Posted on 06/22/2002 9:46:05 AM PDT by quidnunc
This summer will mark the 47th year since I took my first Republican job: as public relations director for the party in Minnesota. Since then I have rarely strayed from politics, or my party. I served as a staffer to two GOP congressmen, to a GOP governor, as a federal appointee to Richard Nixon and as a corporate executive who supported in Washington and Springfield much, if not all, of the Republican agenda.
You can describe me as a conservative. Thus I am qualified to say that although I dearly love conservatives, they tend to be querulous, disagreeable and threaten revolt when Republican office-holders don't please them. So it is now with George W. Bush. Here is a president who has surprised us all with the firmness and resolve he showed after 9/11. I must tell you I voted for him with less enthusiasm than I had for many of his predecessors. But his administration has pleased me often — most notably on two issues: defense of America and social policy.
Yet, Bush has to get re-elected in a country that is evenly divided on philosophy. Thus he must occasionally — on matters that sometimes offend conservatives — dip into the other side's ideology for support. He has done so on three notable occasions: on the issue of steel protectionism, where he departed his free-market proclamations; on the signing of a campaign finance bill tailored by his enemies, and allowing his attorney general (in the words of Libertarian Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times) "to send disguised agents into religious institutions, libraries and meetings of citizens critical of government policy without a previous complaint, or reason to believe that a crime has been committed."
In a perfect political world, where conservatives are in the majority, these things would be sufficient to encourage a boycott of the polls. Either that or a protest vote for the Democratic opposition. But we are not in a perfect world. We conservatives have a president who didn't receive a majority of the votes, and has one house of Congress against him. He must make compromises to get re-elected. Conservatives who do not understand the nature of politics ought to stay in their air-conditioned ivory towers and refrain from political activity altogether. If they cannot adjudge the stakes in this election and the difference between Bush and an Al Gore or a John Kerry (D-Mass.) or a Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), they are foolish indeed.
-snip-
To read the remainder of this op/ed open the article via the link provided in the thread's header.
Damn, thaks for clearing that up.
Wipe your mouth and brush your teeth. The stink is really unbelievable.
Yeah "Liberty" to you is a loose fitting raincoat.
Don't project.
What do you mean WIPE MY MOUTH?
Your remark is rude and disgusting.
Project? Damn son, you have made your reputation around here describing your genitalia and underwear in excruciating detail. Do you actually expect anyone to take you seriously? You are FR’s personal pee-wee Herman
So?
Don't confuse screwing around with being serious.
Besides, what are your bona fides in Free Republic, besides being a tersely hemorrhoidal sychophant for any liberal, statist policy -- so long as a (R)epublican backs it?
Iwo got miffed.
In the interest of honesty and full disclosure, please add delusional to your list of maladies.
I am just a poor old Texas redneck that speaks my mind. However I don't do a complete data dump like many around here are inclined to do.
TeSexNever: "So?"
And you dare to criticize anyone else for 'taste' when you merrily and happily offend a woman one message later.
Hypocrite.
I dunno. I think you 'dump' with the best of them, in your own 'special' way.
LOL
You must be one of those Jim-Hightower types of 'Texas rednecks'.
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