Brices, your post on Thomson & abortion is cause for many thanks, posted and thought. Count mine among them. The excerpt above reminds me of something my politically wise dad told me long ago and that I've always remembered:
You don't vote for the man, you vote for the philosophy because the philosophy sets the principles, and the principles can always be trusted. Like a compass. So when you vote for a man who embraces your philosophy, you know exactly what you're getting. On the other hand, when you vote for a man according to his personal opinion on separate issues, you have no idea what you're really getting in part because you have no idea what's going to come up in the next four or eight years.
My pet peeve is the demand for "pledges." They are crap, and every time someone asks for or expects one, it ticks me off. And every time a candidate succumbs, it drops him a tad in my view. I liked the way Thompson handled Russert's demand for a pledge by finally conceding that he'd pledge that his administration would do what it could to keep nuclear options away from hostile ME nations. As in, DUH! Pledges are jokes. Demonstrated consistency to philosophy and principles are serious and true.
You know...As I was thinking about all these candidates that say what their handlers tell them to say, I thought back to George H.W. Bush’s “Read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes in the 1988 campaign. This was just a pledge that he was repeating that someone had told him. His principles, expressed in the 1980 campaign, were against supply side economics and tax cuts, and he referred to Reagan’s plans for a 30% across the board tax cut as “voodoo economics”. When the rubber met the road, his principles triumphed, he hiked taxes in 1991, and this led directly to Bill Clinton’s election and to another huge tax hike in 1994. (Top marginal rate went from 28% in 1988 to 31% in 1991 to 39.6% in 1994, all because the GOP primary voters believed the pledge and paid no attention to the principles)
I do not often agree with Jesse Jackson and I seldom quote him, but during the 1992 campaign when Bush was being savaged on all sides for breaking his pledge, Jackson came out with the following: “Don’t read his lips; Watch his hips”. I think in evaluating candidates, this is not a bad rule of thumb. Bedrock principles always trump election year pledges.