Posted on 07/11/2004 10:48:58 AM PDT by Military Chick
Some Key Conservatives Uneasy About Bush
SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press
WASHINGTON - When an influential group of conservatives gathers in downtown Washington each week, they often get a political pep talk from a senior Bush administration official or campaign aide. They don't expect a fellow Republican to deliver a blistering critique of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war.
But nearly 150 conservatives listened in silence recently as a veteran of the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations ticked off a litany of missteps in Iraq by the Bush White House.
"This war is not going well," said Stefan Halper, a deputy assistant secretary of state under President Reagan.
"It's costing us a lot of money, isolating us from our allies and friends," said Halper, who gave $1,000 to George W. Bush's campaign and more than $83,000 to other GOP causes in 2000. "This is not the cakewalk the neoconservatives predicted. We were not greeted with flowers in the streets."
Conservatives, the backbone of Bush's political base, are increasingly uneasy about the Iraq conflict and the steady drumbeat of violence in postwar Iraq, Halper and some of his fellow Republicans say. The conservatives' anxiety was fueled by the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal and has not abated with the transfer of political power to the interim Iraqi government.
Some Republicans fear angry conservatives will stay home in November, undercutting Bush's re-election bid.
"I don't think there's any question that there is growing restiveness in the Republican base about this war," said Halper, the co-author of a new book, "America Alone: The Neoconservatives and the Global Order."
Some Republicans dismiss the rift as little more than an inside-the-Beltway spat among rival factions of the GOP intelligentsia. Indeed, conservatives nationwide are still firmly behind Bush. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 97 percent of conservative Republicans favored Bush over Kerry.
But anger is simmering among some conservatives.
"I am bitterly disappointed in his actions with this war. It is a total travesty," said Tom Hutchinson, 69, a self-described conservative from Sturgeon, Mo., who posted yard signs and staffed campaign phone banks for the Republican in 2000. Hutchinson said he did not believe the administration's stated rationales for the war, in particular the argument that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Hutchinson, a retired businessman and former college professor, said his unease with Iraq may lead him to do something he has not done since 1956: avoid the voting booth in a presidential election.
Jack Walters, 59, a self-described "classical conservative" from Columbia, Mo., said he hadn't decided which candidate to vote for.
"Having been through Vietnam, I thought no, never again," Walters said. "But here comes the same thing again, and I'm old enough to recognize the lame reasons given for going into Iraq, and they made me ill."
The tension has been building in official Washington, where conservative members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees have pressed the administration for answers on combat operations; disagreed with the Pentagon on troop levels; and expressed frustration with an administration they feel has shown them disdain by withholding information.
Chief political adviser Karl Rove's formula for re-election is primarily to push Bush's conservative base to the polls.
Another administration official involved in Bush's re-election effort has voiced concern that angry conservatives will sit out the election.
But Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, described the fear of losing conservative support as "just ludicrous."
Bush is "as strong among conservative Republicans as any Republican president has been" - higher than President Reagan's approval among conservatives during his re-election campaign of 1984, Dowd said.
Yet, Halper said his critical review on the administration's performance on Iraq last week was met with expressions of support in the conservatives' weekly meeting, which is closed to journalists.
The marquee speaker sent by the administration was Eric Ciliberti, who spent several weeks in Iraq this year and told the audience of broad progress being made there.
Ciliberti complained to the group that the news media was not reporting the positive developments out of Iraq. Ciliberti did not return several calls late in the past week from a reporter seeking his account.
Even if you are in a "safe" Bush state -- Bush needs your vote, he needs a large popular vote, to have a mandate.
Have you forgotten the big deal the Democrats were making, that Bush didn't win the majority of the popular vote in 2000?
Any so called "conservative" that changes their vote away from Bush because of irritation over a post at FR, probably needs therapy, and sooner rather than later. The whole notion is totally ludicrous.
FO's been told this time and again. Maybe this time it'll "sink in" (you certainly expressed it eloquently), but I doubt it. I believe she's more interested in Internet battles than achieving real, meaningful change.
You've got that right.
You don't think some anti-Jew hick nobody ever heard of until now, except at antiwar.com, is a "key" conservative? What's wrong with you?
I'm sorry. I won't let it happen again.
Who are you? This war was necessary and God bless President Bush.
