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.
Ah, the question of questions....
Most Freepers who devotedly support GWB seem to have the idea that "if we can only slow down the drift to the left for a few years, it'll buy us some time to make the case for real conservatism to the American people".
You may or may not agree with this point of view. Personally I think it's a crock of hog droppings.
If we don't significantly reverse the drift to the left in the next twenty years, I think that the America we love is a goner. And I have almost no confidence left that the GOP intends to reverse any such thing.
And maybe that means there is no electable alternative, and the country is already on the road to hell. But I won't help push, that's for sure.
g
He ignores a most important point, in pursuit of his misguided attempt to get rank and file Republicans to compromise their principles, in favor of Duhbya's version of pseudo-conservatism. That point he ignores is this:
If Republican candidates can't get elected or re-elected on solid Conservative principles, then we have already lost.
The reason that this country has been on downhill slide in recent years is not only because of the Liberal agenda. The Liberals could not have done it all alone. It was only possible, because so many Republicans have compromised on their Conservative principles.
I don't think that it's too late to reverse what's happening. But, if Republicans can't get elected without compromising their principles, then it already is too late and the middle class better start making plans to follow the approximately 100,000 wealthy Americans that leave the US permanently every year.
But if, as I hope, it is not yet too late, then electing pseudo-conservatives like Duhbya, Sen. Charles Grassley and many others, could very well push us past that point. We certainly don't have time to spare. If Duhbya and the boys don't start standing up for Conservative principles soon, then we must replace them at the earliest possible moment with real Conservatives. Otherwise, it will be too late.
In many northeastern and pacific northwest states a RINO is the ONLY thing that stands a chance of winning. In those areas a RINO is portrayed as a far-right whacko. If you want true conservative governance then you have to have a true conservative voting public. Even then there is no actual "conservative" base. No one can even define the term anymore.
I am tempted to incline in that direction.
As a Bush-Bot I can answer that. We do wish for the same type of government. Some of us are willing to settle for getting there in small incremental steps with an honest leader at the helm. Others are only satisfied with an all-or-nothing approach. Jim is right. The be-all, end-all is the judiciary appointments. With Leaky Leahy sitting as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee Bush will never get any of his conservative judges confirmed. We will end up with more and more liberal, activists judges. This is the bottom line you know.
Then, the right has lost.
Yeah, OK.
The lesbian Stalinist [Lenora Fulani] who took Pat to genuflect before Al Sharpton was his camnpaign manager or something for a while.
The point is, first Pat's a conservative, then he allies himself with a radical leftist cult mistress, now Pat's coming back to MSNBC as a conservative.
Give me a break!
And the howler-monkey wingnuts who go into slavering fits over Bush's supposed conservative apostasy didn'y — and still don't turn — a hair at Taliban Pat's crazed flip-flops.
So don't start babbling to me about principles because your credibility on the subject is next to nil.
He can only claim success by rolling back the advances of the left. And that is not being done.
The term, "fat, dumb, and happy" comes to mind.
Could not agree more, but when I see the RNC doing their darndest to anoint Libby Dole over three outstanding "young conservative candidates" it's pretty clear they're not following the same plan.
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