Posted on 08/19/2003 8:57:06 PM PDT by Timesink
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:49:41 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Listening to some Republicans and conservatives on the possibility of winning the California governorship lately has been dismaying. "We don't really want to win this race. California is in such a mess it can't be fixed and we will be tagged as failures if we try. Let the Democrats continue to stew in their mess." Or a variation on this theme: "Whoever wins will not have a mandate so he/she will not be able to govern, especially with the huge Democrat majorities in the California legislature."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"Conservatives need to learn from Ronald Reagan."
That's the truth. Too many conservatives have forgotten the basic tenets of conservatism and what Reagan taught us about politics.
I actually thought Ah-nold could be good....but I was wrong....Maria has him by the "package"...don't think he has it....his first concern is "the children". It's the PARENT who takes care of the child who should be concerned.
well, California....Hasta le Vista, baby.
Californians are generally conservative and they should endeavor to elect a conservative governor and get back on the right track.
Thank you for your help.
Rat government.
I haven't heard any conservatives say any of the above defeatist comments. Does anybody know who Rush is talking about?
Amen. This applies in EVERY race, nationwide. ENOUGH of the republicrats, NO MORE RINOs, VOTE OUT the socialist moles sent to destroy the Republican party from within!!! Conservative principles, beliefs and policy presented by a passionate, genuine LEADER can not, and will not, lose!!!
HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA!!! DOOBA DOOBA DOOBA!!!
You dopes are going to cause the Republicans to lose another winnable election through this kind of crap. The only Republican who is going to win California is Arnold. If you dont get behind him, you are only helping Grey Davis again.
7 posted on 08/19/2003 10:18 AM MDT by Pukin Dog
If you think you can accomplish anything by LOSING, then keep it up. You will lose, but like other losers, you will fool yourself into thinking you did something noble.
56 posted on 08/19/2003 11:08 AM MDT by Pukin Dog
Are you sure you've got it right, this time?
And these principles are still the solution. In California, it means CUT the spending, cut the government and cut the taxes. This is not rocket science.
Bustamante wants to fix government's mistakes by raising our taxes. He also wants to sock it to the "wealthy" to force them to pay their "fair" share. And he wants to force the corporations to pay more. Sheesh, this is simply the formula to drive even more business out of the state and to further increase the misery factor. Tough love he calls it. Tough love? Gray Davis and the liberal Democrats bankrupt the state and then they want to force the people to suffer even more for their mistakes? Sounds more like tough sh.... well, nevermind.
(What is it with Democratic presidents being mesmerized by their pollsters?)Was America in a Crisis of Confidence?
At the heart of the internal debate over the administration's future was a memo by Caddell, Carter's pollster and resident "deep thinker." "What was really disturbing to me," he remembered, "was for the first time, we actually got numbers where people no longer believed that the future of America was going to be as good as it was now. And that really shook me, because it was so at odds with the American character." Caddell argued that after fifteen years filled with assassinations, Vietnam , Watergate, and a declining economy, Americans were suffering from a general "crisis of confidence." Address this fundamental problem, he told the president, inspire the country to overcome it, and you will turn your presidency around.Others in the administration, led by Vice President Walter Mondale , strongly disagreed. "I argued that there were real problems in America that were not mysterious, that were not rooted in some kind of national psychosis or breakdown, that there were real gas lines, there was real inflation, that people were worried in their real lives about keeping their jobs," Mondale said. "We could engage the nation by addressing those problems and asking for a new level of public support... I also argued that if, having gotten elected on the grounds that we needed a government as good as the people, we now were heard to argue that we needed a people as good as the government, that we would be destroyed."
"[We] had this real division," Caddell recalls. "And then Jimmy Carter ended it by saying... 'I've decided. I'm going to do everything that Pat said in his memo.' I thought the vice president was going to have a heart attack."
The Speech
On the evening of July 15, 1979, millions of Americans tuned in to hear Jimmy Carter give the most important speech of his presidency. After sharing some of the criticism he had heard at Camp David -- including an unattributed quote from the young governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton -- Carter put his own spin on Caddell's argument. "The solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country," the president said, asking Americans to join him in adapting to a new age of limits.But he also admonished them, "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns." Hendrik Hertzberg, who worked on the speech, admits that it "was more like a sermon than a political speech. It had the themes of confession, redemption, and sacrifice. He was bringing the American people into this spiritual process that he had been through, and presenting them with an opportunity for redemption as well as redeeming himself." Though he never used the word -- Caddell had in his memo -- it became known as Carter's "malaise" speech.
Boomerang Reaction
Perhaps appreciating the president's astonishing frankness, the public rewarded him with higher approval ratings in the days that followed. But then, as historian Douglas Brinkley notes, "it boomeranged on him. The op-ed pieces started spinning out, 'Why don't you fix something? There's nothing wrong with the American people. We're a great people. Maybe the problem's in the White House, maybe we need new leadership to guide us.'" Historian Roger Wilkins concurs: "When your leadership is demonstrably weaker than it should be, you don't then point at the people and say, 'It's your problem.' If you want the people to move, you move them the way Roosevelt moved them, or you exhort them the way Kennedy or Johnson exhorted them. You don't say, 'It's your fault.'"
Anyway, Carter himself helped give the speech its name, by giving statements like this one not long afterwards:
I thought a lot about our nation and what I should do as president. And Sunday night before last, I made a speech about two problems of our country—energy and malaise. -- Jimmy Carter, Bardstown, Ky., town meeting, July 21, 1979.
The twin pillars of fiscal conservatism, are tax cuts and reductions in government expenditures. Arnold has yet to prove he is even fiscally responsible. let alone a fiscal conservative.
Arnold has said, he favors getting California out of the red, so its social welfare programs will run more effectively and efficiently. That's highminded liberalism.
Arnold has also said, he wants to bring businesses back to California, so tax revenues will increase and the states social welfare programs will have the proper level of funding to operate. More highminded liberalism.
So far, Arnold has shown he is a liberal RINO and has nothing in common with Reagan, on economic or social issues..
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