What use is a conservative governing majority . . .
. . . if you don’t use it to govern in a conservative manner?
This thought just struck me as I began Karl Rove’s latest piece for the Wall Street Journal. When he was working for George W. Bush, Rove did his utmost to build such a majority, yet when we had it, Republican leaders didn’t use it to effect conservative reforms.
No wonder we’re in the minority now.
34 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Bingo….you hit the nail on the head. The right deserves to be in the position they are in: the minority. I hate to say it but it is true…they have no one to blame but themselves.
Comment by FortWorthGuy — April 9, 2009 @ 5:45 pm - April 9, 2009
#1 – When the West Coast gets hit with a NoKo missle (developed from technology shared by the Clinton regime through the offices of Madeline Albright), you will probably wish it were the GOP in the majority instead of the dunderheads we have now.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — April 9, 2009 @ 6:02 pm - April 9, 2009
Peter, I bet FortWorthGuy already wishes the GOP were in the majority, but the fact remains, it is the GOP’s fault it isn’t. That’s the way politics works in the US. Virtually all elections are a referendum on the incumbant.
The party out of power has a responsibility to prepare itself for taking power one day, but it won’t, no matter what program it puts forward, until the party in power screws up so much that the public tosses it out.
Comment by tim maguire — April 9, 2009 @ 6:38 pm - April 9, 2009
Look at Obamateleprompters way of governing. Has he spent his first 80 days “bringing us all together” governing from the middle? Trying to gain concensus, being post partisian as he promised? No he has gone warp speed to achieve any and all his leftist socialist goals. Passing bills with virtually no Republican votes. He lied when he said he’d sign no bill that we the people didn’t have at least 5 days to digest. Liar. Hard ball leftist politics. Republicans spend way too much time trying to be nice and gain friends in the media instead of exercising their power after political wins. Anyone heard of a million man march to DC before the 2010 elections? Tea Party indeed.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — April 9, 2009 @ 7:20 pm - April 9, 2009
filtered how come?
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — April 9, 2009 @ 8:22 pm - April 9, 2009
I agree 100%!
Comment by Rod Stanton — April 9, 2009 @ 9:10 pm - April 9, 2009
nah, you missed the point of the last two election landslides. The GOP was routed because the American public realizes that the GOP can’t govern worth a darn. Yeah, they can campaign (mostly by fear and slander), but actually running the country? Americans know what party does that best.
It’s going to be a LONG decade for you folks.
Comment by buckeyenutlover — April 9, 2009 @ 9:18 pm - April 9, 2009
I had mixed feelings reading Rove’s piece. He says:
Rove has a fair point: Bush made real bipartisan overtures, on a scale that Obama only pretends to. But now let’s read between the lines. Rove was undoubtedly an architect of the Bush bi-partisanship. Rove is saying, in effect, “We tried really really really hard to make the Democrats like us. Why wouldn’t they like us?” And that’s a big piece of what went wrong with the Bush presidency. Sigh.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 9, 2009 @ 9:31 pm - April 9, 2009
(I.e., not that the Democrats refused to like Rove and Bush – which was probably inevitable – but rather that Rove and Bush didn’t see it coming, and never quite steeled themselves to NOT CARE.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 9, 2009 @ 9:36 pm - April 9, 2009
Buckeye – I think your missing the point. We conservatives are upset because “our guys” governed as though they thought they were liberals. George W ‘s medicare drug program increased the size of government – we, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, believe that the best government governs the least. AIDS in Africa is a tragedy. However, we do not believe that it is the role of the United States taxpayers to alleviate it. Since President Obama has not changed any of George W’s “War on Terror” policies (except what they call it), I have yet to see a significant difference in the two. One didn’t bow to Arab kings, I guess.
Comment by Steve — April 9, 2009 @ 9:39 pm - April 9, 2009
#6: “nah, you missed the point of the last two election landslides. The GOP was routed because the American public realizes that the GOP can’t govern worth a darn. Yeah, they can campaign (mostly by fear and slander), but actually running the country? Americans know what party does that best.”
