You claimed the dems got nothing accomplished in 1992. I note an enormous tax increase. That’s a pretty big accomplishment, perhaps the biggest item conservatives would fight against in thinking about Congress.
The fact that it was peeled back in 2000 (not even close to ‘repealed’) and that Bush Sr signed a tax increase has nothing to do with it.
If the choice is Rudy or Hillary with a dem congress, the latter will be far worse.
I was more pro-Rudy a couple of months ago than I am today, mostly due to some good reasoning made here on FR by anti-Rudy folks. I’d much prefer an electable conservative than Rudy.
But if Rudy wins the nomination, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat over any of the leading dems. I’m just baffled why anyone else would stubbornly permit a democrat to win the White House in these times.
I live in CT too and voted for Lieberman in 2006. Why? Because of his support for the war, because Lamont is terrifying, because Schlesinger was hapless and had zero chance. Did I know Lieberman was a big-time liberal? Yes. But I believe I was making a smart political decision given the choices.
Who do you vote for in 2006?
But instead of rebuilding that image, and the trust of the mainstream public, they chose to display and coddle the very same vile and hate towards Giuliani that they accuse the Democrats of.
If they don’t like a candidate, simply support the one they like, instead of making a direct effort to attack and degrade another, like Giuliani.
We condemned the Democrats for this same tactic in ‘04. They had no real candidate to support, or real and logical ideas to make things better. All they could do was attack George Bush. They were consumed by it. They lost because of it, although narrowly.
The same thing is happening to the GOP this time around. And in the mean time , the clock is ticking and no real direction or unity has been established. This IS the real problem. Not Giuliani.
The ability to bifurcate one's political philosophy from our shared political reality is a technique that many FReepers have yet to embrace, but might do so as events unfold.
I think you're right; I find myself in agreement with those that criticize Rudy for being a liberal and oppose his constitutional interpretations regarding 2A, Roe, etc. However, he's still a better choice for the country v Hillary!, and for those reasons I would vote for him in the general election.
I was tired, but the bigger issue to me was that our own president had accomplished a similar task earlier, that the backlash from that increase got us many tax decreases and a republican congress, and in the end it did not destroy the economy or our country.
Clinton did other bad things, like change the abortion regulations, and other regulations. The democrats passed a few other bad laws, but frankly they passed some bad things with Bush’s help in the previous two years.
My comment that they “accompished nothing” was I admit hyperbole, borne somewhat of exhaustion. I didn’t have time to add the words to qualify my statements about that or other things.
I think the country would be better off today with republicans in charge, but the democrats are having trouble screwing things up too much. If I thought democrats could accomplish things that would work and make people like them, I’d fear more, except the reason I oppose democrats is I know that what they want to do will NOT work.
That was a tough race. I don’t know who I would have voted for in that race. I think in the end I would have voted for the republican and prayed for Leiberman to win without me. But if it looked really close in the polls, I might have been persuaded to vote Leiberman simply because of the war on terror.
But in that case, I’d be voting for the democrat, instead of the republican, so at least I wouldn’t have been voting for a BAD REPUBLICAN that would hurt my own party.
And in November of 2008, I might vote for Rudy, but if I did it would be with the expectation that while the country might be better off than with Hillary, I’d be signing the death warrant for the conservative/republican movement, because Rudy would destroy the party.
That’s the difference. If it was November 8 and there were 3 candidates and they were a republican who couldn’t win no matter what, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Leiberman as a surprise 3rd-party candidate, I’d vote for Joe Leiberman.
For one thing...Republicans are much more likely to oppose the policies of a liberal democrat President then they would be to oppose a liberal Republican President...In that context Rudy, who has many of the same liberal ideas and beliefs that Clinton has, would be a greater danger to the Republic then Clinton.