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.
Unlike you, of course.
Wow.
Some PO's prolly tell their clients that. ;)
Correct me if I am mistaken, but it appears that the Republicans have been trying this strategy since the thirties. After seventy years of apparent stagnant or failing results, I would ask, "Has it worked yet?" Or perhaps, "When are we going to be there?"
The only significant victories that I remember in this interval are the two by Reagan and the 1994 Congressional elections. In contrast to your formula for failure, both of these electoral victories occurred in the only elections when Republicans took significant conservative stands and ran on significant conservative issues.
And for added contrast, after the Republican leadership fiasco in the House where a moral Republican leader could not be found to lead the fight to impeach an immoral President, the Republicans that were left completely abandoned their conservative agenda in an effort to keep a low profile with all those axes flying around. Since the Republicans abandoned the conservative agenda, they have progressively lost seats in every subsequent election.
Apparently, we differ in our interpretation of the 2000 Presidential election results. Bush lost the popular vote by a wide margin. By way of reminder for the short sighted or the narrow minded, Bush Sr. lost as a victorius wartime leader after the greatest and most strategic military campaign in the history of the world. Perhaps, the single most important reason for his loss was his abandonment of his "read my lips" position. You may have forgotten the October government shutdown, but the people were behind Bush, not the Democrats. Had he stood his ground and not caved to the media and the Democrats, the results of the election might have been dramatically different. The media would have you believe that Perot took more votes from Clinton than Bush and that Perot didn't really figure into the election results. Perot intended to cut the costs of government and the let the people keep more of their money. The "media" lies with a straight face and calls it journalism or spin. Believe the "media's" interpretation of anything at your own risks. Their agenda is not to guide or enlighten Republicans or to help Republicans find the path to victory; it is exactly the opposite. In how many elections have Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory? And they do it by moving left instead of right.
I live in Texas. I have been telling Freepers for more than five years that Bush Jr. is not a true conservative. Bush Jr. genuinely believes government is a part of the solution to many of our problems. He grew up in government, because that was where his home was. As governor of Texas, Bush Jr. made feeble attempts to enact a modest conservative agenda. When it ran into controversy in the Democratically controlled Texas House, Bush caved on every major issue. He managed to pass what was hailed as the largest property tax decrease in Texas history. My property taxes increased every year he was in office. His decrease was in every way analogous to the Democrats famed definition of a budget cut as being defined as a decrease in the rate of the increase in the federal budget. It was pure political double talk that would have made Clinton proud. For the record my property taxes increased from $16,000 per year to more than $23,000 on eleven parcels in three counties. I have the receipts.
I will repeat it for the memory impaired. When Republicans run on a left-leaning, moderate or even modest conservative agenda, they lose elections. They lose these elections because they have not given conservatives a reason to vote for them. And left-leaning or moderate voters can tell the difference between luke-warm socialists and the real mcCoy. Republicans easily win elections when they give conservative voters a reason to get out and vote. Freepers have a hard time accepting this, because they cannot imagine not voting. And they cannot accept that any conservative could tolerate having a democrat in office. Here is where ReaganMan and I differ strongly. I believe that the electoral record proves that it makes a difference when conservatives can actually vote to take our country back and reverse the damage being done by liberalism. And I think that the same electoral record proves that when the only difference offered to voters is whether we rush head-long into socialism or simply stroll down-hill into socialism that conservatives don't vote because affecting the rate doesn't really make that much difference. Indeed, if we are not going to quickly restore living under the Constitution, then the sooner that some state secedes then the sooner we will have a choice between socialism or a Constitutional Republic that restores individual freedom and property rights. Real conservatives can see that when you get down to the bottom line, there is very little difference in the big picture of the course of the country regardless of whether luke-warm Republicans or Democrats are in control. The downhill slide to the left marches relentlessly on. And real conservatives recognize that our country has moved so far down the hill, that only radical change is going to not only halt but also reverse the course. Only a real course change matters now. We have gone too far.
ReaganMan would have you believe that I am a pessimist. I am much more optimistic than he. I still see the conservative nature of the country. I am convinced that it is not too late. My greatest fear is that Freepers and Republicans will adopt the same strategy recommended by ReaganMan. That is the same formula for failure that Republicans keep adopting in losing election after losing election. We can only afford to lose a few more elections before I think our financial debts become an irreversible crisis that will end in either hyperinflation or outright default. One definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment over and over and over again, each time expecting a different outcome. If you want conservative Republicans that will stand for conservative values and take a stand against liberalism and the socialists Democrats, let the weak kneed and spineless Republicans lose. As long as they manage to hold office and win re-election, the only thing important to them, they remain the incumbents. Incumbents have an enormous advantage in local races where they have brought home that almighty pork to their constituents. ReaganMan's strategy, the one Republicans are currently using, is a loser for the long run. Short term victories that mean a continued slide to the left results in insolvency in less than two decades. If we don't turn the United States on its heels, I mean 180 degrees opposite its current trends, then you are going to be witnesses to the US going over a cliff.
