Bush is kicking away his base

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.

Thanks for the articulate reply. As Dennis Prager always says, clarity is the most important thing. As far as the border goes, we will all be debating this for years to come.

You are right. I know that the party has indeed changed, even in my lifetime. And so has the country. In fact, so has the world.

I think that is the fundamental reason why political parties, nations and even conservatism ebb and flow. We all believe what we believe and generally, that does not change. We are also products of our own generations and experiences.

Honestly, I think sometimes the fact that any of us can agree on anything is quite miraculous.

I also want you to know, that I am genuinely glad we are on the same side in principle, even if we disagree on specifics. It takes all of us.

Jefferson was a Democrat Republican (anti-Hamilton party founded to thwart Hamilton and Washington) as opposed to the Federal Republican party. There were many similiarities between the modern RATs and their antecedents particularly in their common opposition to anything which strengthened National Security, alliances with our enemies (Jefferson's beloved France today the terrorist states). Deluded economic theories and a willingness to out lie about the opposition are two of the greatest similiarities.

Jackson and those following Jefferson fell all over themselves praising the Mountebank of Monticello. They ALL claimed themselves to be his followers. Almost all Democrat-Republicans became Democrats while almost all Federal-Democrats became Whigs. Jefferson was a Democrat.

I'll remind you that that 'enemy', France, saved the colonies from losing the Revolutionary War. And one of those 'terrorist', LaFayette, remained a dear, lifelong friend of Geo. Washington.

You'll have to expound, if you care to, on what exactly you mean by 'deluded economic theories'. To me, Thomas J always seemed to pretty much in sync with men like Reagan where taxes, banks, and econ. matters were concerned.

"and a willingness to out lie about the opposition".

Granted, he was guilty of this, though I honestly believe he was sorry for it, and felt great remorse at having estranged himself from Washington. I won't say he felt the same about Hamilton, of whom Thomas J had no amity towards at all.

"Mountebank of Monticello"...Funny, though Sage of Monticello is closer to the truth.

You need not remind me of things which were superceded. Those among the French who aided our Revolution were precisely those who were BEHEADED by Jefferson's friends early in the Revolution.

Lafayette was only spared because of the intervention of George Washington. He had to send his children to live with Hamilton in New York for them to be assuredly safe.

Mainwhile Jefferson was running his mouth about how the Revolution would be justified if only one man and one woman was left in each country. Yammering on about the "Tree of Liberty" needing blood while it was the blood of those who fought for us being shed. His fanaticism was equal to that of Robespierre at least in rhetoric. You could not be more wrong about the French Revolution and those who assisted the US.

Jefferson believed the US should always be a agricultural economy and held economic views outdated by two generations. He was the deadly enemy of all who adopted a view that the promotion of modern capitalism was the way to riches and power. That was the view of Hamilton and Washington. J did not understand banking, money, or the role of government in transforming the distorted economy left by England's mercantilist imperialist economic polities which were designed to consign the Colonies to the role of economic support for the home country. This was the reason for Hamilton's Report on Manufactures.

Jefferson weakened our military so much that we could not even defend Washington from 10,000 British soldiers. His idea of a navy was to limit it to coastal defense and to let the navies of other nations have the carrying trade. Had there not been three federalist administrations prior to Jefferson's I have no doubt it would have been as complete a disaster as could be. Thank God for Washington and his right hand, Hamilton.

Jefferson was an excellent cabinet maker and rhetoritician.
His life made his rhetoric a total lie. Jefferson was only sorry he got caught slandering Washington but his actions against Hamilton were far worse. He is the most overrated of our Presidents and his beliefs helped pave the way to the Civil War.

Reagan gave amnesty...would you feel better if Bush gave amnesty to an equal number of illegal aliens?

I doubt it.

Bush spent big partly to rebuild a military left in ashambles by Bill Clinton, and to stop a dangerous downward spiral in the economy that started about a year before Clinton left office, and was made worse by 9/11. Today's economy should answer any questions you have about whether the Reagan-styled Bush spending worked or not.

