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Bush is kicking away his base
Townhall.com ^ | Jan 30, 2006 | Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on 01/31/2006 11:05:56 AM PST by robowombat

Bush is kicking away his base By Phyllis Schlafly

Jan 30, 2006

The conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush once, and George W. Bush II twice, is essentially a movement of grass-rooters who don't like to take orders from the top and who revolt when they believe they are betrayed or bossed by those they elected. That's why the grass roots abandoned the first George Bush when he reneged on his "no new taxes, read my lips" promise.

The tough political tactics used by union bosses and Democratic machine bosses simply don't sit well with conservative Republicans.

Resentment against the current Bush administration is still festering about the combination of threats and bribes that pushed through close votes in Congress to pass the costly Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003 and Central American Trade Agreement in 2004.

Maybe the intra-party divisions between fiscal vs. Big Government conservatives that lay behind the former battle, and between pro vs. anti free-traders in the latter battle, were evenly balanced enough that the Bush administration alienated only a handful of Republicans. But in demanding a guest-worker plan that smacks of amnesty, the Bush administration is taking the unpopular side of a party division that is at least 80-20.

In December, the House passed a border-security bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.. The bill rejected support for Bush's guest worker/amnesty plan. Since 88 percent of Republican House members voted for this bill, that should have been a wake-up call to the president.

Shortly thereafter, Arizona Republican National Committee member Randy Pullen gathered enough signatures to present a resolution to the Republican National Committee at its Jan. 19-20 meeting in Washington, D.C., which endorsed border security measures and opposed any guest worker plan.

A competing resolution endorsing border security plus a guest worker plan was floated by the RNC's Bill Crocker of Texas. After he realized the strong tide against guest workers, he began negotiating a compromise with Pullen, and one version of the compromise eliminated guest workers.

When the RNC resolutions committee met Jan. 19, the chairman, Idaho's Blake Hall, brought up the original Crocker resolution that included guest worker language. An attempt by one committeeman to substitute the Crocker-Pullen compromise was ruled out of order, and then a motion to remove the guest worker language was voted down 5 to 3.

That evening, the Bush administration sent in its big guns, Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to insist that RNC members support the guest worker plan or else they would be labeled disloyal and disrespectful of President Bush. Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman made the rounds to regional caucuses to demand approval of Bush's guest worker plan and defeat of the Pullen resolution.

At the RNC meeting on Jan. 20, the Hall-approved resolution was incorporated and passed as part of a package of nine resolutions in order to preclude a specific vote on the border security-guest worker issue. The Pullen resolution did not come up.

This donnybrook happened on the same day that the New York Times reported that 18,207 illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico have been the beneficiaries of the Bush administration's scandalous "catch and release" procedure in the three months since Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promised to "return every single illegal entrant - no exceptions." Catch and release means that the illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico are not deported. But after they are apprehended, they are released on their own recognizance with instructions to reappear a few weeks later, with everybody understanding that they will disappear into the U.S. population.

Also on the same day, Lou Dobbs reported on CNN-TV that Mexican troops are crossing our southern border twice a month in uniform, in military vehicles and carrying military weapons. The Bush administration's response to this invasion is don't ask, don't tell.

It's bad enough that President Bush is pursuing a vastly unpopular guest worker-amnesty plan, but the administration's bullying to prevent debate and a vote by the full Republican National Committee was intolerable. It forecasts the sort of intimidation we can anticipate in the upcoming Senate debate about Bush's guest worker plan.

Why are President Bush and Karl Rove so tone deaf on this issue? Some speculate that the Bush administration is in the pocket of big business lobbying interests that want the cheap labor made available by the government's failure to enforce our immigration laws.

Others speculate that Bush and Rove are hallucinating that Hispanics will vote Republican. That won't happen; Hispanics vote 55 to 75 percent Democratic because, since they are mostly in the low-income sector of our economy, they vote for the party that promises the social benefits of the welfare state, not for the party that pretends to support fiscal integrity and small government.

