Some people seem to mourn the loss of Fred Thompson because he was the only candidate that “represented” the conservative view. They say he embodied the conservative traits Ronald Reagan possessed and used to establish his …well his conservative empire I guess. Folks Ronald Reagan was not Ronald Reagan, and neither is/was Fred Thompson.
Reagan spent like a drunken sailor, he just spent it on things like the military that most conservatives like. The miracle of 
Reagan’s economic recovery had more to do with the Saudis dropping the bottom out of the price of oil than it did with supply side economics. Keep in mind that oil in real terms was higher when Reagan took office than it is now. Can you imagine what would happen to the world economy if the price of energy went down 60%-70% over the next 6-12 months. Hell GWB would be hailed as an economic savior, his legacy would be assured, especially since he did not fold like a house of cards against terrorists like Ronald Reagan did. Reagan talked tuff, Pope John Paul II and George W. Bush have lived tuff. When it comes to fiscal responsibility please recall that the federal budget was not balanced until Clinton and the Republicans did it in the 90’s.
People seem to love to school me on what conservatives really are on this site. These people are generally libertarians or the otherwise whacked out far right. Folks I know who Ronald Reagan was. I voted for Ronald Reagan. I love Ronald Reagan, I just don’t worship him. I very much understand the principles President Reagan stood on. Your views are not Ronald Reagan’s views. As usual The Anchoress states the case in words wiser and more gentle than mine…
Excuse me, but Ronald Reagan would have had no patience for the likes of you.
Unless I am mistaken – and forgive me if I am, but I was a headline-believing Democrat when Reagan was in office, so I cannot quote the Book of Reagan as completely as some – did not Reagan advise an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not criticize other Republicans?
I don’t know if I completely agree with that commandment, by the way, but he’s your idol, not mine. I can tell you that I do agree with another of Reagan’s dicta: that we ought not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
If Ronald Reagan were alive right now, watching the GOP split into these tantrum-throwing factions (whereby “perfection” is duly defined as “pro-life, pro-gun, pro-free-market, pro-worship, pro-Bush-doctrine, pro-tax-cut, pro-ship-back-all-illegals” and then, as each less-than-perfect candidate’s failure on one or more issues is noted, each are thus deemed unworthy of the support of the pristine and uncompromising “base”) I think he’d be disgusted with the lot of you.
Ronald Reagan above all he was a pragmatist and a realist. He understood something that some voters seem to have forgotten:
“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.”
– Ronald Reagan, An American LifeIf I am reading my mail right – and I believe I am – every candidate running for president on the GOP side is – gasp! – flawed in some way. This guy’s too religious, this guy’s a flip-flopper, this guy’s too John McCain, this guy is a tantalizing “almost perfect” flirt who doesn’t want to put out, this guy is too soft on illegals, this guy is too hard on assault rifles, this guy is great on security but he wears a dress!
Oh, boo-hoo, people. Get a grip. The truth is the GOP had produced several reasonable candidates for the presidential nomination. None are “perfect,” but neither are you. A vote for any of them will require from you an end to the thrust-lip tantrum. You’re going to have to wipe your little eyes, haul up your drawers and – egad – do what Reagan would have done; he would have looked for the candidate who he felt was – taken all-in-all – best for the whole nation, not just for some little one-issue subgroup; he would not simply vote for his comfort zone.
In unserious times, and vacations from history, it is possible to hold oneself aloof from a process and declare, “fiddle-dee-dee, I’ll think about voting next election!”
It cannot be said enough: we are in serious times. In this election you do not have the luxury of complacently waiting for the next bus because you don’t like any of these drivers. In this election, you either get on board and take the damn uncomfortable, bumpy ride with the rest of us, or you marginalize yourself into irrelevancy on your little bench.
I would quote more from her wonderful essay but then one should go to her site to get the full text as it is very much worth it. She links to a fantastic article (as nearly all hers are) by neo-neocon…
Inspiration in and of itself is not a bad thing, and the Right is not immune to wanting some and to bewailing the fact that their candidates are lacking in it. That’s probably part of what the current nostalgia for Reagan, the Great Inspirer of the Right, is all about.
But the Right tends to want more specifics as well, as the Anchoress points out, and to be miffed and unforgiving if inspiration doesn’t come with ideological purity of thought and action.
The Right is interested—very interested—in the details, and tends to require them before it will allow itself to be inspired. This can lead the Right to embrace candidates with the correct conservative doctrine who have no chance of winning—which proves that being on the Right is no guarantee of a pragmatic attitude towards politics.
neo-neocon also has some very enlightening comments on Senator Mooncalf and his lack of…well is just his overall lack of. Her words are well worth investing the time to read. Sorry to lean so much on these ladies, but they do say it better than me. Besides my hands pain me too much to type more.
I have seen a few election cycles come and go, we will have a nominee to rally around and we will rally.
Credit to the Beast on the Obama nick.
The Conservative Citizen 
PG – People seem to love to school me on what conservatives really are on this site. These people are generally libertarians or the otherwise whacked out far right.
Who might these people be?
Excuse me: Presidents don’t spend like drunken sailors; Congress does. Reagan dealt with the reality on the ground that, to get what he wanted for a Democratic Congress, he had to give them some of what they wanted. He realized the need of his programs was immediate and, despite the deficit problems, time proved him correct.
I don’t worship the man, though I knew him politically much longer than most. Picking Bush as his VP did him a lot more harm over time than good. That is where the ‘Neo-‘ got attached to conservative and is why we’re in the electoral tailspin we’re in now. But winning the Cold War meant it was all worthwhile (though few will realize that as time passes).
My brother was in Beirut and got his course in Advanced Body Part Sorting of Friends there in the first neo-con attempt at half-hearted ‘peace Brokerage’, which Clinton matched with Somalia.
