Dick Armey Suggest Jim Demint for 2012 (Disses Sarah Palin)

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is on former House majority leader Dick Armey’s list of Republicans he could support for president in 2012.

Asked during a panel discussion Friday night on the Tea Party movement to name several leaders he would like to see challenge President Obama, he also listed Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

“There’s no shortage of good people,” said Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, a free-market group helping to organize this weekend’s Tea Party 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington.

Armey also suggested that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not his ideal candidate in 2012. “There’s nobody from Alaska on my list,” he said.

He did, however, go on to say that he’d prefer Palin as president to the White House’s current occupant.

His comments came during a discussion titled “Examining the Tea Party” at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. with The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson, the New York Times’ Kate Zernike and Harvard professor Jill Lepore.

I have read both of Shirley’s books on the 1976 and 1980 campaigns. Reagan was no libertarian, although much of his philosophy was interchangeable with, and therefore adaptable to, libertarianism. Pure libertarians could not abide Reagan Ron Paul, for example, was never happy with him.

And uncmpromising social conservatives/paleocons such as Viguerie and Howard Phillips disliked him as well. (they ran Phil Crane against him in the GOP primaries in 1980, becasue Reagan had backed Chuck Percy for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1978).

Of course, the Establishment, both GOP and Dem, was unanimous in their loathing of Reagan.

But the three legs of the stool (national security, social and economic—or libertarian, if you prefer) stayed together for Reagan. And I think they stayed together for one reason. They trusted Reagan. He had credibility in all three camps. Even if he did not embrace every tenet of their philosphy. (the libertarians would have favored bigger cuts in government and less government including defense spending; The National security conservatives, today’s neocons, if you will, would have preferred more use of military force; And social conservatives would have liked to see Regan secure more conservatives on the USSC and reverse Roe v. Wade and put the weight of his office behind the Human Life Amendment). In each instance, one of the components of his philosophy would act as a restraint on the other. As a libertarian, Reagan hated big government and wanted to slash it at every turn. But his patriotism refused to allow such cuts in the military budget. However, Reagan also knew that war (in addition to being wrong in God’s eyes) also tended to make government even larger. So he was very restrained in his use of military force, both for libertarian and moral reasons. and Reagan’s faith in God was too great for him to forswear using Government, where feasible, to promote those portions of the Decalogue (such as the right to life and Marriage via elimination of the marriage penalty) where it was feasible to do so. However, his libertarian streak would never permit him to use government to attempt to enact the entire Decalogue at a stroke. Reagan’s entire philosophy was an eclectic balance of power between its three competing components.

In Rendezvous, Lyn Nofzier, who knew Reagan perhaps better than any of his political friends, said it was wrong to idolize him , becasue he was not perfect. But, he said, “Ronald Reagan was a unique American President. He believed in three things: God, the American people and himself. And that is kind of unique.”

Because of his belief in God, Reagan would never concede that government had no role in promoting morality in society, as the libertarians would have wished. He would thus never be a pure libertaian. Because of his belief in the American people (and his concomitant distrust of government and fidelity to the Bill of Rights) he would be sure that any such use of government would be judicious and incremental. But his devotion to the American people and to his duties under the Constitution meant he would spare no government expense to defend America’s vital interests.

“If there is a 2012 Ronald Reagan out there, please let me know.”

There is. Having read both Shirley books and having lived through the Reagan revolution from 1968 onward, Sarah Palin has more in common with Reagan than any candidate I have seen. Her philosophy is nearly a mirror image of the Gipper’s. She has the trust of all three camps within the conservative movement. Like Reagan, big government will always be her first enemy. But she will not hesitate to promote social conservatism when it can be done within the framework of the Constitution and a pluralistic society. The National Security conservatives are similarly warm to her candidacy, because the security of the United States is non-negotiable.

Like Reagan, she is trusted by all three camps. Like Reagan as well, she is also detested by the Establishment which both loathes and fears her and is trying to destroy her.

Sarah Palin is not Ronald Reagan. But her philosophy, her political skills and the enemies she has managed to acquire bear the closest resemblance to those of Ronald Regan during 1976-80.

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