form of grants, and departments scooped up the money while asking for more. The Feds complied, but the usual strings were attached. You take the money, they own you.
“...None of the current candidates can authentically claim the banner of small, limited government—vigorous national defense—traditional American values—economic freedom—and most of all, the unabashed embrace of American exceptionalism.
Find me a guy who fills that bill and I’ll show you a future two term president....”
Rick Santorum.
There is no conservative to endorse.The Republicans running are Democrats with a defense tendency that is anathema to organizational Democrats. Other than on Defense these guys are all Democrats.
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