Posted on 12/02/2007 9:28:01 AM PST by Graybeard58
WASHINGTON They want to put his face on Mount Rushmore, but Republicans today are demanding such ideological purity that they might not even nominate Ronald Reagan for president if he were to run now.
Abortion? He was for abortion rights before he was against them.
Taxes? He raised them as governor, and raised them several times as president after his big 1981 tax cuts.
Immigration? He signed the law that Republicans now call amnesty for illegals.
Foreign policy? He negotiated with the head of the "Evil Empire."
In fact, they'd find him wrong on almost every hot-button issue of the 2008 campaign.
Most of those stands are overlooked in the Republicans' idealized rear-view idolization of Reagan as an unwavering conservative icon. But they serve as a reminder that even the revered Reagan was a pragmatic politician whose stands often changed and might not fit in today's politics.
The real Reagan story is forgotten as Republicans this year attack one another for past offenses even if they've moved toward conservative orthodoxy since. They criticize Mitt Romney for once supporting abortion rights, though he now opposes them. They tear into Mike Huckabee for raising some taxes as governor, ignoring his vow not to raise them as president. They rip Rudy Giuliani for once welcoming illegal immigrants to New York, though he takes a hard line now.
Through it all, they ignore the real Reagan.
"Their memories of Reagan are very selective," said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota. "In some ways, they're creating a standard that is not real, that did not happen, and holding each other to that standard. I don't think Reagan himself would do well in this environment."
Take abortion.
Romney is routinely criticized as a flip-flopper for changing from a supporter of abortion rights to an opponent while governor of Massachusetts. But regardless of whether his switch was born of principle or political expedience, he did change to the position that most Republican profess to want.
His defense is simple. He changed his mind, he says, "just like Ronald Reagan did."
He's right, to a degree.
As the governor of California, Reagan signed a 1967 law that allowed abortions in the state six years before the Supreme Court legalized them nationwide.
Author and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon noted that Reagan made that decision in a vastly different time, before the issue had become such an emotional flash point.
"Reagan had never considered the issue," Cannon said.
The party was more libertarian in philosophy then, and a top Republican in the state Senate predicted that the bill would put the issue behind them, so Reagan signed it. He changed his mind later, and told Cannon he wouldn't have signed the bill a year later.
"Hell, all these people change positions," Cannon said, "and legitimately so."
Or consider taxes.
Huckabee's rivals and the anti-tax group Club for Growth are attacking him for raising taxes while he was the governor of Arkansas. Yet he's promised not to raise taxes as president, and cites Reagan as proof that a politician can change.
"If Reagan were running today," Huckabee said this week, "the Club for Growth would be running ads against him because he raised taxes by a billion when he was governor of California."
Indeed, Reagan did sign a billion-dollar tax increase while he was governor in 1967. As president, he also signed several tax increases that offset some of his historic 1981 cut in federal income taxes.
Consider illegal immigration.
Giuliani and Romney snipe at each other over their records on this issue, accusing each other of offering "sanctuary" to illegal immigrants in New York City and Massachusetts.
Yet Reagan effectively turned the United States into a sanctuary when he signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which gave amnesty to illegals who were already here.
There were other times as well when Reagan took positions that would draw attacks in today's Republican presidential campaign.
Never withdraw troops? He pulled them out of Lebanon in 1984 after a suicide bomber killed 241 U.S. Marines.
Talk to our enemies? He personally negotiated and signed deals with a Soviet regime that he himself called the Evil Empire.
Curiously, he was able to thrive in his time in part because he hadn't yet unified the modern Republican Party in his conservative image.
He named Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, for example, and she later became the swing vote in upholding the right to abortion. He probably couldn't get away with that appointment today, just as President George W. Bush was forced to withdraw his nomination of Harriet Miers because he couldn't assure conservatives that she'd oppose abortion from the bench.
For now, much of the sniping over today's candidates' records reflects a close, wide-open race in which all of those running are desperate to prove their conservative credentials and to discredit their rivals.
Ultimately, said Grover Norquist, a conservative strategist and Reagan devotee, the Republicans should learn to look forward rather than back, and welcome those who move to the right.
