Posted on 07/07/2003 9:22:15 PM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
http://www.LauraIngraham.com April 7, 2003
HE'S NOT INVINCIBLE
The Bushies have already raised $35 million dollars! The President's approval ratings are still hovering around 60 percent! Our forces have already captured most of the thugs in its Iraqi deck of "most wanted" cards! The "l" word is beginning to reverberate through political circles--i.e., it will be Bush in a landslide in 2004. This comes from many of the same chatterers who were saying that John McCain presented a serious threat to Bush in the 2000 primaries.
Perhaps this presidential election will be a snoozer. Perhaps the President will run away with the thing--taking even the electoral prizes of California and New York. But right now that prospect seems far from certain. And there is a chance that President Bush will find himself with a base that is unmotivated, which spells catastrophe for any candidate.
Let's look at where we are. Yes, the country trusts this president with our military. Yes, it appreciates his aggressive stance in the war on terror. Yes, it thinks he's doing the right thing on taxes. But along with all those positives, there are undeniable negatives:
1. Unemployment is disturbingly high. (It may be a "lagging indicator" but tell that to the millions of people coast-to-coast who are out of work) 2. The war in Iraq is "over" except that we have a soldier a day getting killed over there. 3. Democrats, as we see with the Howard Dean boomlet, are energized, infuriated, and have the media on their side.
Even considering these stormclouds, the President still has a lot going for him--including a lackluster Democrat field. But this only means that it is critical for him to make absolutely certain that his base--the conservatives--are really, really happy. I am here to report to you that there is trouble in River City.
Why? Consider the response President--no, candidate--George Bush gave recently when a reporter pressed him on whether he supported amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage: "I don't know if it's necessary yet. Let's let the lawyers look at the full ramifications of the recent Supreme Court hearing. What I do support is the notion that marriage is between a man and a woman."
On the heels on one of the most outrageous Supreme Court decision in decades, which established a Constitutional right to homosexual sodomy, the President fumbled. He punted. He referenced his lawyers. Not good.
The salient point here is not about gay rights per se, it is that President Bush's comments indicated that the Administration increasingly views its conservative supporters as a political embarrassment, a group whose expectations need to be managed. This is a colossal mistake. Without the support of millions of conservatives who showed up to vote for him in 2000, George Bush would be spending a lot more time clearing brush in Crawford. We all know how his father's political calculation to raise taxes sat with conservatives--we never forgave him. (One could almost hear the conversation Bush the elder had with himself at the time--"Gee, I hate to break my 'no new taxes pledge,' but even if I bail on that, where are conservative going to go? Vote for that Clinton fellow?! Nah.")
After eight years of the Clinton follies, conservatives were convinced that George W. Bush was not his father's son--the ghost of '92 had scared sense into him about offending "the base." On the issue of tax cuts, President Bush certainly learned. He has brilliantly backed the Democrats into a corner, enacting a tax cut that no one, even a year ago, thought had a chance. But conservatism cannot survive on tax cuts alone.
For weeks, conservatives from across the country have been filling the email box of my radio show with doubts about where this Administration is taking us. On the size of the government, one listner from Seattle asked, "How is it that the number of employees at the Homeland Security Department is greater than the aggregate of all the agencies that were folded into it?" A law student in Boston wrote: "Our troops are still getting shot at by thugs and Saddam loyalists in Iraq, and now we're about to nation-build in Liberia?!!" Scores of others wrote to complain about the Administration's $400 billion "triangulation" strategy on prescription drug coverage for seniors--a move that Dick Morris desribed as "brilliantly Clintonian." There is also a constant cry about the President's anemic efforts to curb illegal immigration. Last month, the Bush Treasury Department rammed through regulations that permit banks to accept "Mexican consular ID cards" as legal identification. (Mexican officials issue these cards by the thousands every week to illegals living here.)
But it was the President's dodge on the marriage amendment that seemed to touch off a mini-revolt in the heartland. Even people (like me) who think state laws against sodomy are idiotic were upset. In the words of one fed-up stay-at-home mom in Kansas: "What's the point of doing the grassroots work for conservative candidates if this is what we're getting?"
Some of this frustration is no doubt overblown. And there is some truth to the statement that no politician will ever be conservative enough for the hardcore types. Nevertheless, as smart and politically savvy as Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and other top Bush strategists are, they need to remember that conservatives need more than lip service to volunteer to do the nitty-gritty work that wins elections. Knocking on doors, passing our pamphlets, answering phones, and manning voter registration desks for Republican candidates is the sort of work done by people who believe that America is about more than tax cuts and the war on terror.
