Oh, I suppose that's some sort of double-secret Bushbot way of calling me a Gorebot?
I'm putting you on the lisp.
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.
Oh well, it's not your job you are losing.
Oh, I suppose that's some sort of double-secret Bushbot way of calling me a Gorebot?
I'm putting you on the lisp.
I'm not sure I agree with your definition of "mainstream", but I like the original thought -- thanks for the post.
The word I would use for someone like that is a "trimmer" or "compromiser". Bob Dole would be my perfect example. He had two needs: A) Be in the room when the Big Deal goes down, B) Be able to "produce results" for his audience by being able to hold up a bill at the end of the "process". And never mind content so much.
Lose, loser, losest.
Oh.
Then I meant to do it.
I will stay comfortably in the mainstream of the conservative movement...no problem there.
The trouble is with the sewage discharge of the statist socialists who have been polluting the political waters of this country for a generation.
They have pumped so much of it out that many, even some who call themselves 'conservative', think they are drinking from the cool clear waters of a mountain stream.
No I just could give a rats patoot if you "take a hike". I am not here to change your mind or "win you back". You think way too much of yourself.
Better re-check the memory hole on that date.
And the whiners Bushies are busy talking among themselves about how special they are, how much more they know about and love the Constitution the way politics is played than anybody else on the face of the earth; basically saying, "Hey, I'm special, and if you don't agree with me, I'll say you're a BushBot, locksteppers, goose stepper, facist, socilist Keyster, one-percenter, extreme right-winger, fringe lunatic, druggie, child-molesting libertarian."
I know. I'll leave it to others to judge what that says about you and about me.
Tex, I showed Laz that Reagan could be more liberal than Tip O'Neill at times and all I basically got from Laz was a "Oh I was not politically astute at the time".
I am damned glad that W. is following the Reagan model.
Indeed. Most conservatives aren't going to express their dismay at Administration policy to some (probably) liberal pollster.
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