Posted on 01/29/2008 11:55:19 AM PST by Sideshow Bob
“Actualy, Rush, like me is suggesting that the only thing that will bring Conservatives back together is for someone like Hillary to be in office for very long.
I’ve said it a couple of times, to unite Conservatives will take a Hillary (or even Obama) in office.”
I think we’re more or less back to 1992. GHWB had squandered the coalition and momentum built up during two Reagan terms. He squandered it so badly that we went from three consecutive landslide wins to a loss to an obscure governor from Arkansas.
W has managed to do as “well” as his dad (but did get a second term thanks to 9/11). W squandered what had been built up by Gingrich and conservatives who won both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years, and the presidency for “compassionate comservative” W, and now things look dim to many for 2008.
But in 1994, after two years of Slick and the threatened Hillarycare, conservatives made a huge comeback. I agree we’d be better off with a Dem. president in 2008 than McCain, who’d be far worse than W. A couple of years of Hillary or Obama, and conservatives and many independents would be ready for a repeat of 1994. But I also believe Romney would be a fine president, and that he’d govern as conservatively as Reagan, and much better than the two Bushes.
An interesting fact: both GHWB and W chose running mates who were highly unlikely to be strong presidential candidates after they’d served one or two terms as VP. Coincident? Neither did a thing to ensure a strong candidate after they left office.
Substitute “trusting Fred Thompson and supporting only Thompson instead of promoting another conservative into the race” as a mistake for the last few paragraphs and I think it makes as much sense as your historical analysis
Conservatives, accustomed to being marginalized, routinely fall for the siren song of "he can win" without realizing that they are a large enough constituency to constitute a plurality in the Republican primaries as long as their opposition is divided. This year was the best opportunity for a conservative in ages and WE BLEW IT by not getting together, picking one guy, and backing him to the hilt early in the game.
FR is just the type of venue to accomplish such a consolidation because the activists and communications capabilities are here, but the membership stayed fractured to the very end between Thompson and Hunter. It is not a place amenable to leadership. Too bad the candidates didn't make of use of it as they could have.
He didn't thumb his nose at them. He sismply didn't kiss Dobson's (or any other evangelical's) ring. He didn't lie about his church attendance to try to gain their support. He didn't lie about the best way to get fewer children murdered in abortions. He told the truth. Turns out most evangelicals didn't like the truth. They went for the lies that Huckabee spewed with practiced skill and they got bupkus. They will now complain (they meaning "Huckabites") that there's no one to represent them, when they refused to support a better candidate. You can repeat the propagandist mantra that "Fred's lazy" (which was started long before he even entered the race), or you can face the fact that the evangelicals are hoist upon their own petard.
False.
I have to agree with the writer on this one. Dobson showed a side of himself which I do not care for. He fancied himself a "player" and leaked a "private" email to do his dirty work and then played like "well, it was private." He knew exactly what he was doing. A man who runs a multimillion dollar charitable organization which is constantly under the scrutiny of the left and the media (redundancy alert) knows that his office communications (by email or otherwise) will be made public eventually (especially on an issue like this).
It was planned, purposeful and choreographed. And dishonest, distasteful and unChristlike.
But I probably have a personal issue.
Huckabee's not even saying this anymore. You are because?
yes he’d reduce the tax cut to have the govt spend more money. I think the private sector can do a better job with the money...even if there is the possibility they might spend it on things Huck doesn’t approve.
I don’t trust the govt to make sound economic decisions to stimulate anything except union membership and power.
I would tell the truth: that the best way to stimulate the economy is to replace the rebate with cuts in the top rate and corporate taxes. But I’ll take any tax cut that denies government the power to spend more money.
His stances on the Federal Marriage Amendment and abortion showed he could care less about some key issues that are important to evangelicals. That's what caused Dobson to go off and threaten to go third party.
Granted Dobson might have reserved his fire for the more social liberals in the crowd. But I'm not sure the result would have been any different. Fred at that point became a dissapointment, and Dobson simply reflected that fact.
***
I'm an evangelical. I'm also a federalist.
As Christians, me & my buddy Fred are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.
As federalists, me & my buddy Fred believe that those matters are not defined in the Constitutions and are reserved for the jurisdiction of the states.
As Republicans, me & my buddy Fred can count noses and have figured out that both issues could or would lose in a federal legislation or constitutional amendment process.
What part of politics and the 10th Amendment do you & Dobson not understand?
Dobson didn't reflect disappointment in Fred. Dobson PROJECTED his religious bigotry and political ignorance.
So, it's your position that a Republican President could get not one, but two Constitutional amendments through a Democratic Congress? Non starter. And not federalist either. Dobson needs a political primer course.
That may be. But his "leaking" of a "personal" email was a carefully planned way to assassinate the candidacy of FDT. It worked. Hooray for Machiavellian political machinations dressed up in Jesus robes!!! Yay!!!
I heard a congressman who is supporting Huckabee say that on Radio within the week. Are you suggesting it's not true? Or that Huckabee is saying something else?
The part where you assume that a Federal marriage admendment would lose. And the part where you feel the need to explained that powers are reserved to the states, when we are talking about a Constitutional amendment to give that power to the Fed.
the 2 things that Huck is actually conservative on and they have zero chance of going through. But voting for Huck will make you feel you are doing something. Wear a ribbon.
all amendments would lose today. In 1994 we had a national congressional campaign to promote several highly popular amendments and they all lost.
Dobson is concerned about himself and his ego.
Anyone who claims to know that self-professed Christian (Thompson, who was baptised into the Church of Christ) is not, in fact, a Christian pretends to know the mind of God.
Talk about ego.
That’s the problem with “some” evangicals. Who fits their extremely narrow view of who is worthy of being called a “Christian”? What is Dobson’s criteria? I sometimes wonder if Jesus would be considered good enough to be called a “Christian” to these people. Maybe not, after all He’s still a Jew.
I'm saying both. Would you accept that explanation from anyone else? If Romney said "The courts made me spend more money?" Or if he said "The courts made me legalize gay marriage?" would you say "okey dokey, as long as you were forced to."
Huckabee didn't increase state spending by 65% solely on education. He refused to look at places to cut spending when it was proposed by Arkansas Republicans. He left the Arkansas Republican party in a shambles and presided over the largest fine the FEC has ever handed out to a state party. He's a fraud. There's no there there.
If he had run that would also have been Mistake #12.
My point was that a 1996 Gingrich presidentail candidacy would have moved the GOP to the right and removed the whole "It's Dole's turn" canard. Gingrich has numerous flaws as a person and candidate, but his energy and conservative philosophy were wasted by defering to Dole in '96.
***
"And what did conservatives get for 2008 GOP candidates? Were there any Reagan conservatives who possessed all three legs of the coalition stool - strong national defense, social conservatism, economic conservatism?"
Clearly not, but could there have been?
Yes, I believe either Fred or Hunter could have fit the bill quite nicely. I preferred Fred.
***
Christianity has a social side that can't be denied forever, so naturally Evangelical social conservatives and laissez-faire economic conservatives wouldn't always be in the same boat.
Yes, Christianity has a social side, but I practice that at church or in my daily personal life and NOT in my politics. My faith colors my thinking and my politics, but it does not serve in place of them.
If Thompson had said, he supported a Federal amendment, but that it probably wouldn't pass, therefore his position would be to leave it to the states. He would have been better off.
This is not an issue that I believe is best left to the states. It needs to be addressed at the Federal level to keep states like Romney's from making it difficult for the rest of us.
“It took a Carter to bring us Reagan.”
Yes, indeed.
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