[Luis Gonzalez]

"And the conservative criticism of Bush is that he proposes and campaigns for expanded funding and the intrusion of the federal government into areas like education where it has no constitutional mandate whatsoever."

You can't bring a knife to a gun fight. The game is politics, not rhetoric.

Bush has not yet begun campaigning, but one of the things that I already know will not be much of an issue in this campaign, is education, and the need for more spending. Ted Kennedy and the Democrats got every dime they wanted for education from Bush, if they try the old Democratic mantra that there's something wrong with our school system, it will backfire, we have proved that their method of throwing money at the problem is not the solution, I expect a huge move toward vouchers in the second Bush II term.

Give them enough rope...

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

There are huge numbers of "Zell Miller types" coming over to the Pubbie side. I expect many (10%)of the Lieberman supporters to come over to our side as well. The current DUmocrat party has pushed the moderates out. Kerry is a Ted Kennedy clone and the moderates won't support him...

[George W. Bush]

Give them enough rope...

Luis, you are an hopeless optimist.

I'll merely point out that there are certain divisions of responsibility, federal/state/local, that are a part of divided government.

When the Dims finally get back into power and seize control of Bush's federal intrusion into education, I think you're going to regret your naivete. Hopefully it won't happen. But I've seen this stuff happen too many times.

Federalizing anything other than defense and highway systems is, in general, a liberal tactic. That's the Dim's game, not ours.

You should understand, Luis, that for me Bush's federalization of education is personal. Because of Bush's agenda in education, I will not run for a third term. It would be entirely futile. Maybe eight years is enough anyway. I know a lot of other conservative education activists who have reached the same conclusion.

The Clinton gang never defeated us. Bush has.