Vote Fred '08
((((PING)))))
Romney’s problem is that he has not been a lifelong advocate of the principles he now espouses. Reagan Republicans are very good at sniffing out Reagan wannabe’s.
“engineered a state-wide health insurance plan that delivered universal health insurance coverage to all of Massachusetts’ residents...”
Maybe THAT’S his problem.
This has absolutely nothing to do with Reagan, Mitt belongs to a cult.
Vote Fred '08
Reaganism was a hiccup, dependent upon Reagan himself. It was a personal political movement, not a true philosophy.
‘Just not a lot of positive news for the good guys this morning!!
It’s not even noon, and I need a drink.
I’ve already read in another article that we are headed for a Socialist, anti-globalization world.
Then we get this friendly column saying that Conservatism and the Reagan Revolution is in the tank.
Make that a double on the rocks.
I just sent off my tax returns, and I had to write a check for each of them. Consider how much larger a check we'll all have to write if HILLARY becomes president and the Dems control the White House!
This is bull.
Romney is consistently emphasizing his managerial and business acumen, as he should.
Romney is going for the social conservative vote, as any candidate needs to in order to win the nomination, but he's not promising to be Bush III.
It was over when the GOP lead congress wiped their bums with the “Contract with America”.
The Republican Party has lost this conservative’s vote.
The character of this party all the way down has become no better than the democrat party.
I do not, and will not feel at all bad for not voting for Rudy, I have already and will continue to speak to everyone I know, and to pass it on, how pathetic and degenerate this party has become.
But of course, they don’t need conservative vote. If that doesn’t say it all.
Sit 2008 out, you bettcha, live with it, unless the party comes to it’s senses.
Folks, be suspicious of anything written by David From.
Kyle Hampton, a contributor at MyManMitt.com, offers the following rebuttal and commentary for this article by David Frum:
Is the Reagan Revolution over?The American Enterprise Institute has an article written by David Frum. He says that the Reagan Revolution is over. Why? He explains:
In some shrewd instinctive way, the Republican party is sensing that the United States has changed. And just as the Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Grant eventually ran out of Civil War generals to nominate to the presidency, so perhaps time has run out for the old Nixon-Reagan coalition that came together to vote against the social upheavals of the 1960s and the 1970s.So what does this have to do with Mitt Romney? Frum explains after extolling the virtues of Rudy Giuliani:
Mitt Romney had an equally compelling story of executive leadership to tell. He chose not to. He chose to run as Bush's heir in a year when even Republicans are looking for Bush's opposite. That choice is looking more and more misguided. It may soon look fatal.Frum’s complaint is essentially that, in spite of Romney’s executive leadership abilities, Romney is a social conservative. He laments that Romney “has given short shrift to his breakthrough health-care achievement,” that he “chose the George H. W. Bush presidential library as the site of his first major foreign policy address,” and that Romney “dropped hints that if nominated, he would choose Florida governor Jeb Bush as his running mate” (although he mentioned at least 4 other names in that same conversation). For these unforgivables Frum declares the end of the Reagan movement.
Frum’s complaint seems overly dramatic. Does Romney’s social conservatism REALLY mean the end of the Reagan revolution? It hardly seems to be the case, since EVERY GOP candidate (including his beloved Rudy) has invoked Reagan and is attempting to follow in the footsteps of the Great Communicator. Rather it seems that Compassionate Conservatism has experienced an untimely demise. There is little doubt that conservatives feel burned by the Bush administration, but it is not because of Bush’s social conservatism. Indeed, one of the high points of his administration has been Bush’s nomination of Justices Roberts and Alito. The frustration with Bush is because he has failed to follow Reagan’s lead to shrink government and competently fight our enemies abroad. Had Bush been able to accomplish these goals, he would be universally praised. However, Bush has not competently pursued these goals, allowing government to bloat and our enemies to fester.
Thus, Romney’s social conservatism hardly connotes the end of the Reagan Revolution. Moreover it indicates the return to conservative principles across the board. Romney would be a return to Reagan’s principles where Bush deviated. Rudy’s candidacy would patently discard an important part of Reagan’s legacy. Romney, however, accepts all of Reagan’s principles: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and, yes, social conservatism.
