"Dutch Treat"

[NATO AIR]

Conservatives looking to be the heir of Ronald Reagan, not GWB.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=021606D

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By Ryan H. Sager : BIO | 16 Feb 2006

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At last week's 33rd annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., a clear frontrunner emerged for the 2008 Republican primary: Ronald Wilson Reagan. Everyone wants to be Reagan's heir, it seems. Absolutely no one wants to be George W. Bush's -- at least when it comes to domestic policy.


The criticism of Bush started with the very first panel, on immigration. "Open borders are wrong … no matter how good they are for the restaurant industry," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), blasting the president's proposed guest-worker program. "It is the president who is out of step with his party, not Tom Tancredo."


And Tancredo's criticism of Bush didn't stop at the Mexican border. He also questioned whether the Republican Party under Bush stands for anything at all anymore. The president's No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare prescription-drug bill -- the two major legislative accomplishments of the Bush administration -- both were tremendous errors, Tancredo said, and the GOP should admit its mistakes and repeal them. "We are not the party of bigger government," he said.


Things didn't get much better for Bush from there. Even the presumed presidential candidate most closely affiliated with Bush-style conservatism, Sen. George Allen of Virginia, blasted the Republican Party's "spending problem" as the keynote speaker on the conference's first night. But the real fireworks came on the morning of the last day, as Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, laid it all on the line.


Pence has been an open critic of the Bush administration since the passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill in late 2003. His first real shot across Bush's bow came when he gave the keynote address at CPAC a few months later in early 2004. At the time, he compared the Republican Party to a ship that had drifted off course. And then in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, Pence led a full-on rebellion of conservative House members against the president's out-of-control spending.


That rebellion having led to little in the way of concrete changes in either the White House's or the House leadership's attitudes toward the size of government, Pence arrived at this year's CPAC in a mood that can best be described in one word: pissed.


"Two years ago," Pence said, coming on stage to thunderous applause, "I likened the state of the Republican movement to a tall ship at sea, a ship that had drifted off course … I believed we could get back on course … I no longer believe that.


"It's one thing to drift off course," he said, "it's quite another to continue on that course when half the crew and passengers are pointing out that nothing looks familiar … not to mention tens of millions of Americans lining the shoreline yelling, 'You're going the wrong way!'


"Whether it's called 'compassionate conservatism' or 'big government Republicanism,' after years of record increases in federal spending, more government is now the accepted Republican philosophy in Washington," he said. "We are in danger of becoming the party of big government."


That the Republican Party has arrived, to paraphrase Reagan, at another time for choosing, has become undeniable. While all candidates for the GOP nomination in 2008 will be positioning themselves as the heirs to Bush's leadership in the War on Terror (though, perhaps, with some refinements), it is difficult to imagine any candidate declaring himself or herself Bush's domestic heir.


In looking for a way forward, then, many -- as they did over and over again at CPAC -- reach back to Reagan. There was a conservatism that was sunny, optimistic, resolute in its pursuit of American security and wedded to conservative principle.


Republicans may recall, as Pence quoted Reagan saying in a 1975 address to CPAC: "A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, simply to swell its ranks."


Republicans have had quite enough of political expediency from 1999 to now. The question is whether conservatives can any longer agree on their fundamental beliefs. They've got roughly two years to figure it out.


Ryan Sager, a columnist for The New York Post, is writing a book about the future of the Republican Party, due out in September. He also edits the blog Miscellaneous Objections and can be reached at [email protected].

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Conservatives looking to be the heir of Ronald Reagan, not GWB.

Encouraging article. We definitely need some new leadership. It's about time Republicans stop acting like Democrats.

 

[William Joyce]

Tancredo flat-out rocks. If he gears up for a run for president (he swears he won't), I'd be ga-ga.

 

[no1tovote4]

Tancredo flat-out rocks. If he gears up for a run for president (he swears he won't), I'd be ga-ga.

He won't, he told me at the caucuses that he has skeletons that would pretty much stop it from happening.

 

[William Joyce]

He won't, he told me at the caucuses that he has skeletons that would pretty much stop it from happening.

Huh. Well, that, combined with a very un-PC stand on immigration, which could easily be morphed into "ties to white supremacists," would make it tough. Still, and I hate to sound mushy here, but guys like Tancredo are at least forcing the issue for the upcoming races. Not a few races will turn on it, is my prediction.

 

[Working Man]

Huh. Well, that, combined with a very un-PC stand on immigration, which could easily be morphed into "ties to white supremacists," would make it tough. Still, and I hate to sound mushy here, but guys like Tancredo are at least forcing the issue for the upcoming races. Not a few races will turn on it, is my prediction.

You mean that anyone who feels we should limit who immigrates to the US,, and doesn't like that douchebag Hillary Clinton could be considered a member of the white supremacists??? Geeze,, what a nice thought.

But, I would like to toss a whole bunch out of the country too who have far exceded their welcome. Even the ones that were born here who don't feel a need to work and become part of the positive fabric of American life.