Outstanding, concise and to the point. Will they get it?
Posted on 07/09/2002 6:42:20 AM PDT by mondonico
Don't forget why Bush was elected
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | How quickly we forget.
When George W. Bush ran for President against Al Gore in 2000, the motivation of many Republicans who supported him was not affection for his policy. In fact, many stalwarts were reluctant to sign on -- remember the pundits' reassuring promises (and the Democrats' reassuring warnings) it took to convince that Bush was a "real" conservative? Significant numbers of Republicans were more to the right than the candidate, but got on board anyway.
These days, as many right-wing writers, conservative soothsayers and omniscient analysts rack up grievance lists of Bush's departures from the conservative hymnbook, it is time to remember why so many other Republicans-and to some extent, those whiners and more than a few Democrats-voted for Bush in the first place.
In no small measure, Bush was elected to ring down an explicit rejection on the elastic ethics of the Clinton gang. Casting a vote for Bush was a way for voters to do what a few fickle Republicans in the Senate would not in the impeachment trial. It was a way to register disgust with the ongoing tawdry approval of and occasional praise for eight years of lying for fun and profit. By simply defeating Al Gore, George W. Bush achieved not only most of what voters were asking for, but also most of what was needed: a clean sweep of the people's house.
Of course, a house swept clean is often taken for granted, as today's conservative writing often shows. Republicans would be wise - and a bit more grateful -- to make their criticisms of the President more kindly. Bush is a popular leader, and this is a useful thing for Republicans-especially considering how rare such popularity is. His approval ratings have stood at superhuman levels for months. As the 2004 election approaches, those numbers will come down as party loyalty reappears, but the longer the numbers stay high, the deeper Bush's hold goes into the consciousness of mainstream voters-those who do not much follow policy but vote on instinct.
Voters' instincts these days tell them that Bush is the real deal. In a just-released Des Moines Register poll taken in late June, voters in Iowa who handed Bush a 5000-vote-margin defeat now favor him over Gore by better than 2-to-1 plus ten percent, 64% to 27%. In California in 2000, Gore easily beat Bush, and by a dozen percentage points. Today Bush beats Gore in the liberal stronghold by seven points.
This is powerful stuff, but many Republicans think and vote like third-party crackpots, imagining that it is somehow smart to let the liberal win than to vote for someone who doesn't parrot the appropriate lines on every single issue. Those voters will feel free to tear down Bush for the next two years, subtly planting doubt in the minds of mainstream voters who make the biggest difference between winning and losing.
These activists don't have both feet in the real world because they reject the unpleasant compromises that are part of both coalition parties and governments. They think little about the practical upshots of a liberal administration under an Al Gore, Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt or John Edwards, any of whom would have more likely launched an Interpol investigation after September 11, and not a war. Those who doubt it should recall the records of those who surrounded Bill Clinton, especially Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and project their past writings and actions onto the months after September 11.
Not to say that Bush's departures from his agenda are insignificant. He signed campaign finance "reform" legislation, which, if the First Amendment is read by either literal meaning or the lights of contemporaneous documents, is patently unconstitutional. He signed off on protectionism for the steel industry, which will create marginally higher prices throughout the economy. And he watered down education reform and attendant "education market" pressures that were major pillars of his campaign. These compromises are not only significant disappointments but also genuine losses to the way we ought to be allowed to live.
But the hard political truth-the thing that made possible these particular compromises in the first place-is that there aren't enough mainstream voters to matter who will reject Bush on any combination of these positions. The die-hards yelping just now should remember that being President is also about staying President, and that it requires playing politics along the margins. Recall that Bush has not yielded in the main; that is, on the thing that matters most, the war on terror. He is what Americans said we wanted in 2000: a man of character whom we can trust in perilous times.
Outstanding, concise and to the point. Will they get it?
I really can't believe anyone outside the dim neanderthal camp would make such an idiotic statement. Even the dims are tired of parroting the same tired lie.
Face it, Bush won...and won handily, as evidenced by the vast sea of red on the US landscape. Even the massive attempts at voter fraud by the dims couldn't tip the scale into the Gore (shudder) column. Sure the response to the terror attacks increased Bush's poll numbers, but the numbers also reflect a trust and pride in finally having an honest man in the oval office. Bush's numbers would be just fine without the War on Terra, IMHO. Tis a bad, bad time to be a liberal. At last!