Hold the phone! Is it just me? Or did buckeyenutlover just manage to post the most unbelievably ridiculous, categorically false, shockingly obtuse, shamelessly idiotic, and conclusively wrong comment ever published in GayPatriot history? Of course, we’ll have to wait for official confirmation from our panel of esteemed judges, but I think it’s safe to say we have a clear winner. Dan? Bruce? Why don’t you tell buckeyenutlover what he’s won?
Comment by Sean A — April 9, 2009 @ 10:18 pm - April 9, 2009
Buckeyenutlover,
Funny, considering several polls have now proven that most Obama voters thought Republicans were in control of congress the past two years, which proves the truth is exactly the opposite of what you claim.
It was Democrat budgets and laws that were being enacted, and Democrat policies that the people were voting against. But Democrats managed to lie and slander their way into fooling people that Republicans were in charge.
The last time Democrats controlled congress and the White House, during Clinton’s first two years, the American people threw them out of office as fast as they could, just two years later.
Yet Republicans had control of both houses of congress for 12 years and the White House for SIX, and they even gained seats in the off year election, which is virtually unheard of.
Now Americans have voted against what Democrats have been doing the last two years, and Democrats are acting like Americans were voting for it, by exponentially increasing the behavior Americans were voting against.
Enjoy your stay, but dont bother getting comfortable, its going to be another very short one.
Comment by American Elephant — April 10, 2009 @ 1:36 am - April 10, 2009
Dan,
We never had a conservative governing majority under Bush. When Bush won, he promised “compassionate” conservatism, also known as big-government conservatism and he became the new leader of the party. The 1994 Reagan-Revolution-Republicans that had been leading the party were no longer the party leaders. Bush was. And the big government Republicans in congress partnered with Bush’s compassionate conservative agenda to bring us big government Republicans.
And so we lost.
In other words, conservative Republicans didn’t really lose their way, so much as they lost control, to big government Republicans.
The same part of the party that David Frum supports, by the way.
Comment by American Elephant — April 10, 2009 @ 2:14 am - April 10, 2009
Carl Rove is an excellent resource and also a man blinded to objective introspection. That is almost always true of major players who are at the center of an enterprise.
Once the Bush Administration got rolling, he was its able enabler. I doubt we will ever know Rove’s true feelings about the big government moves Bush made. Even Cheney is too loyal to the office to speak candidly about the eight years preceding the days of Whine and Poses that is the Obama theater.
Comment by heliotrope — April 10, 2009 @ 10:07 am - April 10, 2009
heliotrope, Cheney famously said “Deficits don’t matter” and had been Chief of Staff for President Ford, whose numbers say he was the biggest-spending President of modern times before Obama. Rove was Bush’s top aide and presumably “the architect” of Bush’s Democratic-Lite, government-growing moves, as he was of Bush’s election victories. I believe we can infer each man’s true feelings about Big Government from their career track records.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 10, 2009 @ 10:23 am - April 10, 2009
You are in the majority because your ideas have been proven not to work. They do however: a) destroy the economy b)transfer wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest Americans c)attempt to impose religious views upon the rest of the people and d)generally make stuff up about the Democrats’ point of view.
Let’s face it, the Republicans have become an old, white Southern party completely out-of-touch with the modern world.
Comment by NJ Liberal — April 10, 2009 @ 10:23 am - April 10, 2009
Uh, typo. I meant minority.
Comment by NJ Liberal — April 10, 2009 @ 10:24 am - April 10, 2009
Don’t you hate that, NJ? I do it too sometimes and it sucks. You go off in high dudgeon spewing all the bile you can hack up, and then ruin the masterpiece of insult with some silly typo which turns it all on its head.
Should we swap out majority for minority to correct your post? Or Democrat for Republican?
Comment by tim maguire — April 10, 2009 @ 10:46 am - April 10, 2009
#15
a) You mean like how taxation has devestated Michigan, and is doing to Ohio? Or maybe you mean like corporate taxation is driving companies out of the US or into bankruptcy. Or the War on Poverty maybe? When can I withdrawl from that boondoggle?
b) Yes, the rich, like Soros, Kennedy, Kerry… Though I never understood the obession of the left to transfer from the middle class to the poor. I mean, just because the left worships Castro and Chavez (and Stalin before them) doesn’t mean they had good ideas.
c) Yes because Pope Bush the first is still in- Oh wait, that’s right, anyone telling you that there are rules is ‘imposing their view’ on you. How cruel!
d) Made stuff up? Please, I’m sure you can provide examples. Maybe made up stuff like Barak Obama not being experienced enough to be president? Oh, that was (then Senator) Biden! Or maybe made up reasons about why (then state senator) Obama didn’t vote for the born alive act in IL? Oh wait, that was the Obama Campaign!
