The Moderate Majority

You could call it “the era of big government is over, but so is the era of small government.”

That’s the argument made by David Brooks, the conservative beacon on the New York Times who, until a few years ago, was the liberal Democrats’ favorite conservative.

After this pitch, he might have to duck arrows from both sides.

He spoke of his views at the Richmond Forum, and the Richmond-Times Dispatch commented on his views.

“New York Times columnist David Brooks said the conservative era has ended. The political period ran from 1980 to 2006; it succeeded the liberal era of 1932-1968. The future, Brooks suggested, will belong neither to big-government liberals nor to little-government conservatives. A different strain will emerge.”

Not an unusual idea from Brooks, who about that time was writing about the need for “party number 3” in a McCain-Lieberman vein. Brooks claims that there is no liberal majority and no conservative majority, and for the foreseeable future, the only majority that truly exists is the “moderate majority”.

The problem with third parties has been they usually come from the fringe left and the fringe right. Neither will succeed.

Brooks spoke of Lincoln, Hamilton, and Teddy Roosevelt. He spoke of transcontinental railroads and land-grant colleges.

It’s tough to argue with his logic, since fewer and fewer people today call themselves “Republicans” or “Democrats” Today’s right wing refuse to confront some of the more pressing problems we face, and today’s left wing offer solutions that are worse than the problem itself. Campaigns are rush to turnout “Hard Rs” or “Hard Ds” and leave out the rest of the citizens who don’t wait with baited breath for the next political mailpiece to enflame their passions.

Perhaps the future of the nation is in that emerging majority in the middle and political fortune to those who address issues that matter to them with solutions that appeal to them.

For Republicans, that means the party needs to grow large enough to include them, or face permanent minority status.

Reagan’s best “mother” joke

Every Mother’s Day, I think of this oft-told Reagan joke.
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Blogs are called e-journals?

At least in Australia, they are.

With presidential contenders often debating how the rest of the world views the United States and the President with varying degrees of passion, it was fun to read an Australian e-journal which talked about recent American Presidents, especially Reagan.

The “Reagan Revolution” might have ended nearly 20 years ago when the “Great Communicator” exited the stage, but within the Republican Party allegiance to Reagan orthodoxy remains the litmus test in selecting his successor. All of the main candidates who sought the party’s nomination had painted themselves as the next Ronald Reagan: promising to slash taxes and red tape, cut back big government and keep the military strong to defeat the new “evil empire” - al-Qaida.

Pretty standard, so far. But here’s what hit me. Look at how they see Bill Clinton, and by extension, Hillary Clinton.

With the Cold War behind them, Bill Clinton’s foreign policy focused on creating more opportunities for trade, and his limited use of military force (which was generally confined to surgical strikes conducted from a safe distance) won respect abroad.

Be a pushover at home, and be popular overseas?

Dangerous if that’s what the overseas view is.

Ollie North and terrorism

“looking at individual trees instead of the whole forest coming up around us.”

That’s how Lt. Col Oliver North described anti-terrorism efforts in the Reagan years. Islamic terrorists existed, but the overriding picture was defined as pro-communist and anti-communist, and through that view, Islamic terrorists weren’t the biggest enemy in the 80s.

“What we saw were these terror cells, like the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction and the Baader-Meinhof Gang. … What we weren’t seeing is what happened in 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini goes back and really foments Shia terrorists”

So, the Islamics in Afghanistan were fighting the Russians. That was good enough for us then.

“We saw that the collapse of the Soviet effort in Afghanistan was not part of some broader Islamic plan to drive the Infidel out of that part of the world. It was simply an effort of, if you will, Afghani nationalism supported by their neighbors.”

If we knew then what we know now.

North’s new book, “American Heroes: In the fight against radical Islam” is previewed here.

Tom Hanks endorses Reagan……er, and Obama

Tom Hanks launched a video endorsing Obama because he was so much like FDR, Truman and Ronald Reagan.

“He has the integrity and the inspiration to unify us, as did FDR and Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and even Ronald Reagan when they ran for the job”

Well, I could launch about his statement about Truman “unify”ing us, since Truman had a 36% approval rating and was so unpopular, he lost the New Hampshire primary in 1952 and dropped out of the re-election race soon after.

