Buchanan sees 'war' within conservatism

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | 5/17/05 | Ralph Z. Hallow

[Jim W N]

Agreed - these "forever" pronouncements seem to come every time someone other than you're choice is president. What I don't get is why its so hard for conservatives to flush out bright, good, right-thinking leaders who genuinely like and successfully negotiate with people, like Reagan, but iron willed on important issues.

[PeaceAndFreedom]

How can you have free trade with a country that is not free?Free trade is what the various states in this country enjoy among themselves, not what we have with China and other unfree countries. If American consumers can choose what they want at the best price, and Chinese consumers cannot, how is that free trade? The distinction that Pat Buchanan makes between free trade and fair trade is a good distinction to me, and what Milton Friedman teaches is certainly fine on paper, but theory isn't everything. Sometimes the real world doesn't conform to theory as well as it should.

[Afronaut]

We will be served up the biggest RINO in history in 2006. The Republican Party will never leave the Center. It's downhill from here, Christians are the new Satan of the American landscape. The Crazy Right Wing Christian Conservatives...

[x]

Skillful politicians who can make it at the national level are hard to come by. You can see that with the Democrats last year. Bush does have skills as a communicator. His problem is that he's a regional figure who's very popular in some parts of the country and unpopular in others. That means he's stuck close to 51%, but a blander candidate who tried to please everyone might do even worse.

If you look back to the Reagan days, you had Reagan the conservative, and more middle of the road candidates like Bush's father. Things aren't so clearcut now. The President has a strong cultural conservative appeal, but he's more of a middle of the roader on things like the size of government.

If you're a convinced budget cutter or free marketeer that combination is far from the ideal, but it looks like it's one that can win elections at the Presidential level. If Bush tried to be on the right in all things, he probably wouldn't have gotten so far.

To get a candidate like Ronald Reagan elected, you need a real problem situation that makes people open to new ideas and changes in how government works. Until then, candidates are not going to take the kind of chances Reagan did in his campaigns.

[af_vet_rr]

The Republican Party will never leave the Center. It's downhill from here,

The GOP has a choice - be Conservative, and start losing elections, or stay in the middle and win.

I don't like where the GOP is headed, but I completely understand how and why it is headed that way, and I shouldn't begrudge the leadership for that - their job is to win elections, not to pander to those of us who are diehard Conservatives.

[jwalsh07]

What? You don't think Pat was looking to unify conservatives when he and Lenora Fulani had their fling?

[oceanview]

he is dead right on the economic issues - our party wins elections now on the national security, and moral/ethical/values issue. we have no economic message, none. and that's because of our blind embrace of free trade and open immigration policies. we will never see another 49 state win like Reagan had, the best we can do with this formula is win by 1 or 2 states, even up against northeast liberals like Kerry.

[jwalsh07]

I think you are wrong here. The right candidate can take the illegal immigration issue and run with it to a landslide. Hopefully, that fellow or gal is a conservative republican. But, it could be a conservative democrat.

[oceanview]

which leading republican candidate for 2008 is going to say anything like that? same thing on trade - who is going to break ranks - specifically on China? List the leading candidates: senator Allen, Bill Owens, McCain, what is their position on these two issues?

my point is, we are going to run in 2008 on the same two issues - national security & moral issues. now don't get me wrong, those are two good issues to have. But it will, at best, give us another 3-5% win and a 1 or 2 state margin.

[paul_fromatlanta]

>>
Once again Buchanan is wrong. Of all the things that divide conservatives, foreign policy isn't one of them.<<

Being the world's policeman was a Democrat thing... Conservatives where I grew up called Korea and Vietnam "Democrat wars"..a lot of these same folks grew up Democrats because that was the only party in Georgia until Reagan but they still didn't mean it in a good way.

[Dane]

Below is a night time satellite image which IMO, is the modern epitomie of Pat's economic nationalism, North Korea.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Creaky old Milt Friedman? The man who's monetarism policy nearly finished off the British empire? The guy who thinks the Great Depression was caused by the Feds having too little money in the system (rather than the three bank runs during a down trend while America was on the Gold Standard)?

Adoption of Friedman's ideas may have helped reign in inflation but couldn't do a thing about the resulting recession. Only a resumption of Keynesian policy in 1982 brought the economy back into balance. Thank heavens our government noted what was happening across the pond before we, too, went down the loo.

If I recall his "free to choose" statement was made about parent's choices for educating their children. I may be wrong.

[Jim W N]

Regardless of whether the country you're trading with is free, the consumer in the free-trade country still wins because his choices are broadened. Also competition is open which creates a greater incentive for other producers in the field to try harder - again the consumer wins. Artificially stifled competition through tariffs tends toward producer complacency and the consumer loses.

[af_vet_rr]

The right candidate can take the illegal immigration issue and run with it to a landslide.

No major politician wants to do anything that is going to alienate large groups of voters, and unfortunately some of the Hispanic groups have tied the illegal immigration issue to racism. It's pretty crappy that they have done so (I say this and I'm considered a Hispanic), but that's the way things have fallen.

That's why President Bush labeled the Minutement project as "vigilantes" and that's why he buddies up to Fox.

It would take another 9/11 for the people in Washington to get serious about the border, and even then, I doubt they'd try all that hard. It's far easier to push the burden back onto the states, through the driver's license issues, etc.

[miloklancy]

One thing is for certain Pat Buchanan's relevance to the conservative movement has long since passed. I hate to say it, but I'm not sure he is playing with a full deck.

[ozzymandus]

Pat needs to realize that conservatism doesn't revolve around him. He was blown out in 3 elections, so now he's a professional sore loser.

[Marysecretary]

And he's beginnng to tick me off, everytime I see him on Fox. Argghhh. I used to like him. Now all he does is annoy the living xxxx out of me.

[Jim W N]

It was Reagan's tax cuts that turned this country's economy around in the 80's and 90's. The 30's disaster was in fact a study of how government makes matters worse - the Fed's continual money tightening turned an economic problem related to the gold standard overseas, into a disaster.

Keynes' pro-govenment economic philosophy is flawed (England being a good example) although it is taught exclusively as fact in most schools because most schools are liberal and love big government. The United States prospered though the 1800's and early 1900's in a free-market system without big government. Keynes' pro-govenment-ecomomic-interfence philosophy came out in the 30's, just in time for FDR to begin growing the central-govenmnt beast.

The history of government interference in America's economy is a study in how government programs not only fail to fix economic problems but consistently make matters worse. Reagan was correct when he said, "Government is not the solution, Government is the problem."

[Free Baptist]

We have to risk voting for people like Mr. Buchanan and putting them into office. We have to risk setting aside the mainstream who are calling themselves "conservative." I went to hear a man speak last evening who is very sound in his views, who said, "I no longer call my self a conservative, because that now means just maintaining - or conserving - the status quo." As things get worse, we just "conserve that. Then as things get worse again we just try to "conserve" that. He went on to tell the difference between "conserving" a 1955 Chevy that has been sitting in a rural barn for 25 years and actually "restoring" the Chevy. He said, "No more conserving...we need a lot of restoring." I agree.