I’m sure you can dazzle us with links.
To the original post: Yes we need to be able to convey, and help people understand the values of self reliance and determination, because that’s what Conservatism is, in it’s pure form. It has to be marketed in a way though, that doesn’t lose the meaning in the message.
Comment by The Livewire — April 10, 2009 @ 11:30 am - April 10, 2009
ILoveCapitalism…
Bush bipartisan? If that’s true why did he have to make so many recess appointments when his picks couldn’t even get through Republican-controlled committees and Congress e.g. John Bolton.
Comment by NJ Liberal — April 10, 2009 @ 11:34 am - April 10, 2009
Versus the Obama Party, which tailspins the economy with crushing debt, transfers wealth from those who earn it to those who live on welfare like Obama’s criminal illegal immigrant aunt, attempt to ban religious views unless they’re in synch with Black Muslim views, and lie completely about what BOTH they and the Republican Party are doing.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — April 10, 2009 @ 11:36 am - April 10, 2009
Bush bipartisan? If that’s true why did he have to make so many recess appointments when his picks couldn’t even get through Republican-controlled committees and Congress e.g. John Bolton.
Because the Obama Party adamantly opposes anything that Republicans do regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
For instance, Bush supported the removal of Saddam Hussein because Hussein was a genocidal, murdering maniac who persisted in building banned weapons, committing ecocide on a regional scale, and was systematically purging his own population based on religious and ethnic status. Barack Obama opposed removing Hussein and supported leaving him in power for perpetuity.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — April 10, 2009 @ 11:38 am - April 10, 2009
Better example NDT. Regime change in Iraq was the official goal of the US since 1998. They Democrats got up in arms when someone actually did it.
Comment by The Livewire — April 10, 2009 @ 12:05 pm - April 10, 2009
NDT, you could go farther, because *Democrats* even supported the removal of Saddam Hussein for the same reasons as Bush, which you cited… until they decided it would be politically inconvenient to try to turn people against their own country in time of war.
I’m sure someone could trot out the quotes from prominent Democrats, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, who said in no uncertain terms that Saddam was a menace that must be quashed. Democrats in Congress voted for the Iraq Liberation Act, after all, in 1998. (And the 2002 war authorization.)
NJL: Back off on the Kool-aid. Yes, Bush did a lot of bi-partisan things. Rather too many, as we’ve been saying. Your Democrats saw that and figured, “He’s giving more than an inch… Let’s take more than a mile. Let’s see how far we can roll this guy. Apparently, the more we slander him and throw hissy fits, the better.” There is lots of bipartisan stuff that Bush did, that you apparently either aren’t aware of, or wouldn’t care to acknowledge in a fair and honest light, if you are aware of it.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 10, 2009 @ 12:07 pm - April 10, 2009
ILC,
I’m still waiting to hear what bipartisan things Bush did.
NDT
Saddam had absolutely no WMD programs in place…check with the on-the-ground inspectors (both Republicans) who went in after we attacked them and they found NOTHING. I repeat, NOTHING. We had him in a box with the no fly zones.
Comment by NJ Liberal — April 10, 2009 @ 1:50 pm - April 10, 2009
Then you’ll be waiting quite awhile, NJL, because examples were already given. In other words, if you can’t see the examples already given in this thread once, you obviously won’t be able to see them if I repeat them.
Fixed it for ya, NJL.;
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 10, 2009 @ 1:57 pm - April 10, 2009
Sorry, that was gonna be a:
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 10, 2009 @ 1:57 pm - April 10, 2009
Why is it when we get the new faces, they bring the same old lies?
