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.
What do you expect? For him to rant and rave about how outrageous this decision is? He is the president for crying out loud. Leave the outrage on matters like that to talking heads, pundits, and activists. Hey, I am all for a Constitutional ban on gay marraige (if you can call it that), but I don't expect Bush to lead the charge and he can't help with Supreme Court judges who were put on the bench by someone else.
However, I am a little disgruntled on many issues that Bush is passing; like the spending on education bill, farm bill, and prescription drugs. The economy also needs fixing or its going to fix him in the election.
BOOM ! Rush's ego ballooned as his weight fell. He stopped doing research, he heavily relied on Newt for not only " inside scoops ", but for his opinions. He decided that he, Rush, was the be all and end all and didn't have to really even read, think, or anything much, but talk about himself and granstand. He became a bloated egotist, a contemptable blowhard, and worthless. What he became, is a far worse cartoon character, than even his opponents had made him out to be.
Several years ago, during continua, ongoing Clinto scandals, he spent the better part of three, T-H-R-E-E whole days, talking about tor fungus. TOE FUNGUS !
He's only gotten worse since then and I can no longer listen to him.
You get it. You know what's what, and thanks for the salient points you've made.
Now that double entendre has been broached, this from Gennifer Flowers, Passion & Betrayal, Emery Dalton, 1995, page 41:
The time Bill and I had together was too precious to waste talking about his wife, but when I heard some rumors floating around Little Rock, I had to speak up. He was with me at home one evening, and I cautiously told him, "There's something you need to know. I've been hearing tales around town that Hillary is having a thing with another woman." I watched his face to see his reaction, and couldn't believe it when he burst out laughing. I was stunned! I asked him what was so funny. "Honey," he said, "she's probably eaten more p---y than I have."
And when we needed him the most!
I understand the frustration however it is because of a very short memory for some. It was a long hard battle to just be elected for Dubya' and if he would have lost the election, these grumblings of his "going soft" on conservatism would be a welcome grumble to the grumblers, considering who we could have had for POTUS.
I HOPE Bush is just trying to build a strong enough majority that he doesn't have to cater to the RINOs but you must remember that I watched him as Governor of Texas for six years and his governing style was the same here as it is in Washington - he embraces the left and tries to win them over while trying to hold a firm grasp of the center. He'll spout enough conservatism to keep the hard-liners in line but it rarely winds up in conservatives getting what they really want.
The scary part to me is that the GOP is becoming ideologically reflective of Bush rather than just accepting of him. I'm glad there are still Republicans in the House that oppose him on things like AWB and prescription drug handouts but I find little in the Senate to encourage me.
Even a supermajority in the House and Senate is not going to bring about a conservative Nirvana. The best we conservatives will *ever* get, even in a perfect situation, is only about half of what we want.
It's sad and frustrating that the liberals continue to win even while their party loses but that's exactly what stares us in the face and the only way it's going to change is when the entitlement crowd and the government largesse crowd dies off and those growing up behind them realize they've been footing the bill for the freeloaders all these years and decide to pull the plug. That won't happen until long after I'm dead if it ever happens at all.
In short, all the bellyaching about Bush not being conservative enough to hold his base is just BS. We have nowhere else to go.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. We are engaged in a war of ideas right now. The left is on one side and the right is on the other. You have to pick a side and stay on it. There are only two political parties in this country and there ALWAYS have been. The way to enact change within a political party is WITHIN that party. No one ever changed a party by leaving it. I, too, have some reservations with some of the things that Bush has done. I've said this before. I have three things I look for in a President:
1)How's he doing on foreign affairs, particularly when it comes to military spending and how he uses the military?
2)How good is he at returning confiscated tax revenue?
3)How good is he at reducing the size of social spending in the Federal Government?
Of these three things, I give Bush an A, A and C. Rather than focus on the poor grade, why not concentrate on the positives. What Democrat is going to cut taxes and use the military as effectively as President Bush? I can't name one either.
I'm glad I'm not alone here, Many FREEPERs, unfortunately , still are rather blinkered, where Rush is concerned. I worry about them.
I disagree to a point. I think Reagan *was* more conservative and the gains he got came through a Democrat House and sometimes a Democrat Senate. Reagan truly believed in scaling back government even though his efforts were largely unsuccessful. I never hear Bush talk about scaling back government and I don't believe, by his actions, that he believes in it. He talks about privatising some government functions but outsourcing government isn't the same as cutting it.
The irony is that *Jeb* was considered the more conservative and more appealing of the two Bush brothers and had the greater chance to one day become president but Jeb stumbled against Lawton Chiles while George beat Ann Richards so George got on the fast track ahead of Jeb.
I don't hate George. I accept him for what he is - a slightly right-of-center moderate who is more fiscal conservative than moral conservative. In this day and age, that's probably as good as we can elect nationwide. But George is no Reagan, and neither was his dad.
As long as no Perots are on the horizon, what screwed his father won't screw him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.