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Posted on 06/15/2002 4:12:45 PM PDT by Tom D.
It escapes me why so many Republicans do not want to be hard to get along with when dealing with opponents who are trying to cut their throats. These folks are trying to kill Bush politically and are willing to kill the country to do it. Why do folks in the Bush Administration refuse to understand that you cannot deal gently with people like this? Obviously Mr. Bush got elected president and neither Mr. Steyn nor I did, but I sincerely believe that Mr. Bush needs to have John Howard over for a chat.
Bushphiles keep telling me it's all the doing of Karl Rove ... and it's merely a short-term strategy to widen the base.
Well, in the first place, Bush has to going along with the strategy, so blame cannot be placed squarely on Rove. Bush is as much responsible for the pinhead idea of abandoing principles for votes.
Secondly, does anyone really believe it's a short-term strategy? Why not just become Democrats and promise everything to everyone ... and then you'll get lots more votes.
Most aren't aware of it ... but it's happening right in front of them. The Republican Party is going through a paradigm shift ... a long struggle between conservatives and moderates (neo-cons). The irony of it is that conservatives will have ended up voting the neo-con in office that will complete the paradigm shift.
I would not use the term 'warmongering' but, except for 9/11 and related matters, Bush has been a rather mediocre president. Without 9/11, I think his popularity would also be mediocre.
What he's doing is a big gamble. It takes a confident guy to even try it.
The war on terrorism has changed the political landscape dramatically and the Bush administration is faced with serious problems no President and no other American generation, has ever come up against before.
Bushes record hasn't been perfect in the last year. He's made some wrongheaded moves involving a few key pieces of legislation, but were its been possible, the President has moved his agenda along. Working to take back the Senate should be the priority for every conservative Republican. Having a Democrat controlled Congress, will only exascerbate the political gridlock that exists in WashDC today.
If Bush jumped on Leahy, Leahy would tell Bush to go to hell. Leahy is from one of the most liberal states in the Union. What are you going to threaten him with? You can't defeat him. And he doesn't give a rat's a$$ about public opinion outside his own state. And if he gets into a hand to hand fight with Bush , his state will build Leahy a monument. Leahy is not screwing his secretary and cheating on his wife. Gingrich was. There is nothing to blackmail Leahy about.
This is garbage. There is only one way to get things done and that is to gain control of the senate.
In the USA about 1/3 of the voters are on the right and a 1/3 on the left. That leaves a third in the middle. If arguments that appeal to the left appealed to the center the the center would be leftist. If arguments that appeal to the right appealed to the center the the center would be conservative. The center reacts to different issues than the left or right. They (GASP) react to centerist issues.
When the left captures over half the center, they take control and move the nation to the left. When on rare occasions the right has found issues that appeal to the center the right has prevailed and moved the nation to the right. It ain't rocket science but it escapes many freepers.
To move the nation to the right, the center must be attracted to vote for the right. It should not take an overly large brain to figure out that the center does not react positively to the agenda of the right. So the right to be successful has to try to move the left to the left. That costs the left teh center. And the right must do things that make the center vote for the candiates of the right.
The left from FDR to Bill Clinton understood that you have to appeal to the center to win. Can you say "New Democrat"? I didn't think so. Can't you just hear the right wing idiots? "Just becuase it always works is no reason to do it." "We on the right should be about making everone like us." If that could be done... Everyone would be like us. Everone is not. In fact 2/3 are not like us. Never have been. Never will be. Get a Clue.
Bush is doing his best to make Daschle and company look like "OLD DEMOCRATS' and Bush and his gang look like NEW REPUBLICANS.
1994
If we can only have one chamber, I'd almost trade the House for the Senate. With the power divided, we still get bigger government. With the Senate in republican hands, Bush can at least affect the composition of the judiciary (which in any case has become a "secondary legislature").
If Clinton had acted the way he campaigned, we would have lost seats in the House and Senate. But Clinton allowed the leftists in Congress and his wife drive him from the center to the left. (Gays in the military, Hillary care, tax increase, etc.). Thus, the center, confronted with the far left, swung to the right.
I'd refine that and say, 1/3 of the voters are on the right and know it, 1/3 are on the left and know it, and 1/3 are rather lefty and don't know it.
When leftists appeal to the center and win they move the country sharply left (eg FDR). When the right appeals to the center and wins, the country moves slightly left. One could point to certain exceptions such as welfare reform, but to me this is just taking a loony left policy and making it somewhat more reasonable, i.e. less loony. The welfare and tax regimes we live under are essentially leftist.
The only way for republicans to force change is to occupy all 3 elective bodies and stack the judiciary with their people. Even so, I doubt that government will shrink. It's growth might slow perceptably, but that's about all we can hope for. The tendency to drift leftward won't be stopped until the electorate is re-educated--probably a multi-generational project.
It seems that the normal Republican response to a bad program proposed by the left is a to offer a 'lite' version of the same thing. Not only does this mean the leftists still get their way, albeit piecemeal, but it doesn't really do ANYTHING good for the Republicans, even short term.
If the Democrats propose spending $10,000,000 on some projects and the Republicans know the proposal will provide far less benefit at far greater cost than claimed, countering with a proposal to spend $5,000,000 is just plain stupid. It makes it nearly impossible to argue that the program is a bad idea and should be cut (since the Republicans, by their counter proposal, agree that the notion of such a program is a good thing), it lets the Democrats paint the Republicans as being 'obstructionists' who are 'beholden to special interests' (if the program is such a good thing--as the Republicans already concede it to be--it's hard to justify less than whole-hearted support), and it puts any blame for the program's failures squarely on the Republicans (overruns and service shortfalls are a consequence of the Republicans' refusal to budget enough money). What would be far better would be for the Republicans to make clear their intention to block the program and reasons for doing so. If they succeed, great; if not--if the Democrats push the program through over the Republicans' objections--any blame for the program's shortcomings will least squarely on the shoulders of the Democrats.
I don't know about that, Miss M. The 'contract with America' had some rather rightist stuff as I recall...eliminate Dept of Ed comes to mind.
How come when conservative ideas win elections we rationalize the power of those ideas away? The last big win for conservatives was Reagan, but I guess the reason for that would be rationalized that Carter was soooo poor.
Meanwhile, when the conservative ideas get covered over what seems to happen?.....Bush 41, Bob Dole come to mind immediately, and Gerry Ford soon after....at least post '64.
Power. Jobs for your friends. The game.
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