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.
I'm a good speller but a poor typist.
Sometimes I read through a mistake when I proof my posts but so what?
You knew perfectly well what I meant.
As for Roesers conservatrie credentials, he's undoubetdly a conservative as well as being a GOP activist which means he also must be a realist and a pragmatist when the occassion demands.
I doubt you'd vote for a trade protectionist(that seems to be one of your big ones).
Me,too. He tore it with me when he created the "Office of Reich Security",and it's been downhill ever since. "Get out of jail and become a citizen for $1,000" plan for illegal aliens,refusing to guard the borders,caving to Fox on everything under the sun,creating totally new bureaucracies within the feral gooberment,housing for illegals and minorities,billions in aid to Africa,troops STILL in Bosnia,etc,etc,etc.
Even the inkling of this is just too depressing to even contemplate, no less living it into God knows what's to come.
Well, even Goldwater was wrong sometimes. There certainly is no reconciliation in evidence here.
Regards
J.R.
Well, the people who misquote him are.
WHAT Republican? Giddy is and always has been a Dim. She only changed party affilliation for business reasons when she married Bob Dolt.
There is no reason to have one. Bubba-2 backs Giddy. The RNC backs Giddy. So does the NC-RNC. Giddy it is. She is the "annointed one".
I heard some nitwit on Rush last week saying how Bush should stop worrying about being re-elected and just push through the total conservative "pure" agenda. The problem is that if that you are successful and the election goes against you, the DemocRATS will certainly overturn the agenda and replace your "pure" conservatism with "pure" liberalism.
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