And I’ve a post lost in the f-i-l-t-e-r as well
Comment by The Livewire — April 10, 2009 @ 2:04 pm - April 10, 2009
What Saddam didn’t have, was WMD stockpiles. He didn’t have a stockpile of, say, nuclear missiles all neatly labeled London, Tokyo, Washington DC, etc.
But did he have WMD research and early-development programs that he wasn’t supposed to have? Absolutely.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 10, 2009 @ 2:34 pm - April 10, 2009
You know, fellas, it grows a little long in the tooth to continue this revisionist fallacy of the soc-cons that Bush and –at least the first 6:8 yrs of his Administration– aided by a conservative majority in the House and a marginal conservative-2-moderate majority in the Senate couldn’t or didn’t govern conservatively and that’s why the GOP lost the House, the Senate and the WH.
Throughout those years, the public’s and voter’s perceptions were that the soc-conservatives (via the GOP) DID INDEED GOVERN… sometimes ruthlessly under Tom Delay… sometimes wantonly under BillFrist… sometimes ineffectively on SOME issues under Geo Bush.
But the soc-conservatives did govern and no amount of 20-20 revisionist hindsight or tally of bogus issues that you now “feel” weren’t conservative enough issues to pass your special litmus tests won’t change the simple truth: Americans got sick of the soc-conservatives and their culture war mentality… on stem cell research, on English Only Zenophobia, on war as an sustitute for diplomacy, on anti-immigration policies, on gay marriage, on TeriSchiavo and on enviromentalism.
It happens. Heck, I’d argue that even Ronald Reagan probably wouldn’t recognize the people now calling themselves “soc-conservatives” these days.
But at the end of the day, the truth remains: Americans got tired of the soc-cons and booted the GOP out of office. Soc-con voters and activists who don’t have a loyalty bone were quick to run their special ed bus over the GOP and that’s why, today, the GOP is now saying enough with the culture wars & soc-con lunancy.
And no amount of the special ed revisionism in this thread by people who, generally don’t consider themselves to be Republican in the first place, isn’t going to change the truth. Americans and voters said and spelled “No” to soc-cons on Election Day and it’s now up to the GOP to rebuild itself without surrendering our agenda to the soc-cons.
Did it. Been there. Done it. It wasn’t pretty. We ain’t doing it again.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — April 10, 2009 @ 5:19 pm - April 10, 2009
Bush didn’t govern conservatively, on a majority of domestic matters and certainly not on economic matters. He governed as Democrat Lite for 7 years; then as Obama’s butt-boy in the 8th. (I’m thinking of the bailouts / destruction of capitalism that Obama now owns, but that Bush-Paulson began so unwisely in the final months of their tenure.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 10, 2009 @ 6:31 pm - April 10, 2009
Actually, Michigan-Matt, you and your fellow Obama Lites got exactly what you wanted with McCain — pro-abortion, anti-religious, pro-amnesty, anti-war, and anti-social conservative.
And you got your butts toasted for two reasons — one, your lack of principles alienated people with them, and two, if people are going to vote for moral relativists who believe that getting elected is more important than having principles, they’ll vote for the young black one as opposed to the old white one.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — April 10, 2009 @ 9:23 pm - April 10, 2009
You are exactly right, Dan. Good post.
Comment by Cecil — April 12, 2009 @ 12:19 pm - April 12, 2009
NDXXX, thanks for at least not saying that all those Obama Lite Types –who I think are the couch potato idiots who sat out the election in a snarky little snit of political suicide– were somehow involved in allowing Folsom St Fair activists to parade kids in S&M or that it all means men will be marrying dogs, Mormons and first-cousins… probably at the same ceremony in your reality.
McCain pro-abortion? McCain anti-religious? McCain anti-war? Yeah, smoke ‘em while you got ‘em dude ’cause they ain’t helping out anyone with SanFran glaucoma.
Gheesh, the silliness never, evers ends.
When you can man-up and tell us you voted for McCain and did not contribute to the election of Obama by sitting on that couch, we can discuss whether or not McCain’s nomination led to Obama’s election.
’til then, you need to smoke ‘em because you aren’t making sense anywhere outside of SF.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — April 12, 2009 @ 6:58 pm - April 12, 2009