Scott Lindlaw -- King of AP media bias, using push-stories to split the base. Typical. He'll go out and find people to give the "right" soundbites. Pay him no heed.
That's a typical neocon attitude: marginalize the conservative base in order to pander to the liberals.
These so called "anonymous sources" are nothing more than a way of a reporter to state his or hers ideas and give it in this case a conservative spin. BUSH 2004!!! Because We Must!!!
Talking about FO without pinging him!
As FR's thread nanny, surely this was a gross
oversight on your part, huh nanny?
It's understandably why. I've held all along since the last election that Bush is a "one trick pony". Now that the 04 race is in the homestretch and it has been disclosed that two or more oh his pony's "legs are broken", what else can his supporters think other than doubt.
I am and have been a conservative independent and voted for Bush (actually against Gore) in 2000 but the bullsh*t of voting for someone not because they are the best candidate but in essence voting against their opponent never solves anything. On the contrary, it perpetuates the problem.
Therefore I hope my vote will REALLY count this time around as I vote for Kerry to KEEP Hillary OUT in 2008. She is definitely the worse of ALL evils.
Not that you'd ever talk about someone without pinging them, right? Pot, kettle and all that...
Yes, this is just another proxy puff piece article for an anti-Bush hit piece book.
I read Halper's American Spectator article, a synopsys of his book, where he made the bold and totally false claim that Reagan would not have approved of liberating Iraq. This neo-isolationist totally distorted the real Reagan record of supporting freedom fighters world-wide and Reagan's pro-active anti-Communist work from supporting Polish unions to deploying intermediate missiles, and missed the who point here: G W Bush is fighting the war on terror the way Reagan fought the Communists, To Win.
Isolationists like Pat B. can see that. And Liberals and the French can stand the idea of American victory. So they are apoplectic, as were the anti-antiCommunists in the 1980s over Reagan's boldness.
In Reagan era, it was 'evil empire', now we have 'freedom is not our gift to the world, but God's gift to humanity'. That drives the liberals nuts.
And G W Bush is getting the same naysaying enemies that Reagan got.
Halper is wrong, non-helpful and tarnished the Reagan record as well as G W Bush.
There is nothing "conservative" about that, nothing conservative about the complaints. If they interviewed *real* conservatives, the complaints would be about higher spending, the medicare bill, and illegal immigration.
But with a war on, we all know that stuff is second fiddle.
This hit-piece buries the real lead: 97% of consverative Republicans support Bush over Kerry in a poll!!!
Frankly, Kerry may be picking up some moderate/indies who have been spun into false negativity about the war in Iraq.
But Kerry and Edwards are SO FAR LEFT no real conservative could stand to see them win. We will be all out there pulling for Bush, even if Bush is more moderate than we are, simply because the Kerry/Edwards ticket is SO MUCH WORSE and so much more LEFT-WING.
So for "some Conservatives" read: 3%. BFD.
Nonsense.
First, as long as there are procedural methods that allow a minority of 41% of the Senate to block legislation from coming to the floor, and as long as Democrats have more than 41% of the seats, the Republicans do not control the Senate.
Furthermore, even if the Republicans do have a majority of the Senate, the conservatives deffinitely do NOT. Take Arlen Specter for example. He's going to be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee next (assuming Democrats don't recapture the majority). He's already collaborating with Democrats to block some Bush appointees. You call that control?
People, listen up. There is no absolutism in politics. There never has been. There never will be. It is all relative. It always has been. It always will be.
Kerry is more liberal than Bush. A choice of doing anything other than supporting Bush in an election year elects Kerry. Period. Full stop. You have a choice of essentially guaranteed 5 additional staunchly pro Choice Justices with Kerry or something far less than that with Bush. If you vote Constitution Party, you choose the baby killing option of Pro Choice Justices.
The GOP Senate has shown no backbone to date and it is silly to expect them to show it after a Bush loss. Kerry and his ilk will claim mandate and the GOP Senators will fall into line and You Know It.
GOP support for George Bush is about 90-10. We want the remaining portion of the 10 who are conservatives. We cry out to you not to be selfish. Be selfless. Make the choice that does not condemn your neighbors to life under the most liberal Senator in Congress.
Save your criticism for after the election. Make your points then. They will be heard and you will have a chance to make your arguments. For now, call the campaign and volunteer in a battleground state. There are thousands of unborn babies watching what you do right now.
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