The administration-imposed RNC defeat of the majority view of Republicans is bad news for the 2006 congressional elections. Bush is alienating his political base and creating what one RNC member calls an "enthusiasm deficit." In the words of the old adage, elephants (i.e., conservative Republicans) never forget.

Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: aliens; amnesty; bashinghispanics; border; bordersecurity; bushamnesty; duplicatethread; illegalaliens; immigrantlist; invasionusa; openborders; schlafly
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To: buckeye49

cool :)


681 posted on 01/31/2006 5:45:55 PM PST by MikefromOhio (")
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To: jla

Phyllis KNOWS how important 2008 is.She will not settle for anyone not to the right of President Bush.She knows this might be our(and her) last chance.She will play a huge role in 08.


682 posted on 01/31/2006 5:53:03 PM PST by Gipper08 (Mike Pence in 2008)
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To: MikeinIraq

It's time!! Go Titans! :) Sorry, couldn't help it.


683 posted on 01/31/2006 5:56:15 PM PST by buckeye49
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To: MikeA

Not increasing Government spending by 33% is what we want.
"As government expands Freedom contracts" PERIOD.
Phyllis Schlafly is a hero and an American treasure.YOU OWE her more than you could ever repay her.


684 posted on 01/31/2006 5:57:35 PM PST by Gipper08 (Mike Pence in 2008)
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To: buckeye49

I wish he was still with the Titans though....

I would have been able to watch him play one more time in Cleveland this past year...


685 posted on 01/31/2006 5:58:31 PM PST by MikefromOhio (")
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To: jla; Howlin

Unfortunatly to the socialists of all parties,Mrs.Schlafly has been a stalwart for 40 years at keeping the American dream alive.She has one more great fight left in her:2008!


686 posted on 01/31/2006 6:02:29 PM PST by Gipper08 (Mike Pence in 2008)
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To: Gipper08
"If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
But I would be more than happy to walk alongside such a grand lady, and
devoted American, as is Mrs. Schlafly, in advancing our goal of a more
perfect union."

687 posted on 01/31/2006 6:50:53 PM PST by jla
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To: robowombat

Our President just betrayed his base in the "State of the Union" by not even addressing the issue of illegal immigration. THE FIGHT IS ON!!! I would suggest that the Senate pay heed. Civil war in this nation is not out of the question. I have never seen such a chicken shit!!!!


688 posted on 01/31/2006 7:07:11 PM PST by Sterco
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To: pollyannaish
The plans proposed so far by people in your camp will not happen—ever.

So we are just going to keep strip-searching 80 year old grannies at the airport and hope any future or existing terrorists just ignore the border?

I will tell you what my plan is, and it doesn't even have to involve building a wall, and it doesn't break the Constitution (which I dearly love).

My plan is simple:

1)Treat illegal aliens like the criminals they are.

2) Make the management and owners of companies that hire illegal aliens responsible - throw them in jail for providing comfort and aid for criminals - the same as if you or I hid a bank robber from the police, because they are providing the ability for a criminal to get by in this society.

Plenty of people wait patiently for literally years to legally enter this country. Time and again Cubans fleeing a communist dictatorship, risking their lives, are turned back, and yet our President wants to make the ones who walk over the border "guest" workers.

If you remove the economic incentives that President Bush, the GOP leadership, and various large businesses and industries want to give these illegal aliens, then they will have no reason for coming up here - they come here because the money is here.

Furthermore, I very much believe in an old saying "spare the rod, spoil the child" (which came from Proverbs 13:23 or 24, not that I want to bring religion into this - I'm just providing a context of how old).

The child in this case is the GOP. We have spoiled the child, by allowing them to run wild with government spending, power, etc. We keep on rewarding their aberrant behavior by electing them back into office.

It's time to pick up the rod before this child stops listening to the adults (voters) altogether.

Applying the rod in this case, means taking our votes somewhere else. After a few elections, one of two things will happen - either the child, or GOP in this case, will realize we are done indulging in their behavior and that they should get back to a Conversative stance, or they will move further left to pickup votes to offset our leaving.

