Posted on 02/14/2008 2:14:33 PM PST by smoothsailing
Ronald Reagan Would Back McCain
By Michael Reagan
Thursday, February 14, 2008
In 1976 the Ford vs. Reagan campaign for the Republican presidential nomination got so heated it looked as if my father and Jerry Ford would never again talk to one another.
When it was over and Ford had won, what did Ronald Reagan do? He simply went all-out to help Ford win his re-election, as did I and as did my sister Maureen. My dad simply followed his rule of backing the Republican candidate no matter who he was.
Assuming that John McCain will be the Republican nominee, you can bet my father would be itching to get out on the campaign trail working to elect him even if he disagreed with him on a number of issues.
Unlike my father, a lot of conservatives stayed home in 1976, and we got four years of Jimmy Carter, whose main legacy was to drive the Shah of Iran from power and create the Islamic Republic of Iran with a bunch of wild-eyed mullahs running the show. He also gave us 20 percent inflation and long, long lines at the gas pumps. And don't forget 440 days of Americans held hostage by the mullahs.
By staying home those conservatives made possible the future election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
We are still suffering from the legacy of James Earl Carter, thanks to the conservatives who refused to follow Ronald Reagan's example and instead sulked at home while the nation was being handed over to the worst president in American history.
We were still in the middle of the Cold War in those days, and by staying home conservatives risked losing that war by allowing an incompetent leader to become commander in chief.
Four years later Ronald Reagan took over, the hostages were immediately released, and he went on to win the Cold War. Now we have another world-wide war going on with a hidden enemy sworn to kill us all, and the policy of the Democrats running for the presidency is to throw up their hands and withdraw from the battlefield, leaving it to the enemy -- and our fate in the hands of Osama bin Laden.
Is that what the let's-stay-home-on-election-day conservatives want? Do they want the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama, as their president? Do they want the pseudo-Marist Barack Obama -- who reportedly has a photo of the murderous Castroite thug Che Guevara hanging in his Houston, Texas campaign headquarters -- hanging that photo in the Oval Office?
Do they want Hillary Clinton, the duplicitous former first lady, back in the White House enjoying all those furnishings she and her husband tried to swipe from the mansion?
Do they want a Democrat spending even more money that the government doesn't have on scores of programs right out of Karl Marx's playbook?
That's exactly what they'll get if they sit out the election and stay home on Election Day. That's called biting off your nose to spite your face. Or even more to the point, political suicide.
Let me say this. There has been plenty of battling in the primaries, and I've been in the middle of the battle, but until now haven't committed myself to any candidate, waiting until we had a nominee.
That's over.
If John McCain is the nominee of the party, this Reagan will happily campaign with him. The alternative is unthinkable to anyone who loves this nation.
...................................................
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of Ronald Reagan, is heard daily by over 5 million listeners via his nationally syndicated talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.”
Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
There’s more than one way to shaft the nominee. But certainly he did go out and aggressively campaign for numerous conservatives throughout the country.
That would be Mr Spock, FRiend. Doctor Spock is the one who said we shouldn’t spank our children.
/Trekkie
Apparently, one of us is in big surprise.
You know you want to.....
Naw...we're all too busy ruling the world with our faces planted in computer monitors.
And why are Hunter, Romney, Thompson gone? Because hardly anyone voted for them, that’s why.
Oh, dear. You must be kidding.
The GOP establishment types are sick to death of conservatives who always seem to be quitting the team right before the big game.
It's no surprise to anyone that there is a contingent that hangs around the Republican party, but then refuses to support the nominee.
Conservatives failed to rally around the more conservative candidates in this race. In fact, hardly anyone voted for any one of them. So if no one votes for the more conservative candidate, it shouldn't be a surprise that the nominee will be someone who is not conservative.
He doesn’t know what Reagan would do, no one does. This is stupid. This situation is similar but not the same as ‘76. His opinion might count more than someone who never knew Reagan, but no one knows for sure. It was said earlier, and still applicable, I know me and I guess I’m no Reagan.
Reagan had not been lied to by the Republican Party as much as we have. Who knows what he would do now?
Plus, realistically if a Rat wins this year, we’re looking at 16 years of Radical RAt rule. There won’t be anywhere near a political opening in 2012.
Yes, he would. I will follow the example of the greatest Republican President of the 20th century (yes, McCain—even greater than Teddy Roosevelt!) and I will vote for the senator from Arizona.
(sniff)
I hope to God we don’t end up with a Hitlery or Hussein in the Oval Office. Think about it folks: Hitlery or Hussein would be commanding our brave troops. I shudder.
How did Karl Rove force anyone into the race? Or force any one of us to vote for any particular candidate?
Didn’t happen.
Too young to remember, or too old and forgotten?
Unlike my father, a lot of conservatives stayed home in 1976, and we got four years of Jimmy Carter, whose main legacy was to drive the Shah of Iran from power and create the Islamic Republic of Iran with a bunch of wild-eyed mullahs running the show. He also gave us 20 percent inflation and long, long lines at the gas pumps. And don't forget 440 days of Americans held hostage by the mullahs.
How can anyone think this war doesn't matter? How long would it take for us to overcome the socialist agendas of a Hillary Clinton or a Barak Obama? These people are VASTLY more ambitious than Jimmy Carter ever was. They don't give a damn about your welfare.
Hopefully, it will not be a Republican. That would be a real difficult clean up for conservatives.
That my friends, is IT in a nutshell.
So what does this tell us about the state of the conservative base?
And on what basis is the conservative base mad at the rest of the party for choosing a candidate they didn't even vote for in sufficient numbers?
32 states have voted in primaries/caucuses.
Hardly anyone in any state voted for the more conservative candidates.
Even if the GOP had a proportionate award of delegates system like the Rats, that system has a political viability cut-off of 15%. 15%! That’s pathethic, considering that primaries/caucuses supposedly attract the hard-core base and the most political active and motivated in each party.
Yet not one of the more conservative candidates consistently got even near that cut-off for political viability.
IOW, even with some kind of different way to hold primaries, there’s no indication whatsoever that conservatives in sufficient numbers were rallying to any one candidate.
And historically the nominations have often been locked up after Super Tuesday. This is nothing new.
Of course.
And we have a better chance of influencing a president from our party, rather than theirs.
For all those declaring they won’t vote the Republican nominee in the general election, I would like to ask what you think can be done to obtain a nominee who is acceptable to you.
What’s the plan?
THAT, is the problem.
Nothing rational.
I understand and agree with you on all of what you are saying about McCain. As to the attack - which of my three assertions are you calling an attack:
- that FR is out of touch with society and republicans as a whole
- that opponents of candidates here have been acerbic, ie, way beyond a discussion of the issues and into personal attacks, distorted views of the truth, and mudslinging
- that as a result of the above two, FR can no longer be considered a reliable source of intelligent analysis.
I stand firmly by those three assertions. They are not attacks, they are the truth. The sidebar polls prove the first, the Romney and Huckabee threads amply demonstrate the second, and the third follows from the first two. You need to be less defensive and face reality, and it’s a cold, unfriendly reality we are all facing together.
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