But, no, I’ll remark how wonderful it is for Tom Hanks to applaud the integrity and inspiration of Ronald Reagan. Amazing, huh? Especially since Hanks was on Meet the Press in 2004 in a show dedicated to Reagan and managed to not say a single thing about Reagan.

Well, Tom Hanks has given mucho dinero to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and other such noted “unifiers” as Al Franken, Henry Waxman, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Dianne Feinstein.

Some conservatives like to have Reagan as a barometer for the quality of a Presidential candidate. But when liberals do it, it’s just downright sad.

And kind of funny.

Are Clinton and Obama different from each other?

An excellent column in the Seattle Post-Intelligenser about primaries.

The last big primary fight to go to the wire was Ronald Reagan and President Gerald Ford. Kevin Haskett, advisor to John McCain, points out in this column a glaring difference between that one and the current Democrat chaos.

Reagan was a supply-sider, Ford wasn’t. Reagan opposed detente and favored a “we win, they lose” opinion of the “evil empire.”

But for all the debates and friction between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the only thing they really disagree about is who should be President.

It is as if a husband and wife were arguing over the location of the trash can in the kitchen. “By the sink!” “No, by the door!”

These two are mirrors on issues from Iraq to education to taxes to trade. You have to read the fine print on both of their government takeovers of health care to fine a slight variation.

there is no struggle under way for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. It was a lift worthy of the Incredible Hulk to reunite Ford and Reagan Republicans. This reconciliation should be relatively easy, since Clinton and Obama could presumably swap platforms without even their own supporters noticing.

Get ready for November. While the Democrats’ Spring is divisive, they’ll cumbaya by Labor Day and forget they ever disagreed, because honestly….they don’t disagree now.

Hillary Clinton is a hypocrite who’ll say anything to get elected

Oh My God! (that’s my best Joey Styles ECW imitation)

I was watching Hillary Clinton interviewed by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, and how he didn’t jump on this opening I’ll never know. O’Reilly asked her about payroll taxes and social security.

CLINTON: “I have not made any commitment on what we’re gonna do on social security.”

O’REILLY: “Why? You’re gonna run for President. You gonna do it or not?”

CLINTON: “Here’s why. I learned a lesson from Ronald Reagan.”

WHAT??????????????????????????????????????

She learned a lesson from Ronald Reagan?

She extolled the way Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill had a commission to come up with a way to save social security.

But remember a few months ago when Obama said he admired Ronald Reagan and Hillary absolutely lit into him for it?

Now she’s a student of the Gipper learning lessons from him?

And I thought Bill Clinton was bad. I knew Bill would say anything to get elected, and Sen. Bob Kerrey made headlines calling him “an unusually good liar.”

Hillary takes lying to her own unique level. She will say anything.

I know. Today, she’ll say she “misspoke.”

Reagan and Buchanan

Watching the 1992 Republican National Convention is a much different experience than reading it. Watching it, you notice Pat Buchanan sans anything resembling a smile relentlessly attacking Clinton and Clinton, Al Gore the left and just about everything else, while Ronald Reagan gave a few jabs and made his points.

Reading their speeches, it would be tough to guess who gave which speech. Read this.

We mustn’t forget–even if they would like to– the very different America that existed just 12 years ago; an America with 21 percent interest rates and back to back years of double digit inflation; an America where mortgage payments doubled, paychecks plunged, and motorists sat in gas lines; an America whose leaders told us it was our own fault; that ours was a future of scarcity and sacrifice; and that what we really needed was another good dose of government control and higher taxes.

It was a world where aggressive Soviet communism was on the rise and American strength was in decline. It was a world where our children came of age under the threat of nuclear holocaust. It was a world where our leaders told us that standing up to aggressors was dangerous — that American might and determination were somehow obstacles to peace.

But we stood tall and proclaimed that communism was destined for the ash heap of history. We never heard so much ridicule from our liberal friends. The only thing that got them more upset was two simple words: “Evil Empire.”

But we knew then what the liberal Democrat leaders just couldn’t figure out: the sky would not fall if America restored her strength and resolve. The sky would not fall if an American president spoke the truth. The only thing that would fall was the Berlin Wall.