Myth always replaces reality along the way, just look at JFK. Reagan wasn’t as ‘conservative’ as most conservatives think he was, but he stuck to his principles (that alone should lead us to revere him as a president) and is about as conservative in his ideology as we’ll ever see in someone able to get elected as POTUS. The dynamic three of Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II were able to play a dramatic role in bringing to heel one of the worst ideologies to ever infect the minds of men. Most of the bloggers on this site spent their most formative years under his presidency, and as Reaganites developed our first taste of politics and ideology. His victory brought the modern Right into maturity, allowed it to flex its muscles and shattered the perceived invincibility of the modern political Left.
I didn’t want Fred to to Ronnie, I wanted Fred to be Fred. And I supported him as such. His exit from the race will be regretted down the road as the GOP wakes up one morning to find either Romney or McCain or Giuliani as the nominee. Then the finger pointing and blaming will commence. Who will take the blame? Not us fine and intelligent conservatives who supported the former Senator from Tennessee with the cute number for a wife. We’ll merely say, ‘we told you so’.
Interesting post by the way.
Mike you show total ignorance regarding what a neoconservative is. Have you been spending too much time with the whacked-out Uncle Ron crowd to understand the difference between foreign policy realists and their arch nemesis the neocons? Look I know those yo-yo heads are true believers, but you? James Baker a neocon, give me a break. Save the Rumsfeld myth if you were going to proffer it. He IS NOT a neocon, never was. I have done way too much work on this site explaining neoconservatism to have you school me about it.
Sorry, but Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have lived a life dedicated to Conservative Republican principles. They have stuck by those principles at great cost to themselves. They were not and are not now neocons. Fred Thompson filled in for a while in the senate. He has been a lobbyist and played a lawyer on TV. I like Fred even though he took time off during his campaign and never showed passion. I would have voted for him cheerfully. Fred is neither Dick or Don, sorry.
For someone who holds Reagan in such high regard I advise you to look at his autobiography’s index and see how often George H W Bush is mentioned. He is all but not mentioned. If memory serves me Bush has two minor listings, both just polite references. Reagan had nothing but a civil relationship with the elder Bush. He certainly never brought him into the policy making side of his presidency as you suggest.
Reagan spent the money. They were his budgets, he ASKED and got the increases. He raised government spending in real terms in areas besides defence, sorry, he just did.
Reagan CUT AND RAN in Beirut. Whether Reagan’s original decision to go to Lebanon was sound stands apart from the point of why and how he fled. You need to educated me as to how neocons had anything to do with either decision. It is also not like this was a single anomaly, do you recall “arms for hostages”?
Your statement abut Clinton “peace brokering” in Somalia is nonsensical. You have to explain that to me also. I have more than just a passing knowledge regarding the event , and I don’t see how you can come to that conclusion. Besides, what does that have to do with 10 years before in Beirut and Ronald Reagan?
Ronald Reagan did not “win” the cold war. The free world won that conflict through a fifty year bloody struggle. Reagan certainly was an important factor, but to say he “won it” is a gross exaggeration. A Polish Priest and a Polish Labor leader had something to do with it in the end. They worked at great risk to their very lives, throughout their lives, to bring an end to communism. President Reagan made a good speech in front of a wall in an allied country. He did it under the protection the Secret Service and the United States Army. He increased spending in the area of defence to such a level that it hastened the economic downfall of the Soviet Union. He did that from the comfort of the oval office. People actually stood up to the Evil Empire, just regular people, and were martyred upon the alter of freedom; and you actually said Reagan “won” the cold war? Go tell that to the Hungarians my friend.
Look feel free to argue with my conclusions. If you what to challenge my foundation, and the facts it is built on, then pack your lunch.
I still love you though. 🙂 Anyone who would seriously “threaten” to leave the country because his candidate was rejected does get me wondering I do have to say.
Wise One, I was not necessarily talking about Conclub members.
Dave said…
Sorry, told who, what?
My goodness, my pet dog could have gotten elected in 1980 if he was the Republican nominee. We are talking about the “Reagan Coalition” right? Okay, just who was not a part of that coalition in 1980? He carried 47 states including Mass. He had 489 electoral votes to 49. It was one of the biggest butt-kickings of all political time. It was much more a repudiation of Carter than it was pro Reagan. Just as it was the Nixon backlash four years before.
Reagan’s reelection was the one the validated him and his vision…Again, know what, never mind. I do not suppose you are doing it on purpose Dave, but you are pulling the same crap Dana does. Your point has nothing to do with my point on substance. Since you can not argue the logic you ignore it and restate your point.
Look, I was voting for Reagan when you were in still in short pants. I read God and Man at Yale while in junior high (so long ago “middle school” had not been invented yet). 🙂
People, people, please do not respond to the point that we need to quit trying to out conservative the other guy by out trying to out conservative the other guy. You tail chasing hounds!
If you didn’t understand the “we told you so” just reread the post. When the GOP is left with a substandard candidate the Fredheads will tell them they should have voted for “their” candidate. A little tongue in cheek thing I guess. Fred wouldn’t have been that much better in a general election anyhow. PGW, on Conclub, we encourage debate and differing ideas and viewpoints on issues, no need to beat everyone else up all the time everytime someone sees it differently. The old ‘steel sharpeneth steel’ saying should apply in our dealings with both visitors and bloggers on Conclub.
I never wore shorpants, but if I remember it correctly, DFV was still wearing them until his second year of college. But I digress…
I did not know you felt that way about me Dave, but is easily taken care of. I would look to the condescending mote my friend, but that’s just me.
I am not changing, so take it easy.
“I would look to the condescending mote” – I actually like that phrase as well. At least my language skills get a chance to expand by my being a part of Conclub.