Posted on 09/17/2003 1:44:36 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
A picture hangs on my office wall that reminds of the glory years of the Reagan Revolution. It shows the White House team entry in the D.C. Nike Challenge from 1985. The six participants include Dick Hauser, then Deputy Counsel in the White House; John Roberts – newly confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then a young White House lawyer; and me, also a young White House lawyer. The captain of the "White House V-toes" was Pat Buchanan, at the time the Gipper's communications director.
Whenever a visitor's eye turns to the picture, I point to Pat and say, there's the man who put Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court. Only the politically inclined get it: Pat Buchanan's primary challenge to President George H.W. Bush in 1992 bled the incumbent and opened the door to Perot. Perot, of course, put Clinton in the White House, and Clinton put those justices on the highest court.
Buchanan fans sputter a lot when they hear this recounting of history, and many splendid arguments follow. They protest too much, the Pat people do, because of the impulse to disguise guilt with vigorous and emphatic denunciations. Facts, to quote Reagan quoting Lenin, however, are stubborn things. Buchanan wrought what he wrought, and honest accounting requires that the two Clinton appointees be put credited to Pat's legacy ledger. So much for the pro-life platform upon which Pat has long stood. There is no doubt that he sincerely believes in the platform – but there is overwhelming evidence that the unborn would have been far better off had Pat never launched a public career.
This history becomes relevant as the California recall vote draws near. Like Pat, Tom McClintock is a smart, talented and principled public man. Like Pat, Tom is supported by a legion of dedicated, energetic activists. Like the Buchanan campaign of 1992, the McClintock campaign of 2003 thinks it has momentum, a mirage created wholly by an elite media eager to wound a Republican front-runner. A decade ago, that front-runner was President Bush; these days it is Arnold.
And like the Buchanan campaign of 1992, the McClintock campaign of 2003 is playing the role of unwitting pawn of the Democrats to a perfection.
It will not be clear for some years what the real costs of the McClintock candidacy will be. The GOP is already damaged in California, but the real disaster will arrive only if Cruz Bustamante replaces Gray Davis, winning the second part of the California recall with a margin less than the total number of votes garnered by McClintock.
The die-hards ought to think about Breyer and Ginsburg as they launch rhetorical salvo after rhetorical salvo at Arnold. These attacks are very similar in tone and detail to those hurled by the Buchananites against the elder Bush in 1992. Whether they will result in the declaration as unconstitutional of such laws as a ban on partial-birth abortion remains to be seen, but Pat Buchanan clearly didn't set out to destroy such protections with his candidacy of 1992.
But he did. What will the McClintock ledger show a decade hence?
You attacked me. For being too principled, no less.
And you claim you care about America.
It seems to me that the attacks are going the other way. It's Arnold, and his supporters, that are being attacked here.
So I guess your opening line should be repeated.
"The essayist's theory is hopelessly flawed."
California has a greater numbner of registered Democrats than registered Republicans, it's the most liberal State in the Union.
The passage of so many conservative props would seem to belie that contention. Could be that the GOP is simply incompetent, and therefore has not exploited the basic conservatism that is out there?
Someday, perhaps, there will a possibility of a conservative of McClintock's ideology making a run at the governor's chair, but not right now.
We may never know when so many 'conservatives' are willing to support a liberal.
The pendulum has to swing through the center before it swings to either extreme. Like in national politics, it is imperative that we get the pendulum to slow down the swing to the left, stop, then begin its swing to the right.
The whole 'pendulum' analogy is flawed, IMO. The country went pretty fast from Jimmy Carter to Dutch Reagan.
Pretty analagous to the situation in CA right now, if you think about it. Carter was ruining the country, and Davis has been ruining California.
Did anyone just hear Hugh Hewitt talking about this very thread on his show a few minutes ago?Let's give him something to talk about, from FR's own resident parody genius, Registered:He mentioned you by name , JohnHuang2, and is surprised the thread has generated so many posts.
46 posted on 09/17/2003 12:52 PM PDT by Registered (Gray Davis won't be baaaaahhck)
Arnold Schwarzenegger to Appear Wednesday, Sept. 17th on Larry King Live
Posted by FairOpinion
On 09/16/2003 9:48 AM PDT with 54 comments
TV Barn ^ | Sept. 16, 2003 | TVBarn TIcker
Matter of record, no contention.
"We may never know when so many 'conservatives' are willing to support a liberal."
Your label. Arnold seems to be about personal responsibility.
If you mean "liberal" in his argument that there should be some sort of amnesty for a number of illegal immigrants, then Reagan was a liberal as well, he granted the amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.
"The whole 'pendulum' analogy is flawed, IMO. The country went pretty fast from Jimmy Carter to Dutch Reagan."
Jimmy Carter was preceeded by Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford...Carter was the Libs attempt at swinging the pendulum back their way...the hostage crisis saw to it that he failed.
The argument right now in California is fiscal, that's what the middle of the road voter will vote on.
My last question to you remains the very same question I posted earlier.
If Bush I was at fault for not being re-elected, due to his failure to generate enough support, then Tom McClintock should be equally held to blame for his failure to attract sufficient voters. Right?
If it wasn't Perot's fault, then it can't be Arnold's fault either can it?
If it wasn't Perot's fault, then it can't be Arnold's fault either can it?
Actually, if you go back and read my posts, you will see that I haven't personally taken a position on this thread about who caused what in those particular elections. If you want, I'll be glad to do so. I'll also share where I stood on each occasion as well.
What I took exception to is Mr. Hewitt brushing all conservatives with the same tar brush as is used on Buchanan. It isn't true, and it isn't fair. Buchanan doesn't represent us in the least.
Almost the entire GOP electorate stayed home in the GOP and voted for GW Bush in 2000, for example...considering the threat of a continuation of the Clinton crime syndicate to far outweigh some real problems that many had with Mr. Bush's stated positions on some key issues.
By doing what he is doing; painting all supporters of Tom McClintock as like Buchanan, he, and by extension you, are doing a huge disservice, and real damage, to the Republican coalition.
The fact is, Buchanan is a has-been, and over the course of the last few years has departed far from the mainstream conservative reservation.
And what you are ignoring, leaving out of your equation, is the fact that Schwarzenegger is so far left that many of us cannot support him, period. Not possible, and not the same as those elections in the least.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/982570/posts?page=528#528
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