Posted on 11/05/2008 6:46:24 AM PST by 82ndABNOfficer
Darn Right. McCain was BobDole without the died hair. Both were even crippled.
By not defending what Bush did right, McCain threw himself under the bus. All we heard about was Bush's tax cuts for the rich and his failed policies. In the end, McCain was directly linked to all those, and it killed him. Obama lied about Bush's tax policies and was never once called out on it. McCain ran a horrendous campaign the last month. Horrendous.
Really? Bush got 70% disapproval the old fashioned way - he earned it by not listening to the voters.
Bush overall, turned out to be what I have to call “the worst kind of Republican”. He oversaw the apocalyptic War in Iraq and never bothered to keep the American people informed all along the way of how it was going, and why it was going the way it was going. He was perhaps intellectually incapable of trusting himself to do this.
He hung his head in shame over Katrina, as if he too believed himself to be responsible for all it. Once again, there’s an entire dimension missing there if he was unwilling to fight for what he in fact did do to ameliorate the natural tragedy that became a political tragedy for Republicans. He spent like a drunken Liberal, in the name of “compassionate conservativism”, and never followed up on the success/failure of any spending programs. In the past 6 months he has become as invisible as his VicePresident has been for the last several years.
There has been NO ONE at the helm except General Petraeus in Iraq, and of course, the Democrats , who managed to steer the Ship of State in their direction, so they could climb aboard, as they now have.
well it messed mccain up. If you voted against the tax cut then how can you defend them just before the election?
Absolutely spot on!
Dubya’s incompetence or unwillingness to counter the media’s narrative brought the whole Republican Party and conservative movements down. He even voluntarily accepted the blame on Katrina! Unfortunately, because he ran as a conservative Christian Republican, the association with his negative ratings affected all three groups.
BUSH also weakened himself during his 2d term as he almost didn’t respond to the endless vicious attack from the left and their MSM tools...
Big lack of communication
And one that has been completely trashed by the political "elite" including Bush, McCain, and many many others.
Whether we like it or not, when most people hear the word "conservative," they are going to think of people like Bush, not people like Reagan or Goldwater. Bush has effectively "defined" conservatism as being the philosophy of big government.
Bush just completely quit trying after he won in 2004. He let Iraq boil over for TWO YEARS before doing what he should have done in the first place. He did not fight for reform of government. He does get credit for fighting terror in the face of dissent, but all his presence has amounted to other than rebuilding the military is Big Government and 2 decent Supreme Court Justices (thought that is no small thing). And now that military will be dismantled.
We didn’t even get permanent tax cuts. This election was lost in 2005.
Bush I with Clinton.
Agree. We as conservatives didn’t turn our backs on Bush, he turned his backs on us with his policies. And despited the good things he did, he couldn’t articulate what he was doing and why.
The fault was not ours.
ML/NJ
“It is evident that we the GOP turned our backs on President Bush.”
Bush is the reason the GOP lost this election. He turned his back on conservatism. McCain was more of the same. True conservatives had no one to vote for. This is a sad day for America but Bush caused it.
George Bush was never a conservative. He spent money like the Democrats as governor of Texas, and that’s why they liked him. He ran up the national debt obscenely as President, squandering billions on AIDS in Africa for example, but couldn’t buy the Democrats’ love. They were intent on destroying him and regaining power. They succeeded.
>>>we the GOP turned our backs on President Bush<<<<
He was cutting an amnesty deal with Vincente Fox in the immediate days preceding 9/11; he signed campaign finance reform; he didn’t demand a formal Declaration Of War against the State Dept.’s statutorily-defined Designated Terrorists list after 9/11; and then he supported “comprehensive immigration reform,” aka “Amnesty, Part II”.
That’s enough for me.
Compassionate Conservatism MY A$$.....................................
I'll give President Bush credit for his conduct on the War on Terror but that's about it. Republicans better get back to being conservatives. The democrats lite formula isn't working. Here's a tip for aspiring positions. Don't ever call yourself a compassionate conservative. It's the kiss of death in my mind.
Maybe they should go back and review the Contract With America. Now that was a winning stratergy.
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