Posted on 05/16/2010 9:26:13 AM PDT by Friendofgeorge
Watching the daily attacks on Sarah Palin and wondering how Reagan would have done if he was on the Conservative front today? We can ask 2 questions? Firstly how would Reagan have been welcomed by the folks at Free Republic today, assuming that Reagan was just coming on to the scene, and 2ndly what if Free Republic could magically be placed back in the Reagan 80`s era.
Certainly the Reagan that appointed Sandra Day O`Connor to the Supreme Court, would be thoroughly trashed here, no butts about it! Not to mention his position on immigration.
Imagine Reagan had just finished his second term in 2008, and was just releasing his book. How would it have gone over today when the book would show that he had no regrets about appointing Sandra Day to the High Court? His Presidential notes show that is what he said, and he had such respect for her that he wanted her to take a prominent part in his funeral service that he planned. And what about the Notes that he mentioned...(I paraphrase) The pro life groups have their shorts in a knot over the Day appointment.
I suspect Reagan would be trashed at Free Republic , just as so many have trashed GW, and now Sarah Palin. I fully suspect the same Palin Trashers would have dumped on Reagan just as they did on Bush. Probably would have said throw the bum out.
Just how I see it. BTW I liked Reagan and Bush, I never turned on GW as so many did here, and I am not turning on Sarah. She is a once in a generation candidate and quite frankly I am ashamed of the people here that are turning on her. Just know that you would do the same if it was Reagan today.
Republicans here basically threw the 2006 elections to the Democrats, because of 1 issue, that being immigration, which BTW was not even an issue in the 2008 election. Now we have Obama seemingly set to remake the High Court in his own warped NON Christian image. God Forbid he gets a 2nd term
I love Sarah and her message. But as a Presidential candidate? *shudder*
Way to go.
This is not a pie in the sky world. Nobody is perfect.
Sarah is doing exactly what she said she was going to do...good on her. In terms of the trashing she gets - she’s got an iron will because she fears God more than the opinion of men. May she live & be well....and may her tribe increase.
The way I understand it, he accepted amnesty to get enforcement, after which no further amnesties would have been needed. We got the amnesty, but not the enforcement we were willing to accept the amnesty we were willing to exchange for it. I don't know if Reagan was a knowing part of the bait and switch, or a victim of it like the rest of us. He seemed like a pretty straightforward guy, so I assume the latter.
Then you have no worries - she’s never said she was going to run for the presidency.
Yesterday you wrote that Palin had “jumped the shark”. Not sure how loving—or accurate!—that observation is.
Just because of an (R) after the name does not mean we should blindly support everything they do - been there, regrettably done that, with GWB.
Congrats on a good point!
As well remember Reagan selected a RINO for his VP pick in 1976 if he was going to be the nominee and Jesse Helms got mad and threaten to pull his support from Reagan
Reagan was and is the best President we had in modern times, and it is embarrassing the way people turn against Palin...If she is wrong then disagree but don’t turn everything good that this woman has done in the past few months upside down and use liberal spin against her
Reagan did a variety of things that fit poorly into the conservative box, Like his push for national catastrophic health insurance( which came to nought--the 'rats in the House ironically said it was a "budget buster")but his convictions and goals were beyond dispute.
Likewise Palin, who is still finding her footing as a national spokesperson, is using judgment as well as litmus tests in making decisions.
Bush was no stranger to Washington. He spent a lot of time in his father's White House and knew first hand what the 'rats did to his father, but he didn't learn from watching that close up. A serious defect in judgment that cost him and the nation dearly.
I do not have words to tell you how much I related to your words-wise words-regarding President Reagan, President Bush and Governor Palin. I think you are spot on and I certainly appreciate your common sense attitude. Many thanks for an excellent essay.
That is unacceptable...because EVERYTHING she is doing is trash by these people even when it’s helping the overall cause, what she did with Brewer is considered wrong by the haters because it involves Palin...If one spend more time trashing Sarah than Obama then something is terribly wrong
To be truthful, I don’t understand how ANYONE can have any faith in the National GOP, or its cheerleaders. The GOP is to blame for everything that has happened in this country since 2004. Their crippling fear of the media, and being branded “racists” allowed the the Left to have their way with America. I mean, where do you think Obama got the b*lls to nominate Kagan? She is not qualified to watch my kids, yet she will probably join Sotomayor in the dismantling of the Document.
