RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Birth of the Me-Too Conservative
I agree completely with Blankley on his conclusion, but not so much on where he sees the origins. Much like any movement, the seeds of the failure of the "Reagan Brand" were there at the inception. In order to gain power, a lot of compromise was required -- big Social Security tax increases, big deficits, still growing government. ALL of the folks in government are politicians. The offensive linemen from the Packers and the Vikings have a WHOLE lot more in common with each other than they do with "the man in the street". They happen to be on different teams, but that is actually minor compared with what they share -- the same is true of Democrat and Republican politicians.
What looks like "small issues" have a way of growing over 30 years or so kind of like gaining a pound or two each year. The "Thousand Points of Light" from Bush Sr and the "Compassonate Conservatism" of W along with lots of earmarked pork for all sorts of Republican districts back home stacked on top of the Democrats made a whole bunch of folks "Me-Too" long ago. When the going got tougher in W's 2nd term (as it always does in 2nd terms -- see Iran Contra, see Monica), the Reagan Brand was too fluffy around the middle and not able to work through the difficulty. The "real conservatives" got fed up and walked off the field to "teach the rest of them a lesson" in '06, and what a lesson it has been already! Unfortunately, like a lot of "lessons", it is a long way from being over.
So, we will have to rebuild from the ashes, and probably do it under a lot of duress from control of conservative media and potentially even sanctions against those that hold conservative views relative to religion and morality through loss of income / deductions or worse. Freedom has never been free. I loved his last two paragraphs:
I agree completely with Blankley on his conclusion, but not so much on where he sees the origins. Much like any movement, the seeds of the failure of the "Reagan Brand" were there at the inception. In order to gain power, a lot of compromise was required -- big Social Security tax increases, big deficits, still growing government. ALL of the folks in government are politicians. The offensive linemen from the Packers and the Vikings have a WHOLE lot more in common with each other than they do with "the man in the street". They happen to be on different teams, but that is actually minor compared with what they share -- the same is true of Democrat and Republican politicians.
What looks like "small issues" have a way of growing over 30 years or so kind of like gaining a pound or two each year. The "Thousand Points of Light" from Bush Sr and the "Compassonate Conservatism" of W along with lots of earmarked pork for all sorts of Republican districts back home stacked on top of the Democrats made a whole bunch of folks "Me-Too" long ago. When the going got tougher in W's 2nd term (as it always does in 2nd terms -- see Iran Contra, see Monica), the Reagan Brand was too fluffy around the middle and not able to work through the difficulty. The "real conservatives" got fed up and walked off the field to "teach the rest of them a lesson" in '06, and what a lesson it has been already! Unfortunately, like a lot of "lessons", it is a long way from being over.
So, we will have to rebuild from the ashes, and probably do it under a lot of duress from control of conservative media and potentially even sanctions against those that hold conservative views relative to religion and morality through loss of income / deductions or worse. Freedom has never been free. I loved his last two paragraphs:
Peggy's unconscious fear may be that it will be precisely Sarah Palin
(and others like her) who will be among the leaders of the
about-to-be-reborn conservative movement. I suspect that the
conservative movement we start rebuilding on the ashes of Nov. 4 (even
if McCain wins) will have little use for overwritten, over-delicate
commentary. The new movement will be plain-spoken and socially
networked up from the Interneted streets, suburbs and small towns of
America. It certainly will not listen very attentively to those
conservatives who idolatrize Obama and collaborate in heralding his
arrival. They may call their commentary "honesty." I would call it --
at the minimum -- blindness.
The new conservative movement will be facing a political opponent that
will reveal itself soon to be both multiculturalist and Eurosocialist.
We will be engaged in a struggle to the political death for the soul of
the country. As I did at the beginning of and throughout the
Buckley/Goldwater/Reagan/Gingrich conservative movement, I will try to
lend my hand. I certainly will do what I can to make it a big-tent
conservative movement. But just as it does in every great cause, one
question has to be answered correctly: Whose side are you on, comrade?
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