Posted on 08/30/2006 8:08:21 AM PDT by yoe
I spent part of the day today with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He is, of course, a very impressive guy: a physician, a heart and lung transplant surgeon, an upstart politician, a hands-on doctor in places like Sudan and New Orleans, and one of the most powerful people in our government. Despite those obvious accomplishments and Frist's skills as a legislator, I've always felt that he lacks the executive persona necessary to be a strong Presidential candidate.
Maybe. But I was impressed by the close-up contact I had today. Frist is deadly serious about the war on terror, the pre-eminent issue of our era. He tells a chilling story of receiving a call from President Bush a week before the recent British airline bomb plot was disrupted. The message at that time, communicated to less than a handful of top federal officials, was that a terrorist plan was known to be in progress which could kill several thousand Americans, but there was no assurance that it could be stopped. It was stopped, thankfully, and news accounts suggest that the very terrorist surveillance programs now under attack by the Democrats were instrumental in saving thousands of American lives. Senator Frist is fully committed to using all of the appropriate tools at our command to win the war against Islamic terror, and September will see a series of legislative initiatives designed to strengthen our defenses against the terrorists.
Frist is also acutely aware of the relationship between petroleum prices and the funding of Islamic terror. Energy independence is not just a desirable economic goal, it is a national security mandate. Hundreds of millions of dollars are needlessly being poured into the coffers of terror-supporting states because the Democratic Party blocks every effort to develop our own energy resources.
The Majority Leader also made a point on taxes that surprised nearly all of his listeners. If you take a family of four, with an average American income of $64,000 per year, and assume that the Democrats regain control of either the House or the Senate and block the extension of the Bush tax cuts, as they are committed to doing, what would be the impact on that average family? A federal tax increase of 58%. That's what the Democratic Party stands for.
Based on my observations today, Senator Frist is a highly viable Presidential candidate. His intelligence, competence, judgment and reliability cannot be questioned. His views are compatible with those of the Republican base across a broad range of issues. He needs to beef up his Presidential persona, by, for example, learning what to do with his legs when he is addressing a group. (Then again, President Bush never mastered that particular skill.) But such cosmetic issues are minor.
When Republican voters start thinking seriously about a candidate for 2008, if they are concerned by the quirkiness of both John McCain--whom, by the way, Frist was careful to praise today--and Rudy Giuliani, should he run, and if they look for a more mainstream conservative candidate, Frist should be at the top of the heap. With all due respect to Senator George Allen, it would seem that Senator Frist has a more powerful claim on the loyalties of the party's faithful.
Consider me impressed.
Good, I have been aiming at it for years in this site with varying degrees of success.
The role of gov't is debatable.
I have the classical liberal view of it that most of the founders ascribed to. Not many others do anymore, most have been brain numbed if not brain washed about it. GWB is classic among them.
In order to advance your ideas, win the argument and get your way, you need to be clear and concise and persuasive.
Most people do not value that either, at least around here. They don't seem to like clear and concise, and persuaded is out of the question.
If you think that the rest of humanity is just too stupid to be reasoned with, you will have lost all hope of influence.
Good thing I have never thought that or given the impression that I do.
Ignorant and complacent are different from stupid.
Conservatives had obviously been losing the debate on the role and scope of government from 1930 til 1980. Reagan more or less stopped the march of liberalism and started in the proper direction. I listed many of the small victories for conservatives in another thread. It will take consistent and sustained effort from ALL conservatives, regardless of their particular preferences to keep the ball moving in the right direction. It will not happen quickly and it will not happen in large dramatic steps. It is small things like getting Roberts and Alito on the SCOTUS, steamrolling the gun grabbers with grass roots activism, pushing for a flat tax to replace the income tax, peeling back onerous regulations from the EPA and OSHA, and taking on one bureaucracy after another to get this ship in shape. It cannot be done if libertarians (you), neocons, paleocons, and constititionalists (me) refuse to join forces.
We disagree that it is moving in the right direction. I think it is going the other way.
Given that, the rest is irrelevant to me.
Conservatives are not interested in the same things, And you are free to classify yourself as a constitutionalist even though I have not seen the evidence of it, but your classification of me is just your opinion.
I know you think that. But you haven't defended that position as well as I have mine, on the other "serious" thread yet. I've been citing chapter and verse. Yes, some of the things you mentioned support your position, such as McCain Feingold, but campaign finance reform is just one issue in a multitude of others.
Of course conservatives are not interested in the same things. As you noted yourself, your postions as a whole seem to not have huge support. But if every conservative claims to be a fan of Reaganism lets at least work together to find candidates that share Reagan's philosophy.
I'm an ardent constitutionalist - originalist. I've told you that before. Not a republican, not a libertarian, not a memeber of the Constituton Party. I'm a conservative that believes the role of the federal gov't needs to be exactly what was laid out by the founders, and the states can pass whatever onerous crap they want (as long as it does not violate the federal constitution) in line with their own founding documents. None of this means I do not realize the value of having GWB as opposed to Algore sitting in the Whitehouse.
I know you think that. We disagree.
Seriously, Frist is sponsoring a big time GOP get together the third weekend of September in Des Moines. Apparently it is going to be a very expensive event.
There is only one truth about any particular issue. Either Bush's tax cuts were the largest in modern history, or they weren't. Either states and cities are increasingly passing concealed carry laws and laws protecting those who kill intruders or they aren't. Either Bush rejected the ICC and KYOTO and the Committee to Regulate Small Arms at the UN or he didn't.
Incorrect, the terms need definition. "Largest",,"modern",,etc.
In anycase, a tax cut doesn't mean we are going the right direction. They raise and cut them all the time. The trend matters and the spending level is more important, if you cut taxes and raise borrowing, it means nothing. It just shifts the burden to a diffent group.
Now some more....
Either Bush was complicit in repealing the first amendment or he wasn't.
Either Bush was complicit in repealing the forth amendment or he wasn't.
Either we have had an explosion in government growth or we haven't.
Either we have secure borders and the rule of law, or we don't.
Either Bush says that;
"I believe that's the role of the federal government, to help people"...GWB, 7-23-04
Or he doesn't.
Either Bush tried to deny a US citizen his rights, or he didn't.
The list goes on, yours and mine. Nothing will change the other's mind.
BUMP! Noted. Will Do.
I believe we need to be seriously pushing any of the six following:
J.D. Hayworth (Cong. AZ)Jon Kyl (Sen. AZ)
Duncan Hunter (Cong., Calif.)
Curt Weldon (Cong. Pa.)
Tom Tancredo (Cong. Colorado)
John Kline (Cong. Minnesota)
We went over the canard before. The first amendment is alive and well. McCian Feingold may be unconstitutional, but it has had no practical effect on free speech. It's a dud, an exercise in nothingness. Like putting a twig in a creek to change the direction of the flow.
And what has Bush done exactly to harm the 4th amendment?
Is that really all Bush has ever said about his philosophy of the federal government? Or is that a quote you keep taking, out of context and as a fraction of his views. You already know the answer.
It's simple, no need to beat it to death. We disagree, oh well.
"Bill Frist for President?"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Thud
Don't think so.
Didn't Frist contribute to Senator Gore for reelection in 1990? Those old liberal tendencies die hard.
Except he forgot to renew his license!
Duh!
If he can't run his life, how could he run the country?
Some of these people are constitutionalists, but the American people don't know them and don't want them. They want only "brand names" of which they have heard, like Clinton, McCain, or Giuliani.
Too wimpy.
Hand picked and annointed by GW
This is a joke? Right?
- John
The senate janitor has done more in the Senate than Bill Frist.
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