Thanks for posting the excerpts of my opinion piece.
As a Fred Thompson supporter in 2008, I had to make a “lesser of the evils” choice and was mistakenly led to believe that Romney was “more conservative” than Juan McCain. It was only some weeks later that I discovered how Romney and his campaign had used Alinsky tactics to smear Fred and force him out of the race. It became apparent that Romney’s seeming embrace of conservatism after governing as a liberal was just for show.
My vow then was “won’t get fooled again,” learned how to thoroughly vet candidates, and I’ve tried to support only Reagan conservatives since.
Welcome to FR, Josh
I appreciate your article very much, because you’ve written down in a brilliant style, what I and many others think about the deliquescence of the conservative media.
When I see the despite with which Thomas Sowell’s opinions are met by the so-called conservative pundits, or George Will treating a Reaganite from the first hour like Gingrich as “marxist”, the treasonous attitude to all conservative ideals displayed on National Review, Fox and radio, I understand better how the same “conservatives” fought tooth and nail against Reagan calling his platform “voodoo economics” in 1980...
No one expressed it better than Newt in his speech at the CPAC this year:
“CPAC was founded to challenge the Republican establishment. The fact is when Ronald Reagan came here in 1974 and gave his famous speech on bold colors, no pale pastels that was a decade in from Reagan’s first great national speech for Barry Goldwater, “A Time for Choosing.” When Reagan campaigned in 1980, you could see the gap between the Republican establishment and the conservative movement. Reagan campaigned on supply side economics, lower taxes, less regulation, more American energy; praise for people who created jobs. The establishment called it voodoo economics.
The GOP establishment has a single word they used with contempt for conservative ideas. They say they’re “unrealistic.” So creating 16 million jobs under Reagan, unrealistic. Ending the Soviet Union, unrealistic.
And Faith Whittlesey, who was in the Reagan White House and then ambassador to Switzerland, wrote a brilliant piece recently for Newsmax pointing out that the fight she and I were in as conservatives against the Republican establishment over the very question of whether or not we should have an anti-Soviet campaign.
The 1994 Contract with America — unrealistic. The House Republican majority of 1994, which by the way was elected by the largest one-party increase in an off year in American history, 9 million new voters — unrealistic.
Reforming welfare so two out of three people would go to work or go to school — unrealistic.
Cutting taxes with the largest capital gains tax cut, first tax cut in 16 years, unemployment drops to 4.2 percent, 11 million new jobs — unrealistic. Four years of a balanced budget — unrealistic.
For the Republican establishment, managing the decay is preferable to changing the trajectory because changing the trajectory requires real fights and requires a real willingness to roll up sleeves and to actually take on the left.
And that’s why the Republican establishment, whether it’s in 1996 or in 2008, can’t win a presidential campaign, because they don’t have the toughness, they don’t have the commitment, and they don’t have the philosophy necessary to build a majority in this country.”