"I am not a critic of those who say they once did a bad thing and are not going to do that anymore," Norquist said in an interview. "A successful political movement accepts converts. The Catholic Church doesn't say, 'If you weren't with us 10 years ago, you can't be with us now.' I am very much in favor of accepting converts."
Right, Grover , Muslim radicals, illegal aliens....this guy is one of the biggest reasons we are in the mess we're in today and yes, he wants unlimited illegal and legal immigration and any rotten trade deal to be had.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
And it would seem that from many of the posts that the USA has taken a turn for the worse under the “Republicanism” of the two Bushes. Perhaps Reagan’s original political perceptions would have been better than the “New Republicanism” of the two Bushes.
Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty legislation in part because those supporting that amnesty in Congress, including Ted Kennedy, promised there would be no more amnesties. Ted Kennedy lied. Twenty years later he was working with John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Mel Martinez and other Republican senators to give amnesty to twenty to thirty million illegal aliens.
Good grief, Webb was heralded here and in Rightwing media consistently.
And when Conservatives had our stunning victory in 94, they were not defended, but were told "you trying to do to much", "you didn't handle it well", and many lost in 96!
We have a Constitutionally mandated balanced budget in Arkansas. The legislature, run by Dem's, refused to make the cuts needed to balance it, and thus the tax hike occurred. The Governor cut all he could from the Governors office,(chump change small office with even less power) but could not do anything about the pork, the teacher pay raise and the Medicaid programs.
Since politics is a blood sport here, and the Democrats run the show, they blamed the governor for the tax hike.
BTW, we had a surplus after he left office, and it turned out that the projections done by the Dem's were wrong.
You sir, are dead on.
I loved Ronald Reagan for the good things he did, but he was no Conservative the way the folks around here define it.
He pulled out of Lebanon after the Marine barracks were bombed.
He appointed two moderates (Kennedy and O’Connor) and two conservative (Rhenquist and Scalia) to the Supreme Court. That’s a 50% record partially by pandering to the feminists.
He raised taxes as part of a bargain with Democrats (he should have known by then that Democrats never keep their bargains).
He gave amnesty to illegals (once again after bargaining with Democrats).
He was divorced and had one gay son and one extremely Liberal daughter. He supported gay rights at least to some degree.
The balance...He freed the world from the yoke of Communism and won the “unwinable” Cold War.
Isn’t it amazing that he didn’t receive the Nobel Prize for Peace, but Gorby did? -end sarcasm- Nobel Joke prize!!!
No doubt. The country is a lot more liberal now. The days of seeing the GOP candidate win 49 states are long gone, sad to say.
mark
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
But what does “pro-life candidate” have to mean? What do you expect a president to do?
Support the life amendment at the very least.
Why is that a lie?
The article give a great deal of supporting evidence for that statement.
Given a choice between Jimmy Carter and Ron Reagan, you think we’d for for Carter?!?!
Or do you think we’d vote for Bush the Elder, whose conservative credentials were worse, and was part of the blue-blood “moderate” Rockerfeller Republicans?
Stories like this are bure pullsh*t. They don’t put things into historical prospective, and in fact, twist history to “prove” a contemporary point.
The days of seeing the GOP candidate win 49 states are long gone, sad to say.
That can happen again if we pick a conservative President. We have not done that since Reagan. Duncan his second term could do that.
> You might not be recalling the primary season, during which the establishment supported George H.W. Bush, not Reagan. Reagan was more conservative than Bush, but many who considered themselves “conservative” supported Bush because he was more in favor of big government.
I do recall the primary season. It could be that my experience is colored by how Reagan electrified my father (a WWII vet, staunchly pro-freedom, capitalist, patriot, conservative, the best Dad ever :-). He also recognized the GOP insiders then just as he sees them today: as weak from the apologizing (e.g. Nixon aftermath) and ready to sell out their principles for a buck, the Rockefeller mushmouths.
So I don’t consider those that spoke against Reagan at that time as conservatives. I know that Reagan spoke to the best of us all, championed America without apology, freedom... especially from Big Government, which had wrapped its tentacles around all our throats. And he spoke plainly — not in lawyer-speak, codicils, qualifications, mushy triangulation. He said what he meant and he meant what he said.
Reagan changed the game. It was a special and turbulent time. I would give anything to feel that soaring hope again as I did in 1980.
Imagine if Reagan had chosen Cheney as VP.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.