I heard those speakers at that other convention saying “we won the Cold War” — and I couldn’t help wondering, just who exactly do they mean by “we”?

Now, read this:

The malcontents of Madison Square Garden notwithstanding, the 1980s were not terrible years. They were great years. You know it. I know it. And the only people who don’t know it are the carping critics who sat on the sidelines of history, jeering at ine of the great statesmen of modern time.

Out of Jimmy Carter’s days of malaise, Ronald Reagan crafted the longest peacetime recovery in US history–3 million new businesses created, and 20 million new jobs.

Under the Reagan Doctrine, one by one, the communist dominos began to fall. First, Grenada was liberated, by US troops. Then, the Red Army was run out of Afghanistan, by US weapons. In Nicaragua, the Marxist regime was forced to hold free elections–by Ronald Reagan’s contra army–and the communists were thrown out of power.

Have they forgotten? It was under our party that the Berlin Wall came down, and Europe was reunited. It was under our party that the Soviet Empire collapsed, and the captive nations broke free.

The first was from Reagan’s speech; the second from Buchanan. But Buchanan got the “negative” tag, but to me, Reagan’s rhetoric as written was much more strident.

But the delivery was what made the difference. Reagan said everything with a chuckle, and Buchanan said everything with a sneer.

It’s not what you say, but how you say it, they say? You better believe it.

What makes America different

This week in 1981, Ronald Reagan returned to the Oval Office after recovering from wounds from the attempt on his life. He spoke to a Joint Session of Congress and pushed for his economic program. Classic Reagan speech here in its entirety, but I pulled some sections that I wish a Presidential Candidate would be able to deliver today.

“I have a letter with me. The letter came from Peter Sweeney. He’s in the second grade in the Riverside School in Rockville Centre, and he said, “I hope you get well quick or you might have to make a speech in your pajamas.” [Laughter] And he—he added a postscript. “P.S. If you have to make a speech in your pajamas, I warned you.” [Laughter]

I know it’s standard fodder to quote “a citizen” now in speeches, but Reagan made it seem less political and more personal. But the focus on the speech was the economy.

When I took the oath of office, I pledged loyalty to only one special interest group—”We the People. ” Those people—neighbors and friends, shopkeepers and laborers, farmers and craftsmen—do not have infinite patience. As a matter of fact, some 80 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt wrote these instructive words in his first message to the Congress: “The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled, it burns like a consuming flame. ” Well, perhaps that kind of wrath will be deserved if our answer to these serious problems is to repeat the mistakes of the past.

His economic program was languishing in the Congress while the economic mess from the Carter years was still rolling along. He provided numbers, facts, figures, and made the economic case that many make today, in albeit better economic times (In ‘81, inflation was double-digit and the average home mortgage was 15%).

But it was the rhetorical case that Clinton, Obama or McCain could never hope to match Reagan.

“The poet Carl Sandburg wrote, “The republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.” And that’s what makes us, as Americans, different. We’ve always reached for a new spirit and aimed at a higher goal. We’ve been courageous and determined, unafraid and bold. Who among us wants to be first to say we no longer have those qualities, that we must limp along, doing the same things that have brought us our present misery? I believe that the people you and I represent are ready to chart a new course. They look to us to meet the great challenge, to reach beyond the commonplace and not fall short for lack of creativity or courage. Someone, you know, has said that he who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers. Well, we have much greatness before us. We can restore our economic strength and build opportunities like none we’ve ever had before. As Carl Sandburg said, all we need to begin with is a dream that we can do better than before. All we need to have is faith, and that dream will come true. All we need to do is act, and the time for action is now.”

Now THAT’S hope.

Sis Boom Bah

Every day, you learn something. I’ve been studying Ronald Reagan for almost by entire adult lifetime, and very intensely since the inception of this blog, Reagan’s GOP.

But I never knew this!

I also didn’t know other Presidents share this history with Reagan…like FDR, Eisenhower and both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Ronald Reagan was a cheerleader in college!

Basketball cheerleader for Eureka College, Ronald Reagan was also a member of other clubs and organizations, but when one recalls the way the Gipper led us to past the miserable days of the Carter administration to the robust 1980s, one can see the cheerleader in him.

