- Oct 7, 2011
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Good article by Jack Hunter.
We need more conservative Texans in Washington, D.C., including my friend David Dewhurst, Texas Governor Rick Perry said during his states Republican convention last week. Perrys comments were met with loud boos from the mostly conservative audience.
Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas, is running for U.S. Senate. He is being challenged in a run-off by former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who many Texans see as the more conservative candidate.
But Perry does have a point. Just a few short years ago, say in 2005 or 2006, a fairly moderate Republican like Dewhurst couldve successfully passed himself off as a conservative with most Republican voters. During that time, conservatism was not measured by ones limited-government record or fidelity to the Constitution, but simply by whether someone was on board with George W. Bushs policies. Some Republicans still consider Bush a conservative, even though Bush was the most big-government president in our history until President Obama.
I belong to that segment of diehard constitutionalists, libertarians and others whove been anxious to get rid of these phony big-government conservatives and replace them with bona fide limited-government advocates like Cruz. For some of my more radically libertarian friends, even Cruz isnt good enough. I strongly disagree, but certainly prefer that sentiment to Republicans trying to convince me that John Boehner is a conservative.
The lefts contention that the Republican Party has been hijacked by a bunch of limited-government extremists is partly and thankfully true. A Daily Caller story in June titled Obama to portray Romney as a libertarian extremist quoted the president saying: We [Democrats] havent moved that much. Whats changed is the Republican Party. Obama is right. The Democratic Partys agenda since the New Deal has been to make America as socialist as possible. During the Bush administration, the Republican Party doubled the size of the Department of Education through No Child Left Behind, created the largest new entitlement program since President Lyndon Johnson with Medicare Plan D and increased the debt by trillions of dollars. For most of the last decade, the Republican Party was as socialist as the Democratic Party...
Read more: Who owns conservatism? | The Daily Caller
We need more conservative Texans in Washington, D.C., including my friend David Dewhurst, Texas Governor Rick Perry said during his states Republican convention last week. Perrys comments were met with loud boos from the mostly conservative audience.
Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas, is running for U.S. Senate. He is being challenged in a run-off by former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who many Texans see as the more conservative candidate.
But Perry does have a point. Just a few short years ago, say in 2005 or 2006, a fairly moderate Republican like Dewhurst couldve successfully passed himself off as a conservative with most Republican voters. During that time, conservatism was not measured by ones limited-government record or fidelity to the Constitution, but simply by whether someone was on board with George W. Bushs policies. Some Republicans still consider Bush a conservative, even though Bush was the most big-government president in our history until President Obama.
I belong to that segment of diehard constitutionalists, libertarians and others whove been anxious to get rid of these phony big-government conservatives and replace them with bona fide limited-government advocates like Cruz. For some of my more radically libertarian friends, even Cruz isnt good enough. I strongly disagree, but certainly prefer that sentiment to Republicans trying to convince me that John Boehner is a conservative.
The lefts contention that the Republican Party has been hijacked by a bunch of limited-government extremists is partly and thankfully true. A Daily Caller story in June titled Obama to portray Romney as a libertarian extremist quoted the president saying: We [Democrats] havent moved that much. Whats changed is the Republican Party. Obama is right. The Democratic Partys agenda since the New Deal has been to make America as socialist as possible. During the Bush administration, the Republican Party doubled the size of the Department of Education through No Child Left Behind, created the largest new entitlement program since President Lyndon Johnson with Medicare Plan D and increased the debt by trillions of dollars. For most of the last decade, the Republican Party was as socialist as the Democratic Party...
Read more: Who owns conservatism? | The Daily Caller
