Ronald Reagan's Message Of Inclusion (Bill Boyarsky On How The Gipper Tamed A Rough Right

Los Angeles Times ^ | 06/7/04 | Bill Boyarsky

[goldstategop]

Bill Boyarsky's point is the conservative movement can't be ideologically pure. We have to reach out to people who don't agree with us 100% on all of our goals so we can have a majority. We want to be in so we can get what we can take and fight for the rest later. Ronald Reagan understood this. So does Arnold Schwarzenegger. As along as we make conservatism inclusive without sacrificing our principles, we will win.

[Little Bill]

Are you proposing a return to country club Republicanism?

[goldstategop]

No I'm not. All I'm point out with 36% of the population, conservatives are not yet a majority. We have to convince people who aren't brain-dead liberals they're better off with us than with the other side. That's why Ronald Reagan made a connection with people who didn't agree with him on every issue. We need to do the same.

[NCPAC]

The conservative "movement" has always consisted of a number of smaller "movements" and conservative-based belief systems. Always. The genius of Ronald Reagan is that he knew this and managed to corral all the various segments of the Right under one tent. Reagan knew intrinsically that 75% is better than 0%.

Early in his first term, many on the social conservatives were openly disappointed with Ronald Reagan (Paul Weyrich, President of the CSFC stated his own early disappointment in a Newsmax column this past week). Richard Viguerie, Howie Phillips, Ed McAteer, all publicly expressed various degrees of disappointment. The core groups most enthralled by Reagan early on were the neo-cons, the supply siders, and the more libertarian leaning rightwingers. They were more willing to work with the social conservatives than the social conservatives were willing to work with them - yet Reagan for the most part managed to hold the whole thing together by his overall set of beliefs and the courage he had in expressing his convictions.

For all President Reagan did for his country (and does now even in death), what makes me smile most is when I look at just how many talented and energized younger Republicans (under 35) there are today who say they are Republican because of Ronald Reagan or because of their respective parents - who were, or became, Republicans because of Ronald Reagan.

This group of younger GOP'rs, at least the voluminous number of those with whom I have worked directly and personally, are more libertarian leaning and neo-con than many of our social-con brethren would like - but they are Reagan Republicans through and through.

[Little Bill]

Conservative Politics is like Conservative Churches, if you have principles you grow, as long as you maintain them.

We are 40% of the Republican Party, 50% in Mass, and our Rino's still ignore us. Ronnie would have been a Greater Prez if he hadn't listened to the FDR pubbies. People loved Reagan because he had a core set of values that were unwavering, in guy talk, he had nads that clanged.

He got into trouble when he deviated and played politics, Reagan Rats want a Prez that stands for what they stand for, Home, Country, and Family with out compromise.

[FITZ]

I don't think Reagan ever represented "country club Republicans" --- in fact it was that type who turned off his mike when he demanded it be turned back on. Reagan was a true Conservative --- but he actually had gay friends like Rock Hudson even though he wouldn't have promoted the homosexual agenda. Maybe he saw the good in people.

[FITZ]

Reagan was a true leader, I can see people who are actually liberals but when they talk about Reagan they agree with him and start talking like Conservatives --- not that they really changed completely. Some Conservatives can lead people who are already Conservatives but Reagan had the rare ability to move people into the Conservative area.

[Little Bill]

I don't think so either but people of his era, my father for example; a couple of years younger, were much further to the left than my grandfather or I for that matter.

Modern Conservatism is defined by the Goldwater agenda and revulsion to the 60's agenda. Reagan was the first to exemplify this and I don't think that, in his second term, he was well served by his advisor's.

[tkathy]

"Reagan understood that a successful political movement had to be inclusive. "

The republicans MUST be inclusive or they will cease to exist. To obsess about so called rinos instead of going after democrats is just plain head-in-the-sandism.

[FITZ]

I agree with that --- the other type of Republicans got right to work trying to reign in Reaganism --- they never wanted Reagan to win the Republican nomination in the first place. Reagan represented the Conservative takeover of the Republican party.

[Little Bill]

Look at post 9, for an example of why we are known as the stupid party.

[FITZ]

It depends on what is meant by inclusive --- Reagan was a uniter and brought people toward the Conservative side which is why he won real landslide elections. He never promoted welfare programs or homosexual agendas or abortion to be inclusive --- he liked everyone and invited everyone to follow him. He slashed government programs because he believed that people were equal and skin color or ethnic background wouldn't hold someone back and he won higher percents of minority votes than those who try other ways to be inclusive.

[Little Bill]

Reagan was an American and pointed out things that we hadn't heard during the reign of the peanut, of Killer Rabbit fame. Mainly we like being as FRee as the feds will let us, LOL, and we like to have the slaves of the world have the same FReedom.

That was a strong message to the future frogs of this world, there are some things that detente can't buy, and he backed it up, love the man.

[Carry_Okie]

Bill Boyarsky's point is the conservative movement can't be ideologically pure. We have to reach out to people who don't agree with us 100% on all of our goals so we can have a majority.

That's because Bill Boyarsky lacks the creativity to show how conservatism works to solve problems for people who would otherwise find coercive government appealing.

naysaying right-wingers huddling in Orange County and San Gabriel Valley backyards, feverishly parsing school books for signs of communist or pornographic influence

From this vantage point and considering the current product of the public schools, it looks like they were right to be parsing those books.

[Liberty Wins]

. . . naysaying right-wingers huddling in Orange County and San Gabriel Valley backyards, feverishly parsing school books for signs of communist or pornographic influence

Parents who don't check out their children's textbooks, teachers and schoolyard buddies are on the same level as parents who feed their children junk food and unlimited TV. This generation of parents is hardly aware of the 40% illiteracy rate and those who do know about it don't connect it up with their local schools.

[LibKill]

There is room for a lot of folks on the conservative side, just no socialists/communists. And no gun-confiscators. Can't and won't have that.

That said, Reagan was smart enough to take half a loaf and then come back later for the other half. Winning by increments is still winning.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump
To read later

[slowhandluke]

"The republicans MUST be inclusive or they will cease to exist. "

Too much inclusion and the Republicans become meaningless, and it doesn't matter if they exist.

[NCPAC]

Exactly. Reagan was a "Big Picture" conservative: Supply side economist, anti-communist, pro-defense, rugged individualist values from head to toe. He believed in jobs as an ecnomic program, and the family as the truest governing unit.

Further, Reagan was brilliant in his understanding (that you point out) that winning incrementally is still winning - even if the increments come years later, as in when Clinton signed the "End of Welfare As We Know It" bill. THAT was pure Reagan,...nearly a decade after Reagan had left office.

Lastly, all true Reaganites follow his 11th Commandment: "Thou Shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican." That is how you build majorities. That is how you win, even if incrementally.

[LibKill]

He believed in jobs as an ecnomic program, and the family as the truest governing unit.

Very well said. Jobs are the best way to get into the American Dream. Family is basic.

I know some immigrants, LEGAL immigrants. They came in by the law, not under the border.

They work hard, they want to make something of themselves. They give good value on a day's pay.

They're getting a piece of the American Dream, by EARNING it.

I'd trade 10 of our layabout 'the world owes me a living' types for one more of them.