Searching for the Great Right Hope
Conservatives, long the backbone of the Republican Party, are dissatisfied. For many, the current crop of GOP presidential candidates is about as exciting as a Barry Manilow concert.
Leading the pack in the polls is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Admirers view him as the gutsy guy who straightened his city out first and then held it together after the 9/11 attacks. Not everyone sees it that way, naturally, but much of his popularity is premised on the belief he’s a strong leader.
Mr. Giuliani’s biggest disadvantage is that he doesn’t subscribe to several basic Republican principles. At least in the past, he’s been pro abortion, pro gun control, pro gay rights and pro amnesty for illegal aliens. Then there’s his thorny personal life. Add to all that those pictures of him prancing in a pink dress, a blonde wig and high heels that will haunt him and I don’t how he can win the party’s nomination.
Running behind Rudy is Senator John McCain. The senator is an authentic American hero; for almost six years he was a prisoner of war. In his 20 years in the Senate, Mr. McCain has sided with conservatives more often than not, but he’s been drifting leftward.
A recent McClatchy Washington Bureau story looked at the National Journal’s scorecard for lawmakers. It noted that McCain “grew increasingly less conservative in recent years. He started with annual conservative scores consistently in the 80s when he first went to the Senate in 1987, dipped into the 60s in the late 1990s and into the 50s starting in 2004.â€
What Senator McCain’s best known for legislatively is his version of campaign finance reform, which many on the right think limits free speech and protects incumbents.
He’s also got an illegal immigrant problem, having introduced legislation that was co-sponsored by none other than Teddy Kennedy. The senator’s temper has been described by The Arizona Republic as “volcanic†and it’s said he holds grudges forever. Not that this conservative has a problem with that.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has tried to position himself as the genuine conservative in the race. An obstacle he’ll need to surmount is his previous support for abortion.
Another matter of significance will be his attempt to run to the left of Teddy Kennedy when Romney ran against him for the Senate. In a 1994 letter to the Log Cabin Club, Romney stressed his support for gay rights: “If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.â€
Kansa Senator Sam Brownback isn’t well known, but conservatives could find much to like about him. Here’s a guy who wouldn’t sign the 1994 Republican Contract With America, not because it was too sweeping, but because he thought part of it was too liberal. It’s been reported that Mr. Brownback seeks to pattern his Senate record after that of the great Jesse Helms.
Yet even Sam has an Achilles’ heel. In his case it’s that old bugaboo of illegal immigration. The organization Americans for Better Immigration awards him a D, the same grade assigned Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama.
Congressmen Tom Tancredo of Colorado and California’s Duncan Hunter are two solid conservatives hindered thus far by a lack of name recognition and a commensurate difficulty in garnering campaign contributions.
The lack of a credible conservative candidate has the Republican rank and file looking elsewhere. That accounts for the mounting interest in former senator and current actor Fred Thomson. Earlier this month, he said that he was considering running. “It’s not really a reflection on the current field at all,†he claimed.
Well of course it is. A new Zogby America Poll shows Thompson, a man who hasn’t declared his candidacy or even formed one of those “exploratory†committees, already tied for third place with Mitt Romney. Moreover, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that almost six in ten Republicans still want more choices than offered by the declared contenders.
A week can be a lifetime in politics. In the last election cycle, a mere month before the Iowa caucuses Democratic voters preferred Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman, Richard Gephardt and Al Sharpton over their party’s ultimate nominee, John Kerry.
Conservatives aren’t going to find another Ronald Reagan, but they do hope to find someone they can enthusiastically support. And Newt is still to be heard from.
This Mike Bates column appeared in the March 29, 2007 Reporter Newspapers.
Michael M. Bates has written a weekly column of opinion since 1985 for the (southwest suburban Chicago) Reporter Newspapers. Additionally, his articles have appeared in the Congressional Record, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Mensa Journal. He has been a guest on Milt Rosenberg's program on WGN Radio Chicago, the Bruce Elliott show on Baltimore's WBAL, the Jim Sumpter show on the USA Radio Network and The New Media Journal on Blog Talk Radio. As a lad, Mike distributed Goldwater campaign literature and since then has steadily moved further to the Right. He is the author of "Right Angles and Other Obstinate Truths." In 2007, he won an Illinois Press Association award for Original Column. | More from Mike Bates
Stumble It!
