[Texaggie79]

If Bush throws in a major curve ball and gets some MAJOR conservative measures covered I will hush up. It just appears that he is using the "wet finger in the wind" approach as of late.

[Reagan Man]

Bush can do one of two things. He can either stand on his conservative principles and get absolutely nothing accomplished, or he can compromise on certain aspects of his principles and achieve some substantive results. Btw, I said, compromise his principles, not surrender his principles. Big difference. Absolutists may not like that approach, but as Reagan said, 75% of something, is better then nothing at all.

In fact, here's what Ronald Reagan actually said:

"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it. "Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything.

"I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.

"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it."
Ronald Reagan, from his autobiography, An American Life

Then again, as Rush said recently, President Eisenhower didn't like politics and saw Congress as not worth his time. So Ike went golfing and the country went about its business just fine.