Posted on 03/09/2007 6:44:43 PM PST by LdSentinal
Periodically, I get e-mails from supporters of the presidential candidacy of Alpine Rep. Duncan Hunter who express disbelief, befuddlement or fury, or a mix of all three, at my flat contention that he is a populist demagogue and anything but a principled conservative. These folks cannot fathom any talk that he's not free-trade, small-government Ronald Reagan reincarnated.
Here's a typical example of Hunterista reaction to my comment that he's been against trade deals that have been important boons to our economy:
You're supposed to be a columnist, an informed person. This is not an informed statement.
OK. If you don't believe me about Duncan Hunter's RRRINOitis, here's what the influential, admired-and-respected-in-conservative-circles Club for Growth has to say about him:
Like most Republicans, he's strong on tax cuts, but he's been part of the big government spending spree of the last 6 years. He also has a protectionist streak in him. Here are some of the more troubling votes:
NO on NAFTA YES on No Child Left Behind YES on Sarbanes-Oxley YES on the 2003 Medicare Drug Benefit NO on CAFTA YES on 2005 Highway Bill YES on the 527 bill (like most Republicans, he flip-flopped, having first voted NO on McCain-Feingold) Hunter also went 0 for 19 on the Flake anti-pork amendments.
Despite being a member of the Republican Study Committee, Hunter frequently votes NO on their fiscally conservative annual budgets (2006, 2005, 2003...)
We gave him a 49% on the 2005 Club for Growth scorecard. That places him 187th within the House GOP conference, out of roughly 230 members.
National Taxpayers Union shows a more telling trend. He was strong in the early 1990s, getting "B's" and one "A", but as time went by, like most politicians, his score dropped. For the past few years, he's been getting "C's".
Those Cs are incredibly generous. As CATO noted last year, with Duncan Hunter cheering him on ...
... President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn't cut enough spending to change his place in history, either.
Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush's first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton's last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush's first term.
The Republican Congress has enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.
The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending. The final nondefense budgets under Clinton were a combined $57 billion smaller than what he proposed from 1996 to 2001. Under Bush, Congress passed budgets that spent a total of $91 billion more than the president requested for domestic programs.
And as bad as things are on the budget front, they're about to get a whole lot worse because of a pending nightmare that Duncan Hunter -- supposed tough guy, supposed truth-teller, supposed fiscal conservative -- has chosen to ignore. To borrow from what I wrote last year ...
... the single worst problem facing this country in coming years, with the possible exception of nuclear terrorism, is dealing with the massive fiscal impact of baby boomers retiring. As we slowly transition from a nation where there are 4 working adults for every adult getting Social Security and Medicare to a nation where that ratio is 2 to 1, we will face an incredible fiscal squeeze.
As a veteran member of Congress, Duncan Hunter knows this. He's heard the warnings, seen the bipartisan studies. So what did this self-declared fiscal conservative do in 2003? He voted to make the problem much, much, much worse by extending prescription drug benefits to seniors, three-quarters of whom already have coverage. The money that was saved by all the triumphant stands he claims to have taken is infinitesimal compared to the staggering long-term national debt he helped add with this one vote, which was tantamount to civic arson.
Yeah, right, our Duncan's a fiscal conservative. ... He loves spending your grandkids' money, and by the truckload.
Duncan Hunter is no Ronald Reagan. To those who say Ronald Reagan really wasn't Ronald Reagan -- that government didn't get smaller when he was president -- well, he tried harder than any president in modern times to get Congress to control spending and wipe out whole government agencies. By contrast, Hunter and the GOP Congress of 2001-2006 kept the national credit cards hanging on a string around their necks for easy and constant use.
I disagree. You can't have the attitude that anyone who disagrees with you on any issue is not a "conservative." If you think hand grendades should not be legal for private ownership and I do, I can claim that I'm a conservative and you aren't. That doesn't make my assertion correct.
All flavors of conservatism are minority positions. Very few of us agree totally on everything.
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The irony of your post is astounding. It's obvious that the original poster intended this to be a rag-on-Hunter thread, which is EXACTLY the sort of thing you decry in your post. And yet you post ON THIS THREAD that on other threads Hunter threads are more in line with what you decry. Why don't you post that on those other threads? Why don't you go onto a thread that supports your candidate and tell us socons why he/she matches the socon viewpoint and deserves the socon vote from this socon forum?
I can't speak for other DH supporters, I can only speak for myself. When I was going onto the rudy threads it was for several reasons. 1) Going on the DH threads proclaiming how great DH is seems like a waste of time, bandwidth and is obviously preaching to the choir. 2) I prefer to get the message out, which completely surprised me that there were some people supporting a solib candidate on this socon forum, so it was the natural place to start. 3) Rudy obviously doesn't match the socon platform, so it's a huge headscratcher why this is even happening on this forum in the first place. You might want to take up such musings with Jim Robinson, who shares the same disgust for rudy that I and some DH fans have. 4) When I post on rudy threads, the substance does not get answered. Their candidate is an empty suit and as america finds out, his numbers will start to circle the drain. 5) Rudy's candidacy is not good for the republican party. It splits the base. 6) DH's or any other socon's candidacy will be good for the republican party because it won't split the base. 7) There are more reasons but they don't rise to the same level as these so it seems like a good place to stop.
You forgot pro-big spending.
