Sorry, I see what you are driving at. It makes little difference though, as Reagan Conservatism was still coalescing. I doubt very much that he would step on the pro-lifers now.
“I am not talking about libertarians, I am talking about Reagan’s support for moderate pro-choice Republicans, like New Jersey’s Milicent Fenwick”
“Sorry, I see what you are driving at. It makes little difference though, as Reagan Conservatism was still coalescing. I doubt very much that he would step on the pro-lifers now.”
Not really different. If Reagan was president today, and was asked to back pro-choice candidates like Snowe or ArnoldS., he would. That’s who he was as an “11th commandment” Republican who simply supported the Republican candidate.
And Nancy Reagan and Ron would both be big McCain supporters right about now. Why? They are Republicans.
The battle between moderates and conservatives in the party goes back over a century - Roosevelt v Taft in 1912, Coolidge v LaFollette in 1920s, Taft v Dewey 1948, Goldwater v Rockefeller 1964, Reagan v Ford 1976 ... and in 2008, since we had no heavyweight conservative, the moderate wing got one of their guys - McCain. Yet he is *still* - prolife, good on spending, strong on national defense. No matter what happens, so wings of the GOP will be around and will continue.
The difference is that when one side or another wins the nomination, the other faction didnt pretend like it was the end of the world. Let’s get real, life goes on, we conservatives are still here, and we are not going away.
The choice for each faction is to get behind the ticket or not. So the question is, do we unify and win with our candidates, both conservative and moderate, or do we bicker and back-bite to the point of losing to the liberal Democrats. Back then, we cut our leaders some slack for doing the pragmatic thing and unifying to win. Now we dont. GW Bush has a more consistent pro-life record than Ronald Reagan, but is not given credit for it. When he supports moderate incumbents, we whine.
It’s fascinating that we are willing to give Reagan slack for things but not give current slack for doing the exact same thing. Its like the BDS-syndrome media has spiked the punch bowl and we’ve absorbed BDS.