March 28th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Hey, what’s with the knocking of pink dresses? Great Britain has managed quite well for several hundred years with male politicians in dresses; stockings even. And look at Joe Biden. He’s a woman – a real nasty one at that – in drag. Have you looked really hard at the cut of his trousers? And then there was your famous Head of the FBI, Edgar Hoover. No one crossed him and he had a friggin’ wardrobe full of dresses.
By the way, the last real war hero candidate who was a POW for seven years was my late friend Admiral Jim Stockdale who ran as Vice President to Ross Perot. A far better man than McCain and sank without a trace. McCain and his refusal to consider men’s issues because ‘its too hard’ is a no-go.
Do as the Romans did. Have a furriner. Vote for Amfortas.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:21 am
And then there was your famous Head of the FBI, Edgar Hoover. No one crossed him and he had a friggin’ wardrobe full of dresses.
On June 25, 1998, the New York Times Times printed a retraction: “Editors’ Note
An art review in Weekend on May 22 about the exhibition ‘Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence’ at the Grey Art Gallery in Greenwich Village discussed the inherent fascination of such photos and how the viewer’s subjectivity makes them unreliable as evidence. In discussing a publicity photograph of J. Edgar Hoover included in the show, the review referred to the former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the ‘top G-man and (now we know) cross-dresser.’
Assertions that Hoover was a cross-dresser come from a single uncorroborated source quoted in a 1993 book and should not have been presented as fact. A group of former F.B.I. agents alerted The Times as the misstatement on June 3, and this editors’ note was delayed for checking.â€
March 28th, 2007 at 7:23 am
By the way, the last real war hero candidate who was a POW for seven years was my late friend Admiral Jim Stockdale who ran as Vice President to Ross Perot. A far better man than McCain and sank without a trace.
That sinking had much more to do with Perot than Admiral Stockdale, don’t you think?
March 28th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Well Mike, Jim was a splendid American, a great Navy man – aviator – and an heroic man in anyone’s book, but not a politician. Perot did get the guys out of Tehran using ‘Jim’ style methods, but Jim wasn’t able to get Perot into the White House. C’est la Vie. What a team they might have made.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:17 am
A true conservative is absolutely unelectable.
A true conservative would have to say that it’s time to forget about the past promises of comfort and to start preparing for a new, less pleasant future of self-sufficiency, hard work and uncertainty, and a return to defendable nationhood rather than global-oneness.
He (and it would have to be a man) would say that it’ll be rough and casualties will be expected. It would indeed be a time of asking not what the country could do for you.
This needs to be said and heard.
It won’t be said, few would hear it or understand…
The tilt-a-world is greased up and ready to start…
March 28th, 2007 at 10:23 am
So who do we believe Mike – ref J Edgar H. The New York Times (haha,hahahaha); a snitch who mysteriousy can’t be found (Uhuuhh !) ; a clutch of former ‘gee, yes!’ men ( The answers are out there); the film with Marilyn Munro, J Edgar H, Albert Einstein and whoever it was who played basketball or something, in a hotel room, the name of which I can never remember (the film, not the hotel)(and wossname never played there) but its where Marilyn explains relativity to Einstein using a toy train and a torch.
I’d look under Marilyn’s dress for the answer. But then, that’s me.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:04 am
“Conservatives aren’t going to find another Ronald Reagan, but they do hope to find someone they can enthusiastically support.”
“…more than Bush.” Is the unspoken next line of this article. The title of this article should have been “Desperately Seeking Reagan.”
These last 7 years have been a total waste with Bush. He’s shredded any concept of a conservative administration.
The only potential candidate I would vote for is Pat Buchanan. I have read well one of his books and states views that I agree with and would be good for America.
Does anybody know how you even sign up for the republican caucus/primary?
I looked on the internet, but couldn’t find any links on this.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Thompson or Mr. Newt look the best to me right now. If McCain is our nominy, I guess I’ll vote for him over whomever the democrat is (Hillary or Obama), but I won’t feel good about it. If the Republicans keep dropping a deuce every time election year rolls around, I’ll start voting Libertarian.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Obviously, Mike, you’ve never BEEN to a Barry Manilow concert.
Potshot aside, I happen to like Giuliani AND his progressive republican stance… except for the amnesty for illegal imigrants thing… after all… if we make them legal, we’ll have to start paying them like Americans, too. Next thing you know, we’ll have to contend with Nanny’s unions, watch the dishes pile up when the maid goes on strike, and worst of all, we’ll actually have to hire real teachers to teach our kids Spanish. In twenty years, every upper Rebuplican household will be in the same straits the Big Three are today.