***Point it out if it is on JimRob's message. I know this is a relative weakness of my candidate, but it does not score high on my care-0-meter. I have seen it posted that his so-called big spending habits can be accounted for by supporting the military, staying with the republican party line, and being a good soul. It simply does not bother me that much. If you're a single issue voter regarding big-spending, then by all means let's see who your favorite candidate is and if he passes socon muster, he might gain some traction here on FR. And show us where that's so prominent in the concerns of the founder of this website; or at least show me why it should be such a big concern to a socon.
Here's one example of looking at things: dead bodies. How many dead americans are associated with WOT? ~8-9,000 -- that's important. How many dead associated with abortion? ~40,000,000 or 5 orders of MAGNITUDE more. Yes, that's important. How many dead in illegal immigration? Maybe a few thousand, yes important and linked to security issues and WOT. How many dead in identified big-spending programs that DH supported outside of republican party? I would be surprised to find more than 10. Not as important in my book, so far.
You think. Most folks would consider being a park barrel big spending RINO a pretty serious weakness.
Then I guess I don't need to take it from you either. Your posting history on this thread shows you to be a shrill compromiser supporting a solib candidate on a socon forum. If you've spent 9 years on this socon forum and have come to the conclusion that many of those socon values need to be dispensed with or downplayed, perhaps you should just keep your keyboard quiet and see how this plays out rather than pushing for a ridiculous social liberal whose main contribution to republicanism is that he endorsed a democrat socialist Mario Cuomo over Pataki.
I don't have anything against ladies, but I'm not one
***If you think that was a schoolyard taunt, then you need to do some growing up yourself. Try googling the phrase "methinks the lady doth protest too much" and surprise yourself with the author. Here's a big Hint: William Shakespeare. Now, why don't you run along and continue with that tale you're telling, so full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Hmmm, class envy response. Maybe that would attract the class-envy crossover voters. I'm sure it would have to take some analysis.
Yeah, those big-spending bushbots are something else.
Good show.
"I'm sick and tired of settling for the lesser of two evils. This time I'm voting my principals and sticking with a pork barrel big spending RINO."
Free Reign: "How telling that you side with them." quote from post #430
Kevmo: "Interesting you should be on the same side as them."
It's basically saying the same thing as you, but I didn't have access to the exact language at the time of the post so I proceeded from memory. If you have a problem with it, then you have a problem with what you said yourself.
It's getting too convoluted. Why don't you just make a point? Both of us thought that the article was interesting even though it's from the hold-your-nose Daily Kos.
Big spending is not a virtue. If the charge against Hunter sticks, it will remain an acknowleged fault on the Hunter ticket. But once I look at it with the perspective that he was pushing some big defense programs and mostly following the republican line, there's only going to be a few problem areas for Hunter. And those areas don't score high on my care-0-meter. If they're enough to send single-issue-voters elsewhere, then so be it. Best of luck to you and your socon candidate.
Thank you.
So being a tool of the GOP (following the Republican line) an excessive spending (no child left behind and the prescription drug give away aren't part of an anti-missile shield) don't register on your meter.
LOL! Who would have guessed.
You're obfuscating.
It is a broad movement, and there are plenty of disagreements over the details of it.
***These are not disgreements over details. With team rudy we are being asked to disregard entire PLANKS in the platform.
http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf
You can't just claim that your particular brand of conservatism is the only true one out there.
***That's why JimRob goes to the trouble of defining conservatism IN HERE, rather than "out there". Why don't you take up your attempts at redefining conservatism with him, and have him change his statement on the front page? Oh, I already know the answer -- because JimRob WON'T change it. It was there when you and I signed up as far as I recall, it's still there today, and attempts to redefine it in the name of the newest expediency are being met with proper resistance. You might have more luck with redefinition efforts on other websites.
As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-Constitution, pro-Bill of Rights, pro-gun, pro-limited government, pro-private property rights, pro-limited taxes, pro-capitalism, pro-national defense, pro-freedom, and-pro America. We oppose all forms of liberalism, socialism, fascism, pacifism, totalitarianism, anarchism, government enforced atheism, abortionism, feminism, homosexualism, racism, wacko environmentalism, judicial activism, etc.
I'm a "shrill compromiser"?
Do you have any clue how stupid that sounds?
No, you don't.
Your reading comprehension skills are questionable, too. I haven't pushed Rudy on this thread, and when you asked me who I supported I answered directly.
Perhaps I should have typed in crayon font.
And here's a little bonus fact for you. I know Shakespeare. Using a phrase from him to insult me, doth not make it not an insult.
You can continue with your sanctimonious approach as if you are the only type of conservative who owns this forum and the rest of us are stupid, ignorant, sinful, or uneducated.
Or we start writing in crayon font to you.
Sounds like someone who could attract democratic voters in droves without splitting the socon base.
The socon base isn't split. There is a fringe element of them that has latched on to a loser and just can't accept the fact.
No, you are a friggin hypocrite. You told madprof98 to quit FREE REPUBLIC, which isn't even a GOP website, because you didn't agree with him and the way he expressed himself in answering a rudely phrased false dilemma. This is a socon site and he was a socon defending socon principles and a socon candidate against a solib candidate and you told him to leave FR. As a socon defending a socon candidate on this socon website against solib provocateurs, please tell me why I should listen to you.
Giuliani stresses record, woos U.S. conservatives
Posted by Blackirish to madprof98
On News/Activism 03/02/2007 7:06:22 PM PST · 64 of 162
Rudy has me convinced: If he gets the GOP nomination, I will register to vote as a Democrat
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