Conservatives Need to Get Real

The Intellectual Conservative ^ | 02 February 2004 | Scott Shore

[Lando Lincoln]

Lando

[cripplecreek]

I think we realize that to be true. Im hammering my friends on the need to vote this time around.

[Lando Lincoln]

Here is something I wrote a few days back to our FRiends FairOpinion and gatorbait. I hope to expand on it when I have a few spare minutes. I don't wish to belabor it, but it seems germane to this article.

Lando

[Austin Willard Wright]

It is interesting how the Bush supporters are no longer making the same old excuses. They used to claim that "if only the GOP controlled the Congress and the presidency" small government would be enacted. Now....they don't even have that excuse.

[Sloth]

Now it's "Just you wait til we get 60 seats in the Senate!" When and if we do, I'm sure they will think up some other excuse.

[Lando Lincoln]

First rule...do not rush, do not rush, do not rush. Here is the post I referenced.

I said it was simple, not short. But, I believe history will tell us that the leadership from this administration has been remarkable in the face of incredible pressures. This president has the press/media always looking for weakness, the left and democrats are constantly undermining his efforts, many of our so-called allies abandoned the U.S. at a critical time of need, and, the UN was worse than worthless. At a time when the economy was reeling from a cyclic recession coupled with the costs of September 11. Yet, through it all, we have removed a despot, planted the seeds for democracy in the “swamp” of the Middle East, and the economy is on the upswing.

And – I think this gets overlooked sometimes – this President and his advisors understand POLITICS. Tim Russert said last nite on the Dennis Miller Show that demographics have changed considerably since the 2000 election. More elderly, more “minorities”, more urban voters, etc. Russert said that if the 2000 vote were held with today’s demographics, GWB would lose the popular vote by over 3 MILLION votes!!! That struck me. It is easy to carp from the relative security of the sidelines over GWB’s proposed immigration plan, or his changes to the prescription drug plan, or his proposed social security changes, or even the Patriot Act. But this President knows that to see his WOT through his potential 8 years in office, he must appeal to those “margin” groups that the democrats have so successfully exploited since at least FDR. To do otherwise is to surrender the 2004 election – at great peril for our nation. I believe, with all my heart that our President understands this intuitively, instinctively and intellectually. I can’t imagine a Hillary or a Gore or a Kerry or a Dean or an Edwards in charge over our very survival.

So I ask, what is the real cost of GWB’s proposed spending?

My new best FReeper FRiend has it right (apologies to all my other best FReeper Friends). This is the most important election cycle since 1940. I will vote for GWB and the republican ticket. If I were to do otherwise, I would be denying my young sons what I believe is the best shot at a secure future.

Lando

[Grut]

If we reward Bush with unearned support, we will get 'more of the same'. Shrieking that "the Democrats are coming!" is just a bogeyman tactic, and a false one at that since the RINOs are already here.

Bush is not a conservative; he's not even much of a Republican; who he resembles most closely is FDR, who was strong on defense but saw federal programs as the best way to deal with the country's problems.

[prairiebreeze]

bump and ping to your #6

Prairie

[steve50]

Bush is not a conservative; he's not even much of a Republican; who he resembles most closely is FDR,

A FDR republicans bump, or since he's supposedly a Texan now maybe a LBJ republican bump.

[onyx]

Thanks for the ping.

Lando, you're a smart and savy young man. Good to know you and to know you're one of us.

[eyespysomething]

He's got my vote this time around, although I am unhappy with his spending, at least the House looks like they'll take it on.

2008? We'll have to see.

[KantianBurke]

[Henrietta]

Yep. And if he loses, maybe the next Republican to be elected will think twice before abandoning the base of conservative voters.

Or more likely, they'll just keep doing what Bush is doing now, and be one-term presidents. They never learn.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Yep.

[Columbine]

Good job, Mr. Lincoln!

Not everyone here is a Kerry supporter although it seems like it in this thread so far.

[Wolfstar]

Bravo, Lando, for writing with such conviction and clarity of thought. Your post is very encouraging to me. Maybe it's only the late winter doldurms, but I've been discouraged lately. With all the carping from those who claim to be on the right side of the political divide in this country, I fear we may be on the verge of putting yet another 60's radical into the presidency.

People seem to have forgotten the devastating legacy of the Clinton presidency — if they ever really understood that legacy at all. But Bill Clinton is not an idealogue. Kerry is. If we think Clinton's presidency was bad, we ain't seen nothing yet if Kerry gets in.

The idea that this nation would be so foolish as to install Kerry as president just three years after the events of late 2001 is just devastating to me.That every single right-of-center person in this country isn't standing up and working as hard as they can for GWB's re-election is mind-boggling. I am beginning to think that perhaps right-of-center people are genuine paper tigers.

I mean, they are the ones who always claim to be strong on defense. They always claim to want to march to the borders to keep the illegals out. They are the ones who talk tough about the 2nd Amendment, and religious freedom, and so on. But the left keeps winning. Why? Are the Republican leaders in Congress the only empty suits on the right? Or is it maybe that they are that way because we in the right-of-center grassroots are empty suits, too?

[Wolfstar]

They never learn.

THEY never learn?!! Puhleeze. If that isn't the laugh of the day, I don't know what is. Who never learns? It seems to me the answer is as clear as the posts on this thread from you, AWW, and others.

[plain talk]

dittos. I've been on board.

[Terpfen]

"But this President knows that to see his WOT through his potential 8 years in office, he must appeal to those “margin” groups that the democrats have so successfully exploited since at least FDR. To do otherwise is to surrender the 2004 election – at great peril for our nation."

You mean like how Reagan did in 1984? Please.

[Henrietta]

"THEY never learn?!! Puhleeze. If that isn't the laugh of the day, I don't know what is. Who never learns? It seems to me the answer is as clear as the posts on this thread from you, AWW, and others."

I learned that if you keep voting for Dem lite, you'll continue to get Dem lite. Now that Bush has unmasked himself as Dem lite, I'll not vote for him.

If you want to, be my guest. As I said, they never learn!