Ah, but what the H*ll to I know? I’m just a chick who likes Barry Manilow after all….
March 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Thumbella:
Whatever you do know it’s clearly not the current true meaning of the word “progressive”, the only real meaning is to ‘progress’ us into a socialist state of arbitrary state enforced wealth redistribution leaving us all equally poor regardless of our skills and talents save for the ruling class based on assignment, not achievement.
Please advise us as to what you think is so progressive about being ‘progressive’ in the contest of what has been proven to be enduring political policy not enforced at bayonet-point or involving extermination of whatever Kulaks du jour and theft of their property.
One small caveat; you can’t use the word ‘progress’ to describe itself…
March 29th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Red Pill –
There are currently six “true” meanings of the word “progressive” according to Merriam Webster online, as I used it as an adjective, and I was referring to definition #3: moving forward or onward. I presume you assumed I was referring to Progressive as a proper noun (which incidentally I would have capitalized if I’d meant it that way) as in the group that split off from the Republican party in 1912. Sorry to have confused you. My bad. I didn’t mean it in those terms.
What I did mean is that I agree with Giuliani’s views on the areas Mike mentioned. I support a woman’s right to have dominion over her own body. I would like to see my brother’s lover have the same rights and privileges in the case of my brother’s death as any woman who married him and loved him half as much, (aka my ex-sister-in-law). Secondly, I support gun control, simply because I believe that too many angry idiots have ruined it for the law abiding people like my sister who uses her legal Smith and Wesson at the range and God forbid she should ever have to use it to protect herself when she’s home alone.
Furthermore, I do believe that Guiliani is a strong leader, made so by the mistakes he’s made in the past. And if Guiliani having a sense of humor in wearing a wig and tutu can keep him out of the leadership position he deserves, then America deserves what it gets.
PS… BTW, It’s Thumbelina. Get it right.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Thumbelissima:
BS
That’s what ‘progressive means in current politics. There is no moving foreward politically when the results are retrograde. The Dictionary is shiite when it comes to what you chose to vote for. Like too many you follow an comfortable banner which doesnt represent its’ promises. You follow totems, you follow a comfortable illusion not reality. Typical.
Keep your body as you see fit, just pay with your own money and if you have a unilateral desire pay for it yourself without subterfuge or asking a stranger to enforce your will. If you are desperate for the patter of little feet without a daddy, then pay for it fully by your own efforts as you would if you were to have it sucked out as an inconvenience.
Your brother can have whatever his partner deems needed legally. What he really wants is someone else to supply his medical insurance for his high risk lifestyle of drug use and promiscuous and risky sex practices. His priorities do not mirror those of breeders. No, they don’t.
Gun control as offered by Giuliani is about empowering the state and enforcing its’ lusts without repercussions. If deadly and expensive ramifications of a behaviour are all thats needed to justify disempowering reasonable people, you’d be for getting your brother from going up the down staircase or vice versa by force of gov’t.
ps…btw it’s red pill. Get it right…
March 30th, 2007 at 6:24 am
red pill…
I don’t follow any banner. I support people who represent my views, and as I can see by the rest of your generalistic ravings, that is the most retrograde stance one can take in today’s American politics. Comfortable illusion or ideal that this country was once built upon, it’s mine and I embrace it.
Not all of us want to hide under sheets of insults in beds made of opinions infested with bitterness. Some of us, however misguided, realize that if we aren’t making an attempt to move forward (
March 30th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Thumbbie:
Perhaps that’s the problem, “..support people that represent your views.” I got views, you may be interested in them, or maybe not so much. It’s of no concern. Employ your views in your home and in your life. The basic question is are we gonna follow a leader or philosophy of supporting ones own views (which imply your mind is made up) or are we gonna follow someone or something that may require us to change our views appropriate to circumstances which would require us to continually process reality to make valid changes.
Sadly the “Progressive!” banner you follow has the comfortable subtext which is that if each of us is simply assigned a comatose sugardaddy with enough funds and no consious will of his own we will all be comfortable and happy no matter what we want or do.
Individually it may occasionally work that way but obviously can’t work for everyone if you do the math.
Anyone offering to support you and care for you as ’special’ while also offering this line to everyone else is not telling you the uncomfortable but obvious truth that you are to them absolutely no different from anyone else and as such your life is of no consequence to them. Emphasizing an ever increasing role of government intervention in fact reduces your value as a unique individual.
I’m sure you understand this intuitively in your personal life wo why this should escape the vast majority of people is a puzzlement.
Fascinating…