Guess I'll rethink my pings next time.
I assure you, I am quite serious.
IMHO, your comparison of Buchanan to British WWII pacifists is faulty. If anything, it is the Bush Administration's "appeasement" that is resulting in a porous southern border and a continuing threat to our national security.
I completely agree with you on the immigration issue. However, the comparison to the pacifists was was made in relation to the fight with the Democrats, not the immigration issue. Buchanan may be right on the immigration issue, but support for Buchanan in 2004 translates into support for Democrats.
Guess I'll rethink my pings next time.
If you don't want silence, why rethink your pings?
My comments were addressed to mondonico, I only flagged you because of the original ping.
But take a look at the tenor of the article and the spirit in which it was posted... is it realy productive? In what way is it not preaching to the choir?
Why? Because the GOP plans to unite with the 'Rats once again to stifle debate on the immigration issue?
Contrary to popular belief, the 2004 election will be extremely close. The cultural schisms that caused the 2000 imbroglio have not gone away. They were just temporarily glossed over by the War on Terror.
Sure, I'll probably vote for him again, but for now we need to make him work for our votes.
The American Right can't be anyone's bitch--we've seem just how much it's helped certain ethnic groups to become slaves servants of the Democratic party. The more in thrall they are, the worse they do.
This was especially amusing, in light of the oft-repeated aphorism that "we're taking the Democrat's issues away," when we enter the legislative fray intending to give them half of what they want, rather than settling for only half of what we want.
That's not "letting liberals win?"
But take a look at the tenor of the article and the spirit in which it was posted... is it realy productive? In what way is it not preaching to the choir?
Well, maybe the author really believes what he has written and if it's preaching to the choir, so what? The same could be said about anti-Bush articles: aren't they just preaching to the choir of BushBashers?
And who cares why an article was posted? If you don't like the article, then just say so but don't rant about why the article was posted and then suggest that it shouldn't be posted. The only posted articles I take offense to are any from the National Enquirer or The Globe....tabloids are a waste of time. Of course, I just choose not to read those.
Yeah... get it?
Do you want those votes or not? If you're one of the "don't let the door hit you in the rear," coalition builders, and want those votes gone, then this is the article for you. But no complaining when they leave.
But if you think you might want to keep those votes in the GOP fold, take another look at the article and tell me how it's going to help accomplish that.
Both of them?
Your #70 is the highlight of this thread so far.
When you add in the increased SS/Medicare taxes, tariffs, the inflationary effects of deficit spending (thank you Bush education bill, Bush farm bill, and Bush NKVD), and the inflationary effects of increased debt, Bush's minuscule, back-end loaded tax cuts are break even, at best. More likely, they have been completely offset.
Driving off the socialist cliff at 50 mph instead of 60 mph gets you the same result. If George Bush is now what passes for conservative, the experiment has failed. It's time to part company.
Yeah, I kinda figured you for a "no."
If there are so few of these votes that might be lost, then this article is just grandstanding, no?
I actually think that the writer, and the administration, are perhaps a bit less overconfident than you.
The reason the article was posted is that the fate of the nation depends on the strength of the Constitution, the fate of the Constitution depends on the federal judiciary, the fate of the judiciary depends on whether the Republicans have control of the presidency and the Senate, and whether the Republicans control the presidency and the Senate depends on Republicans--conservative, moderate, and even RINO--voting for viable Republican candidates in 2002 and 2004.
If we don't take back the Senate this year, or if we lose the White House in 2004, the Leftists will control Supreme Court and federal appellate court appointees, the nation will be absolutely SCREWED, and it won't matter one little bit what was Bush's policy on, for example, steel tariffs.
Subsequent conservative presidents and Congresses can repeal stupid, Leftist laws; they CANNOT repeal stupid, Leftist judges. Once the Judiciary is safe--and by that I mean once conservative replacements for O'Connor and Stevens and any other SCOTUS retirees are nominated and confirmed by REPUBLICANS--we can turn our attention to the purity of the Bushies' conservatism. But IMHO, to do so now is to risk the courts, and therefore the Constitution.
"I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.' "If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it."
Ronald Reagan, from his autobiography, An American Life
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