Other Presidents had been cheerleaders too. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a cheerleader during his days at Harvard. Eisenhower was felled from football by a knee injury, so he did his turn at cheerleading at West Point while he healed up. And George Herbert Walker Bush joined the cheerleading ranks while at Yale.

George W. Bush is the only President to have cheered at two schools, though. He led the cheerleading squad at Phillips Academy before continuing his cheerleading career at Yale.

That adds up to almost half the time since 1932, America has had a cheerleader as a President.

Makes sense, as the Presidency became so visibly national with radio and then television creating the modern presidency. And FDR, Roosevelt, and Reagan led our nation through tough economic times to years of pretty good growth.

And Both Bush Senior and W. led our nation through times of war.

Maybe the next question for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was “Why weren’t you a cheerleader?”

Tom Gear and Marty Williams duel

Del. Tom Gear’s sister wasn’t approved by the General Assembly as a judge, and he claims two things.

1) He had nothing to do with his sister’s efforts to be a judge.
2) Former Senator (and creator of Reagan’s GOP) Marty Williams is who Gear’s supporters say derailed the nomination.

And the Daily Press covers it all here.

Gear abstained from voting on the Hampton judgeships. He continued to contend that he played no role in negotiating the deal that included his sister’s nomination, deferring to Del. W.R. “Bill” Janis, R-Henrico, the House judge negotiator.

Williams doesn’t buy that for a second.

“You think he’s totally hands-off? That’s absurd on its face,” Williams said.

Janis and Williams then focused on each other.

“This is Marty Williams reaching out from beyond the political grave — through his Republican friends in the Senate — to block the election of judges in Hampton for the fifth year in a row”

Williams said, “If he wants to think that I’m more powerful out of the General Assembly than he is in it, that’s fine.”

Ouch!!!

Williams said Gear’s lack of judicial success might trail back to Gear’s own efforts last year, which handed Democrats a Senate Majority.

“Tommy Norment is the minority leader, instead of the majority leader, and Gear wants to go over there and ask for a favor?” Williams asked. “That’s incredible.”

Things might settle down enough for the General Assembly to appoint remaining judges during a special session, or Kaine might do some temporary appointments. Between Sen. Yvonne Miller wanting to appoint all Virginia Beach judges despite holding only 3 of 95 precincts in the city and Chuck Griffith of Norfolk hitting a brick wall because he was a Republican Commonwealth’s Attorney (I think the same Yvonne Miller is all about the D’s nowadays), I don’t see much progress ahead, and I don’t see any of Kaine’s appointments making it through next year.

Why did we only get one Reagan?

I was reading this interview with a German magazine reporter and I wind up wishing we could have him as President all over again. Some exceprts:

Q. They say the burden of his office makes the President the loneliest man in the world. Do you feel lonely?

The President. “How could I feel lonely with so many people giving me advice? ”

Q. What is your personal secret for keeping so youthful, dynamic, and full of energy?

The President. “I’m often accused of being an optimist, but I think that really helps. It helps you over a lot of things. I don’t believe it’s a secret that having the warmth of a loving woman like Nancy also makes life worthwhile and enjoyable. As for full of energy, I have a gym right here in the White House for working out. I’ve added an inch and a half to my chest in the process. So, being active is very important. And, I’ve said this before, but there’s nothing better for the insides of a man than the outsides of a horse. Here in Washington and at Camp David I ride as often as I can a handsome Hanoverian. I just think the positives of life add up if you let them.”

Q. With the invention of the steam engine, many people feared for their jobs. Today the electronic revolution has already replaced jobs once performed by people. What needs to be done to turn this trend into a positive development?

The President. “Clearly, if our workers are to find jobs in this new age of technology, they must begin now to learn the skills that will be needed. We have recently begun a publicly funded job training program here, but the bulk of the retraining must be done by the private sector. After all, the individual firms in the private economy know far better than do we in government exactly which skills they will need in the future. By matching the skills of our people to the demands of the labor we will turn the electronic revolution to our advantage. Our people will then enjoy the increase in real quality of the life that will be possible through modern, efficient technology on our farms, in our factories, and in our offices.”

Hmmm. Private sector? I bet Obama won’t repeat those words

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