In what ways do you think McCain is more authentically conservative than the GOP base?
In what ways has he - unlike your average Republican - stayed true to the Reagan legacy?
1) Fiscal Responsibility.
2) War on Terror - when everybody in the GOP base was claiming “everything is fine” in Iraq McCain was the only one saying “We need to do more.” Only after the 2006 debacle did the White House decide to put more effort into the War. And every time a freeper says “The Surge is working.” Implies that what was happening before the surge wasn’t working - and that McCain was right.
3) Working across the aisle - Reagan didn’t have a GOP Congress during his 8 years in office. And let’s face it Nancy is no Tip O’neil (sp)
4) Limited Government Power - Reagan was facing a bigger crisis than the Islamic Terrorist, but he never complained about the laws we have to protect individual privacy.
5) Human Rights - When Reagan called the Soviet Union “The Evil Empire,” he used their use of torture and violation of international agreements as his reason. He remembers in WWII that the Nazis would surrender to the US, but fight to the death against the Soviets because they knew the Americans would treat them nicer than the Soviets.
6) Talking to Evil Men - what set the groundwork for the fall of the Soviet Union wasn’t the military build up (but that played a part), but Reagan’s willingness to actually talk to the Evil Empire. The building up of trust between these two, gave the Soviets the security to open up to social, economic and political reforms.