Posted on 07/28/2004 5:41:03 AM PDT by Area Freeper
BOSTON - Much to the dismay of the Bush campaign, Nancy Reagan has just said no to appearing at the Republican National Convention next month. GOP strategists had hoped the former First Lady and Hollywood actress would make a cameo appearance onstage after a video tribute to her late husband, particularly after her Bush-bashing son, Ron, agreed to speak at the Democratic convention last night.
In an impassioned defense of stem-cell research, Ron Reagan toned down his rhetoric but still delivered one unmistakable shot that all but invited Americans to vote against President Bush.
"In a few months, we will face a choice," Reagan told delegates in an otherwise apolitical speech with mannerisms and rhetorical flourishes that brought to mind his famous father. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."
GOP sources, meanwhile, confirmed his mother will not be at their Aug. 30-Sept. 2 convention - and some speculated her son might be behind the snub.
"I do not expect her at our convention but she knows she is welcome," Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie told reporters here yesterday.
"If all of you might just keep in mind for a moment the year that Mrs. Reagan has had and be a little understanding of that, I think that would be appreciated by the public and, I suspect, by Mrs. Reagan," Gillespie added.
Republican officials refrained from publicly criticizing Nancy Reagan for the no-show. Privately, however, some were upset as well as disappointed by the decision, which has been known to the White House for some time.
"I don't think she could have missed the symbolic significance of her son going to their convention and her not going to ours," a senior GOP official told the Daily News.
Friends of the 83-year-old former First Lady said she is understandably still grieving for her husband, who died June 5 after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease.
"My guess is that she reached the point of emotional exhaustion in dealing with the old man's final goodbye," a prominent California Republican source told the Daily News. "But I was a little surprised she's not going to be there."
A downcast senior GOP official confirmed Nancy Reagan had never committed to appearing at the convention, but was nevertheless dubious of the official explanation.
"The 'not feeling up to it' line is bull----," the official said. "Something happened in the last month, and whatever it was was real."
Aides to the former President did not return calls seeking comment. In recent years, Nancy Reagan has curtailed her public schedule, but last week greeted the new aircraft carrier named for her husband when it arrived at its San Diego homeport.
Long before her husband's death, Bush-Cheney and GOP campaign strategists were eager to have her appear at the convention, even though her support for expanding stem-cell medical research using fetal tissue implicitly criticizes Bush's more restrictive approach.
I sensed there was an agenda on his part from his first post to me.
It is so difficult for reasonoble Republicans to converse any more with the foaming at the mouth haters, wich are still claiming to be Christians.
>It is so difficult for reasonoble Republicans to converse >any more with the foaming at the mouth haters, wich are >still claiming to be Christians.
You are proving more and more that you are an idiot that is seeing something he wants to see, not what is there. I have YET to mention anything to do Christianity, the bible or anything relating to God in this conversation. But you have somehow got it in your head that the only reason someone could be not supporting EMBRYONIC stem cell research is religion related. What if I were jewish? Would that still make me from a bible school in Alabama?
You are a moron and I believe a troll.
If it is not religion related, so what other excuse? Saving human eggs, and sperms from getting flushed down the toilet? That is even more stupid than having a religion conviction!
What if I were Jewish? Would that still make me from a bible school in Alabama? If you were Jewish, you would be knee jerk supporter of whatever the right wing neo-cons do.
Bush must PUBLICALLY denounce some of the extremists in our party in order that he may appeal to the rest of the population, and win in November. He can start by dumping Dick Cheney. Just for the heck of it. I like Dick Cheney, and I believe that he has more experience and competence than Bush, but perception is everything!!! He is now loading the Republican ticket with lots of negative, especially after the Iraq fiasco. But you know, that is simply too much of a common sense for you, and the foaming at the mouth haters to understand. I am voting for Bush, but I am not sure if he is going to win without some of the undecided impartial middle.
Yes indeed. He tried hard not to answer questions directly and was keen to move the debate well off topic.
I don't think your theory is "tinfoil" at all. I think it's pretty certain that their (at least Ron's) motives are purely self-centered, so your theory sounds totally possible.
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