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.
I'll assume you lived through the late 70's. What makes you think things could get worse than that? It was spectacularly bad.
well that’s one conservative vote in his corner.
Gerry Ford was a pretty decent guy. Johm mcCain is not. There’s no comparison.
Probably the best person to make a judgment on that would be GWB.
Yeah, yeah, I’ll vote for him...and he’ll lose. That’s a certainty right now. Democrats are outvoting Republicans in primaries by almost 2:1.
I think we need to shift our focus to certain House and Senate races. We need to limit the new Dem President’s influence and get some good conservatives elected to Congress.
Ronald Reagan fought for decades to get us there, and he put his ideas into practice and proved they work. It's a different world than in 1972 or 1976, and to say that we have to accept the notion that conservatives go back to being the crazy uncles in the back of the room while the Bushes and Rockefellers make the real decisions is simply unacceptable.
The goal is to convince the American people that Conservatism is the way to go. If the GOP won't accept conservatism, then we need to take our 20 or 30 percent of the electorate, run conservative candidates, and work to get that number to 50 percent. After all, what is the point of winning elections if it is just to implement policies with which we disagree?
Okeedokee!
Why have a military on foreign soil if we have no borders at home? Why risk their lives for nothing?
That’s where Reagans followers may have done more for the country than Reagan’s personal decency would allow. We go forward by polarizing, not by bi-partanship. It would have been a huge tragedy, and perhaps a global disaster, had Reagan not taken the White House. In this election cycle, John McCAin is just the sort of fascist to preside over a vast abridgement of Constitutional rights. There may be a few nice, meek, falsely-decent Republican who go along with him, but real Americans have got to oppose this thug tooth and nail.
It’s nice to see, skeeter, that you have more respect for Ronald Reagan than his own son.
Reagan wouldn't have done anything against Gerald Ford in 1976, but Ford complained that Reagan didn't do anything for him either.
Bush's father also wanted more of an endorsement from Reagan in 1988.
So, sure, Reagan wouldn't go along with Ann Coulter's "Vote for Hillary" campaign, but beyond that ...
Michael Reagan is not a Reagan Reupulican. And neither was his father.
/sarc
And maybe next time the conservatives have good candidates they will get behind one who can win a national election and carry him/her forward. They had at least two this go around and they are now noth out of the race. I wanted Fred or Hunter and could have lived with Romney but the conservative base didn’t get behind them.
Here’s a scary thought, maybe McCain does win and without the help of conservatives. What to do then?
I am not sure that it is a totally fair question. The question which precedes it, is what would Ronald Reagan have done? He would not have gotten in this stinking position in the first place. I take Ronald Reagan at his word and the first thing that he would have done with congressinal majorities, is ABOLISH the Department of Education, instead of getting in bed with Teddy Kennedy letting him write the bill which the federal government further destroyed the public education system.
And Ronald Reagan would not have let a MAVERICK game the nomination system so that New Hampshire and South Carolina, and blues state wins on super tuesday could lock up the nomination. Reagan would have supported the nominee but had he had influence instead of lip service to his legacy over the last eight years then a MAVERICK/collaborator would not have gotten the nomination.
Is this an insult?
Reagan was once a Democrat only to reject the evil after he saw it for what it is. I don't see Obama hanging with the devil like Hillary does. He's a black box at this point. No one really knows if he's going to break left, right, or center. Being absent a chip on his shoulder he's not likely to break hard left as everyone thinks.
No, that's pretty much been their strategy since McCain was seen to be unbeatable.
I agree with Mr. Reagan.
My hope is that Mr. McCain has the good sense to select a VEEP with solid conservative creds (John Boehner and Mitt Romney come to mind).
This would be the only way to convince many here (including moi) of sufficient conservatism to merit a vote.
He has broken very leftist. Study up on the guy.
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