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.
You really are a disappointment to me, but who really gives a damn? Surely not the liberals gloating over a new convert.
absolutely! so, the question is, WHY isn't he?
LOL
What arrogant - and foolish - nonsense.
I love the way you attempt to flatter Jim Robinson, slander me and then assume you can tell JR how he should run his website. Amazing piece of delusional smugness and dramatic overkill there.
I've supported G.W. Bush since the primaries and have never wavered in that support, although I've been dismayed by some of his policy moves, as have many others. I still support him.
When strongly supporting the Republican president I voted for (and 90+ % of Republicans support) is considered to be subversive to conservatism, I'll be glad to leave FR, but that won't happen.
Truth is, you simply dislike George W. Bush along with anyone who points out your irrelevence to the political process with your endless contempt of a good and decent man, shared by a only tiny fraction of like-minded 'conservatives' and of course, liberals.
Too bad.
Care to provide some proof for that?
{{{clapping}}}
:)
All of this could have beeen thwarted by Ross Perot a few years ago if he had not let his ego get in the way. There was a strong and vibrant swell of people of all parties, those that wanted change, but Perot was not up to the task.
That potential is still there, given the right person should appear on the political stage.
Surely yer not saying that Hager was a Conservative, are you? It is rather amazing that a State as conservative as Virginia was unable to come up with a better gubernatorial candidate than either Earley or Hager. At least Kilgore's demonstrating some signs that he may be an Allen-esque Guv'nuh in '05.
FReegards...MUD
So if you were in NC, and your choice was Liddy Dole and a Democrat, you'd not vote at all, knowing that control of the Senate might remain in Democratic hands, and after saying yourself that a Senate seat is "a lifetime job"? And knowing that there are U.S. Supreme Court seats most likely at stake?
You must be Bush's B@$#%!
And don't hit the abuse button; that's so wimpy!
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