This guy should be banned from broadcasting and all media, but what the hell. let's post his tripe on FR and clap to it like he's the new Ronald Reagan.
“And he had engineered a state-wide health insurance plan that delivered universal health insurance coverage to all of Massachusetts’ residents—again without raising taxes.”
It’s really depressing to hear educated conservatives spout lines like this. This plan is going to be a disaster, despite how the news hypes it. The average health care policy is still 50% higher than the original target amount (and this already with substantial restrictions as to what it covers).
Here’s a quote from a newspaper one month ago about “RomneyCare”:
“The first signs of trouble appeared last August. In a filing to support general obligation bonds, officials projected that the new plan would increase state government health-care spending by $276.4 million in 2007. That’s $151 million more than what the public had been told the plan would cost. Meanwhile, the state’s new bureaucracy, busily signing up people for free care, has run into trouble finding affordable plans for those who have to pay. The premiums for subsidized plans would consume up to 6% of a person’s income — prompting calls from activists and echoes from politicians that they should be exempted from the individual mandate. So much for universal coverage.”
I’m looking over the field of top-three Republican Candidates and my heart is crying, “A Conservative! A Conservative! My kingdom for a Conservative!”
Two points:
1. One election does not prove and is not even evidence in favor of the notion that the country has changed. The Republicans lost seats in 2006 because Republican voters were complacent and Democrat voters were energetic. Just in my area, some Republican precincts lost thirty percent of their turnout between 2004 and 2006. The Democrats won some precincts that Republicans had won in 2004, but the Democrats didn't win more votes. They simply lost fewer votes. The people who delivered those precincts to the GOP didn't change their minds about the issues. They simply refused to make an effort to vote this time. There's been no change in what Americans believe. The last election was simply a change in who made an effort to vote.
2. While I don't believe that the country has changed, I have no doubt that some people want the country to change. What good citizens have to do is decide whether the change is for the better or for the worse. If the change is not for the better, good citizens will fight the change. The kind of policies represented by the likes of Rudy Giuliani are changes for the worse, and good citizens will reject his candidacy for that reason. We've often criticized some politicians by saying that they are wind socks instead of compasses. We need to support candidates who represent a compass. While the liberals would like to blow us to a more liberal course, good conservatives will stand for those who steer us back towards the correct path.
Bill
It’s not over till the bald transvestite sings.
Romney is loosing because of any number of reasons and missteps.
Romney creates the perception of a panderer. It also does not help that he was wishy washy about stopping homosexual marriage and he impossed mandatory health insurance on the citizens.
It seems to me that Frum has been pessimistic about the future of conservatism for a while. He seems to buy into the Judis/Teixeira hypothesis that demographic trends make an emergent Democratic majority inevitable and that conservatives can’t do anything to change it and just have to live with it.
I hope this analysis is too gloomy. After the elections of 2002 and 2004 many liberals had come to the opposite conclusion. On the other hand, 2006 and the current unpopularity of Republicans may be the first wave of a long term trend.
Part of the problem has been that conservatives are victims of their own success. The Reagan Revolution of lower taxes and less regulation launched an era of prosperity that continues to our own day. Unfortunately, this has caused people (especially young people) to take this prosperity for granted. And, as Thomas Sowell has written, no matter how many times it fails, statism/socialism always *seems* like a good idea.
So let’s give everyone health care. Let’s cap carbon emissions to “save the Earth.” Let’s regulate “urban sprawl” out of existence. Let’s “help families” by madating vacation time. Let’s lower the price of gas by imposing price controls.
To the average American all these seem like good ideas. And as the regulatory failures of the 1970s fade from our collective memories, it will become harder and harder to resist these kind of measures.
The other thing I have to say about Frum’s piece is that he seems to assume the George W. Bush is a straight-up Reaganite, although I know from Frum’s other writings that he doesn’t necessarily think this. Wasn’t Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” a repudiation of much of Reaganism? The kind of making peace with a changing nation that Frum seems to be arguing is needed by the GOP now?