I believe that some of the weak Republicans can be brought on board as the tide shifts. I also believe that some of the political whores in the Republican Party will simply follow the strongest wind. And with a clear strong conservative wind blowing in the primary season, we might actually see more conservative Republican victories this fall. But if I am right, it will not be a bad thing at all for the Democrats to take control of both houses of Congress this fall. I can assure you that will get the undivided attention of all remaining Republicans, all wannabe again Republicans, and all potential Republican challengers. FreeRepublic is capable of launching a ground swell of conservatism that will spread across the land and captivate the imagination of conservatives of all political parties. While the US Park Service is burning down our National Parks and militant environmentalists are burning our national forests, FreeRepublic needs to set Conservatives around the world on fire.
"Another enemy of conservatism are the fringe extremists, who would support and vote for third party candidates, or stay home on election day, in order to punish Republicans and teach them a lesson. What absurd and irrational thinking that is. It doesn't seem to matter, to these extremists, that such a startegy, would only lead to electing liberal Democrat's to office."
"Punish" is the not the correct thought. Conservatives need to hold Republicans accountable for abandoning their conservative philosophy. When Republicans are more concerned about winning so they can continue to hold office, rather than being concerned about winning so they can block any more damage to the United States Constitution and begin to roll back the damage that has already been done by Democrats, then those particular Republicans are no longer a solution, but instead have become a part of the problem. They must be defeated and removed from office rather than becoming incumbents who are much more difficult to dislodge. It is blatantly absurd to just keep Republicans in office unless those Republican use the office to block further damage to the country and begin the task of repealing all prior socialistic legislation and bureaucratic BS.
"One thing that you and your political ilk can't seem to comprehend, is that America will never take a political course that sends it down a path of fringe extremism. The political gridlock we've experienced for the last 20 years, will only be solved by taking a solid and realistic, mainstream conservative approach. If you want to see America take an immediate hard right turn, that calls for a revolution and that is something the vast majority of Americans, like 99% of us, would never support."
We have not been experiencing gridlock for the last 20 years; we have been on a down-hill slide into socialism. And if the changes I seek, and I think many other conservative seek, are not effected in less than a decade, you better open your eyes and remove what ever has been blocking your vision, because we will first see secession. And if governments respond to the secessions with force, then keep your head down because the revolution is coming. And it will be the liberals, the Democrats, or the folks like you that initiates the shooting. Socialism is not only a form of slavery, it is also completely dependent on parasitism. When the productive members of "society" peacefully leave to find freedom, the parasites always try to force the productive back into their chains. Your kind of thinking serves nothing except to perpetuate the parasitism. And contrary to your implication regarding who will initiate the violence, you will be leading the charge against the secessionists.
The defense of liberty is not extremeism. And if only 1% of the people share my beliefs, then we are the one per cent to whom the other 99% should be listening.
Exactly! That would be the whole purpose of seceding.
"The Federal government (along with the other 49 states who would team up in opposition against you) would squash your seccessionist plans like a bug."
I would ask if you remember Boris Yeltsin's stand in the Kremlin? One man stood firm against the Soviet Union. It was the Soviet Union that blinked! And one year later that one man was the leader of the largest successor country that rose from the ashes.
Do you really think the federal government would want to create a whole flock of martyrs? Do you think the federal government would really want to show the world the brutal truth of the empty lie that America is free and that the underlying foundation of our government is self-determination? Squashing our secession would reveal the truth that Declaration of Independence is dead and expose the myth that the Constitution of the United States still controls the federal government.
Quebec and Canada are irrelevant to freedom in the United States.
...thread. Anyone who's interested, just click the link above, so we can save some of JimRob's server space.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
Nothing wrong with being a "traditional law and order conservative". The problem is that traditional laws and traditional orders are being replaced with new laws and new orders by the liberals. Once those new laws are written and those new orders established, being a "law and order" conservative means preserving them.
The main problems facing conservative America, are related to 70 years of creeping liberal policy that has produced excessive taxation and wealth transfers, which have allowed liberal law makers to build a selected social welfare state.
This is true. What made this possible was a sea change in the role and authority of the federal government. It was called the New Deal. We all agree it needs to be fixed, and most would agree that it wil have to be done incrementally. The sticking point seems to be wheather we should be attacking the symptoms or the root cause. Your position seems to be that we should just tinker with the symptoms, and anyone who suggests trying to correct the root cause is a "fringe whacko".
A conservative wouldn't say that.
Well done.
Hogwash!
Dubya didn't receive a majority of the popular vote, that's a fact.
And he received fewer votes than Algore nationwide.
That means that Dubya can't claim to have a popular mandate and so must tread carefully.
That's political reality which has nothing to do with conservative vs liberal.
Really? How do you know?
A conservative would have said that Bush narrowly won, or won by only two electoral votes, or 'probably' lost the popular vote, or something along those lines. It is hardly conservative to perpetuate the liberal lie that Gore is known to have won the popular vote, when in reality the popular vote was never even tallied.
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