When the GOP was in complete control after 2002, the Democrats still had them by the short and curlies. When the GOP retakes congress this year it will be more of the same. The Democrats (who have been down this road before) will claim it is now to “time to heal” and “reach out across the aisle”, and just like 2002, the GOP will fall for it.
The criticism of Palin, largely based upon her endorsements and the belief that she "quit" her job, are not logical.
Only God is perfect. Nothing of men ever is. Demanding perfect purity in Politics is a sure prescription for political irrelevance. This is why the Libertarian wing of the Conservative movement has been so completely ineffective for the last 20 years. This is why Conservatives always lose to the RINOS.
The Purist choir all keep wasting all their time making the perfect the enemy of the good. They are so busying spending all their time worrying about the dogmatic purity in their political allies they never have any time, or energy left to fight the Leftists on anything. They are so busy factionalizing their political base into competing interest groups, they have nothing left to ever fight the progressives. No wonder the Left is continually kicking the their asses in election after election.
As one famous Conservative leader said " A man who agrees with me 80% of the time is a trusted friend and ally, not a 20% traitor"
Curious what these sort of ideological purist would of said about a President who presided over a worse recession then this current one, appointed a Liberal to the Supreme Court, Raised taxes 6 times, doubled the size of the Fed Budget in 8 years. Spent, prior to this regime, record deficits. Ran away from a Muslim terrorist threat. Signed an illegal Alien Amnesty. Lost control of the US Senate to the Democrats on his watch.
What would they say about that? Using the sort of purist dogma shouted on every possible thread daily around here, I suspect, the Purist Choir would be screaming "RINO" at that former President and assigning him to rank down there with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, U.S. Grant, and Warren Harding as one of America’s worst Presidents because he did not pass their personal ideological purity test.
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That President was Ronald Reagan. Probably the greatest President of the 20th Century.
Reagan had words for your sort of ideological 100%er.
By Ronald Reagan in his autobiography An American Life
“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.”
Well said.
Believe me, I understand your frustration. The GOP is rife with wishy-washy careerists who will advance just as much of the liberal cause as they think they can get away with. When they first tasted power in in Congress during the Reagan era, they were shell-shocked embarrassments after all their years under Democrat thuggery. They came in more strongly in ‘94, then fizzled again. Clearly they need to be shaken up again.
But this is what I don’t get: in Palin we’ve got someone with a demonstrated willingness to effect reform within her own party. Someone who speaks more effectively for conservatism than anyone we’ve had since Reagan, and someone who has galvinized the base like few other. Yet, she’s clearly a political natural (I’d say genius) who is doing a masterful job of maintaining and building her political viability without selling out. She’s someone who is actually likely to get the nomination and win in 2012, rather than excite the purists who comprise 1% of the electorate.
What more do you or could you want in a political leader? No, she’s not perfect—but no human being is.
It is pretty obvious that were FR around during the Reagan administration he would have been criticized as a tax raising, amenesty granting, big spending, cutting and running in the middle east Rino. Anyone with any logic who reads much around here can not escape that conclusion.
Many people here will criticize Sarah on one thing today (Fiorina) then loudly applaud her the next day on AZ/immigration.
Yes there are a few who seem not to like her regardless, but let's not become like the "Yes we can, change, change, change!" Obamulan zombies.
there is a small group of folks here who like Romney or Paul or whomever like Rabs or BobJ and have always smeared Palin.
there is another group of Palin supporters here like me who don't like a few of her choices of endorsement or funding...Quueg and Fioriana endorsed, gave 1000 to Graham...not the end of the world but one wonders....btw...the founder of this forum is in this group of Palin admirers but has critiqued her dismissal of DeVore
then there are freepers who have a cow over any dissent over Palin....and they label it destructive politics while they themselves attempt to control this forum...just like they did when Bush strayed....these folks get very personal and vulgar very quickly
hopefully Palin’s flaws will be few but it is quite normal to admire and support a candidate and oppose some things they do
i personally just don't want another Bush where they wheels fell off like in the second term
don't worry about Palin...give her an issue and a camera and an audience and she will get the job done...that is where she is magnificent
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