They believe that the Supreme Court's decision upholding the use of race to promote diversity in universities is an insult to the Constitution and our goal of a color-blind society. (The Administration quietly praised the Court's holding.) They believe that while all Americans should be treated with dignity and decency, marriage is a sacred institution in the eyes of God. They believe that we should use our superior technology and appropriate manpower to keep our borders secure.
The President won the support of many across the country precisely because he defied his elite roots in his style and substance. Unlike Al Gore, he was a regular guy who just happened to go to Yale, Harvard and be raised in prominent, wealthy political family.
Now, more than ever, conservatives need to hear from that regular guy--strong, sensible, and unafraid of the scorn of the elites. The big tent philosophy is a smart one--but the tent cannot stay up for long without the proper grounding stakes.
I did not know we had so many glass half empty conservatives, I see there are a few on this thread!!
They're not ever real conservatives. They probably want a smaller government, no illegal aliens, less foreign aid for AIDS, or some other militia-tin foil nonsense like that.
Most Americans want gay marriage, cheap labor, open borders, bigger government, more regulation, and Bush is smart to go where the votes are. He's picking up a lot of support from the left, and that's just good politics.
My sentiments exactly! Thanks for articulating that!
So long. Your buddies at DU are waiting for you. What a loser.
I can't understand some of these morons on this board...
Isn't this the same Rush that just a couple of months ago, said that he now doesn't ever need to run for Pres, as Bush is so close to all of his views, it's the next best thing to having Rush run.
Don't get me wrong, I have a GREAT deal of respect for the guy, but he really needs to stop saying dumb things like "I hope they lose the house
It's not like there's a middle ground that takes over a vacuum of power if the Republicans lose. The ramifications are clear and obvious. Saying he wants the Republicans to lose is saying, directly, that he wants the democrats to win. Outrageous, in my opinion.
No irony. If the person is a liberal Democrat, he *has* nowhere else to go. We talk about plantations and slavery because they fail to open their eyes to what Republicans offer. If they are true liberals, the Republican Party will have little appeal to them. Yet, if they are Democrats *only* because they are black and not ideologically liberal, they are staying on the plantation out of ignorance or peer pressure.
With regard to conservatives (of any race), how would moving to the Democrat Party be a viable option? And how does choosing anything other than the Republican Party result in anything other than a better chance for the Democrat to beat the Republican? Your ducking the real issue shows either you *know* you have nowhere else to go and don't care to admit it, or proves you are willing to let the Democrats win because you think that will magically pull Republicans to the right.
We must not look to government to solve our problems. Government is the problem.
For the last time: REAGAN BELIEVED THAT GOVERNMENT NEEDED TO GET SMALLER.
Bush has no such belief. That alone makes your statement incorrect.
How pathetic. What exactly IS a real conservative?
Many people trace Conservatives back to Edmund Burke. I thought of Mr. Burke when the Bush administration was praising the USSC decision on the Michigan affirmative action case.
So-called affirmative action was one of Burke's pet peeves. He rightly believed that any attempts at 'equality' (1) would inevitably bring people down to the level of the less equal (instead of the other way around) and (2) would be used as an excuse for the elites to reallocate resources to themselves.
President Bush is NOT a conservative. You guys and gals are just going to have to suck it up and accept the fact. Yes he's a good guy and a good politician, but he's not one of us.
Your timing is off, slightly. Reagan was President during five years of the past 'couple of decades.'
Also, I think you're missing the point. Conservatives have a chance to send Bush a message like we did with his father, by running a candidate on his right. The main issue should be illegal immigration, which is the #1 issue facing the country right now. If a mainstream Republican candidate will run on a sensible, non-extremist platform of cutting off illegal immigration, he can (a) win the GOP nomination from Bush and go on to win the presidency in a slam dunk against whatever 'open-the-floodgates' candidate the Democrats run, or (b) send one heck of a message to the Bush camp that they'd better pay more attention to legal citizens than they do illegal immigrants.
Ah yes, and Reagan shrunk the governemt. Oh yes ... I remember now ... HE DIDN'T !
In six years Reagan reduced government spending from 24 to 22 percent of GNP while outspending the Soviet Union on defense AND cutting taxes.
So please, get your facts straight before you start making statements like the one you did.
Incidentially, that info was taken from an article about Bush Sr., which later said that Domestic spending is expanding at a faster clip under Bush than it did under other recent presidents typically labeled as big spenders, including Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter. Incredibly, Bush is on the way to being the biggest champion of new domestic spending since Franklin Roosevelt.
Hmmm...like father, like son.
Some significant political changes in any culture can go unnoticed - like fish and water and all that. What we seem to have here is the republican party shifting into the role of the anointed all knowing savior of a benighted mankind.... i.e. "We know what's good for you, and you don't." Thomas Sowell has written several best selling books on the subject. He labels people and political parties with such attitudes as "liberal."
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