Posted on 03/14/2014 1:15:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via WaPo, compare and contrast. Here’s Mitch Daniels four years ago:
Beyond the debt and the deficit, in Daniels’s telling, all other issues fade to comparative insignificance. He’s an agnostic on the science of global warming but says his views don’t matter. “I don’t know if the CO2 zealots are right,” he said. “But I don’t care, because we can’t afford to do what they want to do. Unless you want to go broke, in which case the world isn’t going to be any greener. Poor nations are never green.”
And then, he says, the next president, whoever he is, “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until the economic issues are resolved. Daniels is pro-life himself, and he gets high marks from conservative religious groups in his state.
Lots of righties took that as a sign that social conservatism would be a conspicuously low priority for President Daniels. Now here’s Rand Paul last week:
[Q:] Right. But it seems what they’re saying is that the Republican Party should stay out of issues like gay marriage.
[A:] I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues. The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues.
Daniels wasn’t calling a truce for electoral reasons, and he wasn’t calling it on behalf of the GOP specifically. Both parties would have no choice but to place social issues on the policy backburner, he argued, because dealing with the national debt before it reached critical mass would consume political energies. (In a sane world, perhaps, but alas, not in this one.) Paul really is making an explicit electoral argument, though. If you want to win, you’d better make room for people who support gay marriage. That’s more radical than Daniels’s position because Daniels’s truce in theory would lift once the country had been set on a more sustainable fiscal course. Paul’s truce wouldn’t. In order to steer the party back towards social conservatism, you’d need to show him that doing so would grow the GOP faster than a more pluralistic approach to social policy would. Good luck convincing a libertarian of that.
True blue social cons like Huckabee and Santorum will have field day with this next year. Social conservatives like Rubio or Ted Cruz, whose political brand is broader-spectrum conservatism and who themselves take a federalist approach to gay marriage, will tread more lightly. Paul’s got some cover on it from the fact that he’s personally pro-life and supports traditional marriage, but then again so was Daniels and that didn’t help him much. I think it all depends on which issues, specifically, he thinks there’s room for disagreement on and how much room there is. Gay marriage isn’t abortion; marijuana legalization isn’t gun rights. As long as Paul holds the line on the party’s truest cultural litmus tests, he’ll probably get some slack on the rest. But that’s what I mean in asking how much room there is: What would it mean to “hold the line”? Would Paul be willing to choose a vice president who supports legalizing gay marriage and marijuana? What about one who’s pro-choice and supports an assault weapons ban? The problem with “truce” statements, especially in the context of making the tent bigger, is that it’s never clear how much bigger the pol in question would be willing to make it. We’ll find out next year.
I think Paul is ushering himself out the door here, ansel. The closer he sucks up to Chinless, the more his hopes to be President float away from his grasp. I think we should encourage him to stay on his course. That way he can relegate himself to his Daddy’s status of resident kook. His followers are helping.
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Are you seriously stating that everyone here is the same? Except for you, of course.
I tried to show you gains in post 46, but you ignored it.
I think he may be making himself a bridge, and a force, in the coalition that I have been describing for a long time, and one that people probably think seems strange until they learn something about how the libertarians.
The rino/libertarian wing of the GOP, is at war against conservatism.
The open left, the libertarians, and even the GOPe have had a common enemy for at least the last 50 years,their enemy is the God fearing, traditional Americans, the conservatives and conservatism.
That would make him the next Juan McQueeg. Poised to stab us in the back for the next few decades. The prick.
This isn’t just about rinos, it is about the melding of the rinos and libertarians to drive out God and American conservatism, once and for all.
New tactics, new arguments, new vocabulary, this time it is still an attack from the left, but using language and arguments meant to imply that conservatism itself is the enemy of conservatism.
They mirror the words and arguments of conservatism itself on economics and small government, as though they own it, and then underneath that, they push a leftwing agenda by pigeon holing conservatism and cutting it off as only a religious church activity.
Rand Paul: I still like either him, Ted Cruz (#1) or Scott Walker (#1A) for 2016.
Scott Brown: His record’s been hashed over 1 billion times here. He’s the ultimate RINO; expect nothing from him outside of being another number of a GOP Senate majority. Worst case, he loses but forces the RATS to $pend on NH.
Jolly v. Sink: Good for him and yes, she looks like James Carville in a wig. Good one Impy!
Ozark Romeo/State of the Union Draft: “Now you’ve got millions of teenage girls who are experts in playing the meatwhistle before they reach the age of consent...” Yes, FM. I like it - that there appear to be many of these stories popping up at just how much of a sh*tbag he and his administration were.
Hawaii tries to ban eating cats and dogs: Is there really a sizeable % of the population there that eats cats and dogs? Glad I have ZERO desire to ever go there.
Cynthia Lynn, Hogan’s Heroes Actress, Dies: A cutie. RIP.
California GOP seeks return to Reagan blue (take back color, label the Dems as red): This makes as much sense as declaring water to be wet. The f***ing RATS are Communist red, period.
Yaaay ! I’m so old I’m still an Original Six fan: You mean before the NHL started putting franchises in such hockey-friendly climes like Florida, Arizona and Texas? And they’re taking expansion again...
Democrat Rep. Believes Our Constitution is 400 Years Old: Politics is the oldest institution for AA that I can think of.
A young, gay immigrant comes out of two closets: Einsatzgruppen.
#JohnStejer
#MartyComanche
“Hawaii tries to ban eating cats and dogs: Is there really a sizeable % of the population there that eats cats and dogs?”
Of course not,and it’s really quite beautiful there.
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I figured as much (cats and dogs). More liberal nothingness.
Is Khent thinking of changing his name?
No, the last couple “Spoils” were on again yesterday.
I don’t recognize the names, are they board members like Cyrus Mego?
John is; sits across from Cyrus.
Marty is the fake name for Haley Joel Osmet.
Jonrosh: “I found Marty Comanche in the Valley, high on mescaline.”
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