I'll save you the time and effort...it did.

Bush I sacrificed his presidency in order to negotiate a deal with the Dems that led to the full realization of the Reagan economic plan; Clinton took office and took credit for the reagan/Bush I economic boom.

"We" did not lose anything, "conservatives" in a hissy fit proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the only thing they can do is put Democrats in power...which they did, twice.

The "conservative movement's" legacy will forever be known as The Clinton Presidency.

You could not be more wrong about the French Revolution and those who assisted the US.

My emphasis was not on the "French Revolution", but on the fact that if not for those you described as "terrorists" we would have not defeated the British in our Revolutionary War.

Jefferson believed the US should always be a agricultural economy and held economic views outdated by two generations. He was the deadly enemy of all who adopted a view that the promotion of modern capitalism was the way to riches and power.

You're misrepresenting Thomas J's views on the matter. He was against any form of a centralized gov't, (another pin in your Jefferson = Democrats balloon). Though he favored an agriculture economy, he did not advocate the evisceration of manufacturing and industry.
Another of his anti-Democrat traits is he championed the property owner, believing that property sacred and should never be taxed. Along with the fact that his views on taxation in general correlate those of today's supply-siders I'd hardly label Thomas J a "deadly enemy" of capitalism.

Jefferson weakened our military so much that we could not even defend Washington from 10,000 British soldiers. His idea of a navy was to limit it to coastal defense and to let the navies of other nations have the carrying trade.

Granted, he failed here.

Jefferson was an excellent cabinet maker and rhetoritician.

I'd include dialectician along with your two descriptors.

His life made his rhetoric a total lie. Jefferson was only sorry he got caught slandering Washington but his actions against Hamilton were far worse. He is the most overrated of our Presidents and his beliefs helped pave the way to the Civil War.

Hamilton was no choir boy himself. And Thomas J's first term is by many accounts noted as being one of the most successful of all our Presidents.

Thomas J actually predicted a 'civil war' would transpire in this country within a century. He was not, I'll kindly remind you, the only Founder who owned slaves.

Madison was a valuable player in the 1780s until Jefferson returned from France when he promptly went off the deep end and started sabotaging efforts to strengthen the Union.

Jemmy M was a staunch supporter of France his entire political life. It was he, while serving in the House of Representatives, who proposed legislation favoring France in trade and 'discriminating' against Great Britain in these matters, (although his bill was eventually defeated). A representative from Massachusetts, (I believe), named Fischer Ames went so far as to refer to Madison's politics as "Frenchified".

He also did not understand economics, finance or banking or the need to diversify the economy.

I beg to differ.

You can ignore the Revolutionairies KILLING those who helped us if you like but that does not change reality.

Jeffersonianism = States Rights = equal the Democratic Party until the 1970s. Simple and true.

Jefferson hated industry and believed it created great cities which demeaned man and turned him into a debased creature. Thus he discouraged the economic policies which created modern capitalism. He did not understand banks or finance and his great indebtness made him little more than a functionary of the great Scottish and British banks which banrolled his plantations. His inability to comprehend the necessity of a central government of sufficient strength to force other nations to respect it was very dangerous and led to an unecessary war with England.

He was truly filled with many impractical ideas such as the impermissability of taxation on property. That demogogery has always been dangerous and the Pie in the Sky always attractive to the less discerning.

I don't hold Jefferson's slaveholding against him that much or his relationship with Sally Hemmings but the former certainly makes his declamations about "Liberty" ring hollow.

Madison's prescription of favoring France showed his lack of realism as to funding the government and understanding the close cultural ties between the US and Great Britain. Hamilton's program was designed first and foremost with funding the federal government and this meant tapping the great trade with the former mother country. France was neither capable of providing the same goods nor even of understanding what that demand really was. It was a prime example of letting political emotion get the better of financial thinking.

Thanks for the site. I printed it off and will read it.

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