“I know that I’m going to get flamed for this, but I believe that conservatism doesn’t have a single meaning: it has several strands. We know that some people are conservative socially, the others are conservative economically, and so on. Some people are both social and economic conservatives. The great thing about Reagan is that he could put different strands of conservatism in one umbrella. The way I understand Rush is that a person has to hold every single conservative position (in social, economic, patriotic, etc.) before he can be called ‘conservative’.”
No flames here. I agree about Reagan. He pulled in social and foreign policy conservatives who were out of place in a Democratic Party that had moved left.
I’d be a lot more comfortable with the “lose and rebuild” theory if I saw a Reagan out there to build around during an Obama presidency.
You get a gold star for telling the truth.
We could keep purging the Republican Party until we could hold our convention in a phone booth. Look at the Republican Primary; where was the money, volunteers, and enthusiasm for the true conservatives? Medved is right. Politics is always a compromise. I never get exactly what I want. Guess what? The Republican Party will be MORE LIBERAL in the future because some of the democrats and indies will decide to stay. If your tent is not big enough to win elections you have to sew on a new room. Internal fights are fine AFTER defeating Obama.
nycl wrote: “The way I understand Rush is that a person has to hold every single conservative position (in social, economic, patriotic, etc.) before he can be called ‘conservative’.”
Not a flame, but I think you misunderstand Rush. Not every single position a person has needs to be conservative, but the person should hold enough of them to still be a conservative.
A conservative politician can be for raising taxes in one special situation for that time only, but should be a tax-cutter at least 8 out of 10 times that the issue comes before him or her. Sarah Palin raised the production tax on the oil companies, but that doesn’t disqualify her from being a conservative, IMO. In every other situation that I know of, she cut taxes. Even when she raised the production tax (by 2.5%), at the same time she raised the tax break for exploration (by 10%).
Fred Thompson is an across-the-board conservative. He only had an 86% lifetime ACU rating, but he was a reliable conservative vote more than 8 times out of 10.
Even Ronald Reagan left the reservation on rare occasions...