If they move even further left, they will lose more voters, which means that a third party becomes very viable at this point. If they come back to the Conservative fold, then we've made our point, and they'll be careful in the future.

We cannot afford to allow this party or this country to keep on going the way it's going - I have maybe 20-30 more years left, and maybe things won't change much in what's left of my lifetime, but I sure as hell don't want to think about the kind of country that my descendants will have 60 years from now, at the rate we are going.

If we are not careful now, what freedoms we still have are liable to be a fairytale to children and young adults 60 or 70 years from now.

This country has had one revolution, and one civil war already. I don't want my great-grandchildren to have to fight another.
689 posted on 01/31/2006 7:59:11 PM PST by af_vet_rr
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To: af_vet_rr
Your plan sounds reasonable and while I disagree with your proposed method of realigning the GOP, I believe our goals are the same.

Now, as far as fighting goes: As long as time lasts, many, many more revolutions and civil wars will be fought, many risks face people of freedom, and that will never end. We will NEVER get to rest from that work.

Freedom is not the natural state of the world. Neither is peace. In my opinion, when it comes to our children and grandchildren, our best bet is to make sure they value the things that make America great, including freedom. We need to teach them to value them enough that they are willing to fight as hard to preserve them as we are.

They must NEVER be under the illusion that there has been a war to end all wars, or that they can relax and take those things for granted. If we teach them that it has been lost already.

Anyway, thank you for your thoughtful response. I genuinely appreciate it.
690 posted on 01/31/2006 8:10:36 PM PST by pollyannaish
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To: BobinIL

Its not a majority of Conservative Justices yet. We still need one more solid conservative to get a Majority. As it stands now its 4-4-1, with Kennedy being the "swing voter."


691 posted on 01/31/2006 8:30:56 PM PST by old republic
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To: Sterco

why would i not like alito when it comes to immigration? i've only commented on bush's immigration policy. the judiciary's role in the matter is a whole different ballgame.


692 posted on 01/31/2006 8:59:27 PM PST by RebekahT ("Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem." -- Ronald Reagan)
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To: Pelham

Perhaps you need to read some of the threads around here and the solutions therein before attacking the Unpanicked.


693 posted on 01/31/2006 9:56:10 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: Sterco

Congratulations all progress is appreciated.


694 posted on 01/31/2006 9:57:34 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts

All but the deliberately obtuse understand Bush was referring to a New World Order without communism. Remember the USSR and the threat it posed? Guess what? In the New World Order it is NOT a threat anymore.

But crackpot interpretations derived from tea leaves is much more intriguing.


695 posted on 01/31/2006 9:59:52 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: TheLion

I like my figure of ONE BILLION better being derived very scientifically throught the formual - (imagination)*(hysteria)= ONE BILLION.

And the worst news is their babies are American citizens.


696 posted on 01/31/2006 10:03:31 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: BobinIL

We'll need one more conservative justice to have a majority.

Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Thomas v. Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, Stevens

Let's hope that swing-voter Kennedy swings back to his conservative roots.


697 posted on 01/31/2006 10:06:18 PM PST by skr ("That book [Bible], sir, is the rock on which our republic rests."--Andrew Jackson)
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To: jla

Few did more to prevent a "perfect Union" than Jefferson. Creating the RAT party was terribly devisive.


698 posted on 01/31/2006 10:06:43 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: Gipper08

LoL talk about the tail wagging the dog. Shafely has few followers. She is far too out on the fringe for any real influence. There is little chance of electing a president to the right of Bush as the last two elections show. The Ultras keep forgetting that the majority of Americans do not go for their program. They will happily elect another glib empty suit like Clinton only running a doofus and a traitor allowed the GOP to win.

Those who understand politics understand that such changes as are needed cannot be obtained except through patient progress.

Keeping the electorate on board is paramount to success.


699 posted on 01/31/2006 10:12:49 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: jla; Howlin

I just plotzed myself. Undoubtedly the "Ownage" of the Year.


700 posted on 01/31/2006 10:20:46 PM PST by Captainpaintball
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